On Reflection: Ad Wars

Seattle advertising agency Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener (formerly Wongdoody) recently competed for a national accountand lost.

Hey, it happens. But it doesnt usually happen on TV in front of millions.

The agencys work, filmed at WDCWs Los Angeles office, premiered in April on AMCs new reality show The Pitch. The eight-part series, featuring two agencies competing for major accounts each week, airs Mondays at 10 p.m.

Dozens of agencies declined requests to be on the show, but for WDCW the decision seemed clear. We ask our clients to take risks, and we told ourselves that we should take a risk, says Tracy Wong, chairman and executive creative director. Wong adds the company has nothing to hide, so it had little to fear by being on the show.

Still, Wong says he wasnt thrilled with AMCs edits. He had hoped the episode, still available on iTunes, would portray WDCWs Democracy of Good Ideas, which emphasizes a creative process he designed to minimize egos and drama. We are inclusive and somewhat consensus driven, which is different from most businesses and very different from most ad agencies, Wong explains. It was captured well during the filming, but didnt come out well in the edits.

Wong thinks the shows editors were looking for drama, and since his firm had relatively little, he says more of the show is devoted to McKinney, the North Carolina-based agency that won the pitch for a Subway account promoting the chains new breakfast line to 18-to-24-year-olds.

What people will see in the show is not a lot of us, Wong says.

WDCWs pitch about breakfast zombies enlivened by Subways morning menu was enthusiastically received by the companys marketing executives, but McKinney won with a Freestyle Breakfast pitch featuring freelance rapper Mac Lethal.

As it happens, WDCW may have had two strikes against it going into the competition. In 2010, it created a singing cats campaign for the Quiznos sandwich chain. In the Pitch episode, Subway exec Tony Pace pretty much derides that effort, calling WDCW a quirky agency that didnt do too much with Quiznos.

Wongs rebuttal: We can do one million brilliantly executed, flawless things. Make one mistake and theyre only going to remember you for that one mistake. Welcome to advertising.