Madiba_and_world_cup

About six months ago Wieden + Kennedy London made a pitch against a number of agencies (including TBWA, Saatchi, Y&R) for the account to develop the communications to support Visa’s FIFA World Cup sponsorship. This was a huge pitch, for a big client in a totally new sector for us. It had been an intensive process, with teams from all over the world contributing, and we thought we had done some great work. A few days later we got a call with some good news… and some bad news. We’d won the pitch but legal action by Mastercard (the incumbent sponsors) against FIFA (the body that runs the World Cup) meant that Visa’s rights to the sponsorship had been challenged and so they couldn’t award us the business. So we’d won the pitch but there was no business to award. We didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Well, we cried mostly.
For the last six months the legal process has gone through the courts with hearings and appeals. To be honest, we’d kind of given up on hoping that it might ever be favourably resolved. Until suddenly and finally there has now been a settlement. Visa has been awarded the rights to take up the sponsorship. And with that came the news (see The Guardian) that our win had finally come to fruition. GOOOAAAALLLL! We’re over the moon, John. Does this mean we get to go to the World Cup and call it working?
I’ve been through some strange and surprising pitch processes but this is definitely the longest gap I’ve ever experienced between win and appointment.