We’ve enjoyed all manner of holding company/held company corporate bitching from the inside and always reveled in its idiocy, ego-powered chest beating and pointless one upmanship so it it with glee we see an IPG bitch fight sprawled across the pages of Ad Age. Follow along. IPG owned Howard Merrell & Partners won the North Carolina Lottery account. HM&P resigned the account within one week because, according to HM&P, IPG wouldn’t put up a required $1 million bond to insure vendor payment. The Lottery issued a press release announcing its account would be handled by independent Wray Laseter but made no mention of HM&P. HM&P issued a release that read, in part, “has issues meeting the bond requirements for HM&P. IPG could not resolve the issues in a timely fashion. As a result, IPG advised HM&P to withdraw from consideration. And, we have. The entire staff at HM&P is extremely disappointed. We put a lot of time an effort into the bidding process, and we were looking forward to working with the [lottery].”
Not to be pistol whipped, IPG behemoth issued a release of its own, saying, “Our decision had absolutely nothing do with our ability to secure this $1 million bond, an inconsequential amount in the context of our company’s financial capacity. Instead, our decision was based on strategic considerations” without mentioning HM&P but referring to it as “one of our smaller agencies.” Yo, Bitch, I’ll whip your skinny little ass until your boyfriend would rather have sex with his mother than be seen with your bloody excuse for a face!
