Thursday, June 19, 2008

Drake Cooper Loves Milk

And ice cream. And yogurt. And cheese. And on and on and on.

Yes, it's official. The United Dairymen of Idaho have selected Drake Cooper as their new agency partner.

After working with the same agency for the better part of the past 30 years, the United Dairymen of Idaho opened up the RFP to what seemed like the entire known advertising universe earlier this year. The list was then whittled down to four finalists, and Drake Cooper came out on top.

From the story in the Ag Weekly (yes, the Ag Weekly gets credit for being first with this story):


“We are excited to work with the Drake Cooper team to educate consumers about the benefits of dairy in a healthy diet,” said Deana Sessions, administrator for United Dairymen of Idaho, which manages the local dairy producer checkoff program.

“We wanted to partner with an agency that could bring fresh ideas to help make the change from being a production-driven industry to a more consumer-driven industry. We believe Drake Cooper can help us achieve that objective.”
Congratulations to the folks over at Drake Cooper, and to all who competed in the RFP process. While taken slightly out of context, this quote from Alicia Ritter on the PR Musings Weblog just seems appropriate:

I say to us all: Come out into the open. Show your wares. Compete hard. Congratulate the victor. Then, go home, beef up your strengths, and come out swinging like hell the next time. This is the attitude necessary to build a professional communications industry of which we can all be proud.
Technorati tags: , , ,

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats to Drake Cooper. It's great that a local agency has the account and we aren't wondering why NYC is showing up in our playground again.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations Drake Cooper! What a wonderful account and we will all be watching for your amazing marketing and insight as to how we can be healthy with dairy! :) We at Foerstel were very privileged to have been considered in the top four with such a great agency and are honored that a local agency was selected.

Anonymous said...

Oh My. God. Top four. Reminds me of the SNL skit where the commentators celebrate the white guy finishing 6th. Not dead last at least.

Anonymous said...

Way to go Foerstel! Putting yourself out there is what pushes us creatively. It was nice to see your congrats post to Drake Cooper, a nice change of pace and something that would be nice to see more of. There is no reason for us to slam each other. Why can't we have a more positive interaction between agencies, along with the competition, that drives us to create great work. Our agency is secure enough in our abilities to recognize when another agency had better creative, was more in touch with the client needs, or just plain sold themselves better.

Anonymous said...

...or already had the gig locked up and the RFP was just a formality...

Anonymous said...

Then why try for ANY account? I'm sure a lot of the clients we pitch have an agency that thinks that they have the account "locked up". One day, if other agencies consistently show better creative, the client will make the decision to make the move to another agency no matter how long the current agency has had the account. Consider the account your prey and stalk it. Make it a goal and eventually YOUR agency will have the account "locked up". But don't forget that you'd better perform for the client, because now YOU are the one that other agencies are coming after.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Zig Ziglar. For fucks sake, where do you people come from?

Anonymous said...

You're welcome. I bet you're a joy to work with. Great positive, outgoing attitude. Always the one with the greaaat ideas that no one is intelligent enough to get. Probably still being beaten down by the big man wielding a glass half full and a signed contract with the other agency.

Your post made me laugh, thanks!

Anonymous said...

No problem. That was the point.

Anonymous said...

Jamie here from Drake Cooper. Thanks for the positive comments and notes of congratulations. We are honored to be chosen by this client.

As with most anonymous posts that I have read on this blog (which isn't that many really) the info here is bad. This was a highly contested bid for a very large piece of business. All agencies that participated were rated very highly and all did very well. It was a tough choice for the board and client team. That is not hearsay, that is straight from the client.

But let me digress into another topic here. I am always amused to read posts on this blog and have a couple of suggestions. If you are anonymous you might consider that whatever you say is completely discounted. How about just saying who you are? If you are passionate about something then say it, but to hide behind "anonymous" takes away your credibility. Personally I think this is downfall of blogs.

Secondly, this whole blog is like a sewing circle - where everyone seems to want to talk inside gossip about everyone else. Where are the constructive posts on how we better ourselves as an industry and a group? Where are the opportunities to push us forward and where are the amazing insights for us to LEARN from each other. I dont mean from Brian - i mean from YOU. Where is the post about the anticipation building up to Crispin's Microsoft work?

Wake up Boise - lets get together to BETTER OURSELVES - not work against each other. Big agencies are eying your backyard. Big agencies are figuring out how to morph out of the old school ad agency era. Are you getting better so you can compete on a regional scale or are you more concerned about getting the non-true, people magazine, sensationalized inside dirt on each other?

Inquiring minds want to know.

- jamie cooper
cell phone 863.1823

Anonymous said...

Jamie,

Your goal is to have credibilty, be known, and to bring the Boise Ad Community together, mine is to expose the seedy underbelly, and poke fun at some of the non-finer points of the community.

Anonymously.

We can co-exist.

Anonymous said...

"...mine is to expose the seedy underbelly...."

Aww, hell, where do you people come up with this crap? Maybe you should give a heads up to Dan Popkey...

Anonymous said...

Maybe you should leave the comedy to the comedians.

Anonymous said...

Who were the top four agencies? So far DC and Foerstel...who were the other two?

Brian said...

Nicole - I traded emails with someone at the United Dairymen of Idaho, to get the official answer to your question.

Their response:
These were the four finalists in the agency review:

Drake Cooper
Edge Media
Donahoe Pace
Closed Loop