Ad Store's Italian Villa for Clients "Not a Bribe"

See UPDATE, below: The Ad Store offered clients a free week in an Italian villa in return for new business. “Don’t think of it as a bribe,” the agency said on its web site, preemptively denying the very thing that it would appear to be doing. The offer is a controversial one because most client companies have policies preventing their marketing chiefs from accepting anything more than gifts of nominal value.

This specific offer is even more bizarre because Ad Store chief Paul Capelli once wrote a polemic in Adweek and the Italian press denouncing “quid pro quo” business as practiced in Italy:

Everyone always suspects that pitches in Italy end up quid pro quo: some local agency makes a deal with some local official.

In the Adweek piece, he describes his villa in Puglia. It seems lovely. If you want to rent one just like it, check out this website. The contact email for “Villa Capelli” is paul@villacappelli.com. This seems to be a fantastic coincidence, given that the Ad Store told Agency Spy the villa was owned by a friend. A friend with the same first name as Paul Capelli, and a villa with the same last name as Paul Capelli, in the same region of Italy where Paul Capelli owns a villa! Amazing!

It begs the question of whether the Ad Store learned anything from the Julie Roehm/Walmart fiasco. Roehm was fired by Walmart when it emerged that she gave the company’s ad account to Draftfcb after the agency had given her a sushi dinner in a fancy New York restaurant and a case of her favorite vodka. Walmart has a policy forbidding its execs from receiving gifts from vendors. Draftfcb was summarily fired from the account shortly afterward.

Thus Ad Store’s move is a bold one. The offer is made openly on its site, and states:

At The Ad Store New York, we not only show you great results, we’ll also show you our appreciation. Give us a project* and we’ll give you seven days/six nights for 2, free at this magnificent villa in Puglia, Italy. Don’t think of it as a bribe. The entire package can be used as a great incentive for your employees. After all, great work should reap great rewards. At least it does at The Ad Store.

Of course, with the word “bribe” already out there it is difficult not to think of it as a bribe. It is certainly an unlikely “incentive” for employees, because the offer is only good for “2″ people. Which would mean the employees would have to be good friends (I mean, do you really want to spend a week in Puglia with some stranger from accounts receivable?).

I called Ad Store’s Brian Flatow to enquire whether anyone had taken the shop up on its offer. My message hasn’t been returned yet.* (See update, below.) If you’re wondering what that asterisk means in the offer, check the small print:

Offer good through December 15, 2008.

Agency Spy found the item and Tribble Agency reminded us first of the Roehm shenanigans.

UPDATE: The Ad Store has generated some publicity but no extra clients since it offered to give new clients a week in an Italian villa if they awarded a project to the shop. The agency’s Brian Flatow called BNET with an update on the villa and said that “No one has taken us up on it yet … It’s just something we put out there in a slow economy.”

Flatow confirmed that the villa, in Puglia, Italy, is Ad Store chief Paul Capelli’s, and not a friend’s, as reported elsewhere. “It’s Paul’s villa, that he’s involved with, with family over there.”

For clients whose corporate ethics policies prevent them from receiving gifts such as vacations from their vendors, Flatow said, “I did get a response from someone who liked it but thought their company policy wouldn’t allow them to take it. So I said, OK, give us a project and I’ll promise not to send you to Italy.” He still didn’t get a project. “We just wanted to have fun with it,” he said.