What is the French conspiracy all about?

I read with great interest Robert Lester’s piece about the Orange pitch (MW March 9).

Let me summarise: an English journalist talks to English employees of an English firm – Orange – about the fact that an English ad agency – Mother – lost a big account. This is a story about chauvinism, all right? Except that in the end, it is the fault of those terrible French. Did I miss something?

Let us be serious: two of the top six MarComms groups in the world are French. If French-owned brands must only select foreign agencies if they want to avoid being branded as patriotic, then there must be no double standard. Thus, WPP and Interpublic should be deterred from working with British and US groups respectively. What a mess.

In the end, a London-based firm, part of a Paris-based group, has awarded its pan-European budget to a Minneapolis-based agency. Where the heck is the conspiracy?

Christophe Cauvy

Director

The Thinking Box

Oxford