Procter & Gamble Manages to Piss Off the Entire Production Community

Procter & Gamble, in an effort to save money and streamline its production timeline instituted a "Preferred Vendor" program, forcing its companies and agencies to use a set of around 30 production facilities, rather than the 125 or so that they used last year. And they want deep discounts, naturally, with no guarantee that just because a production house is preferred vendor that they'll see any work at all.

The entire production and creative community is up in arms over the policy. The quote that sums up the whole situation is this, from an unnamed producer:

"If Nike calls me up, which probably does one-tenth the advertising of P&G, I'm more likely to give Nike a deal despite the lower volume because they do better work," says one production company exec. "I don't sell products, I sell directors. So my product's only viable if they do good work. Why am I going to give someone a deal for work that's not going to do anything for my reel or my brand? It would just be for the money, and if it's just for the money, why am I giving them a big discount?"

Exactly.

via Creativity Magazine.