COI chief executive Carol Fisher lays into ad agencies over poor integrated campaigns

COI Communications chief executive Carol Fisher has launched a public attack on ad agency standards, accusing COI’s roster agencies of struggling to create effective integrated campaigns.

The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) is now planning to hold a meeting with Fisher about the issue, following her outburst at the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) conference last week.

Fisher, who controls the UK’s biggest advertising account – worth £192m, according to COI – said recent pitches for an undisclosed COI account failed to provide good creative ideas for an integrated campaign. The agencies were sent away to plan further.

Fisher was responding to a speech by IPA president Bruce Haines, who had argued that agencies need to be paid more in order to enable their employees to learn about creating work for new media, such as the Internet and ambient media.

The IPA is speaking to all creative and media agencies on the COI roster to discuss how effective they are at creating integrated campaigns. The meeting with Fisher will take place in about six weeks.

Fisher told Marketing Week: “Thinking in an integrated way is something clients are looking for. The problem is not solved by money, it is a cultural thing.”

Haines says: “I am particularly concerned about [Fisher] because she has made public criticisms about our industry, which I don’t accept.”