I’m quite unusual in Adland and Brandland, because I genuinely do like the role procurement plays in agency selection and in an imperfect world, it’s about as level a playing field as you could hope for. But of course – there is always room for improvement. This is the second in a series of posts making some suggestions about how it could be, well, even better. You can find the other posts in the series on Creativepool too.

The tender - from a well known UK University - went out on 6th May this year, with a deadline of just 10 days later. The brief was clear, the process laid out in detail, with a start date for the winning bidder of 19th May. Turn around was therefore fast. An entire weekend was devoted to the bid by one member of staff. Other team members also stayed extra hours. To be fair, feedback on clarification questions was fast and transparent. The bid was submitted ahead of deadline -and safely received (we know because we track the downloads). We awaited news.

The 19th came. Nothing.

We left it a few days. After all the clients had given themselves very little review time - and obviously there was an urgency to the brief. Then at the end of the week - we wrote and asked for news. Nothing. No response again.

We wrote twice more asking for an update, a timeline, even an acknowledgement that the process was ongoing. Nothing. We sent two more emails from a separate email address in case our originals were falling foul of a firewall. Nothing

We wrote twice through the very friendly sounding inquiry form on the department in question 'contact us' facility - Nothing.

So some 8, nearly 9 weeks later, we've had no indication that the process is even ongoing, let alone what the scores might be for our bid.

If this was a one-off, unusual, a once in a blue moon event, that would be one thing. And to be fair it is the exception, very much not the rule. But it's by no means the only example.

In the last year we have bid for a large project for a Regional Authority. The last correspondence we received - a general note to all bidders apologising for the very late running of the tender process overall - was sent in April, confirming the review process was complete and results would be issued by May 16th. Since then nothing. Inquiries through the portal used for the campaign don't just go unanswered - we can see they remain unopened. Direct emails to the procurement department get no response.

There's a Scottish charity who were due to appoint in April, wrote to bidders to say the result would now be 'first week of June at the earliest' and since then, Nothing. There are several others.

And remember - all of this is in the last 7 months.

Delays to tenders are absolutely the norm. All agencies understand that and are more than understanding.

But ghosting? That's just plain rude.

Addendum:The excellent Mark Palmer suggested I should check out the values of that first example I gave above. I did. Top of the list is "Collaborative". Words fail me.