In the world of new business, this has been a question and a frustration for years.  It has always been obvious that if an agency has a competitor in the office that is pitching the business, they can’t pitch unless they say they will resign their current account.  But how far do you take it beyond the pitching office?

Clients and agencies weigh-in in an Adage article this week, "Tightened Policies on Conflicts Box in Agencies, Clients". The debate is around how far conflicts extend beyond the pitching office.  For years, agencies with multiple offices have promised building a firewall to keep competitive clients apart.  And, if there are multiple full-service offices, the competitive clients can reside in different offices.  But now, many clients are demanding that there can be no conflict within all agencies’ offices or anywhere within a holding company’s network.

I think this is going too far.  Agencies are not going to share confidential information between offices, particularly when there are NDA's in place. Clients need to trust their agencies.  An agency that is stupid enough to leak confidential information will find themselves without any clients soon enough.

Bottom line: it hurts both clients and agencies.  Clients limit the number of agencies they can work with, some being the best in the country.  And in turn, agencies are quickly conflicted out of many categories.

It is time these restrictions are lightened.