Why do advertisers cheat on their agency partners?

Great brands are built on long term relationships based on mutual trust, or so they have always said. But that conventional wisdom is being turned on its head these days. Advertisers are becoming polygamous, happily hoping into bed with more than one agency on the same brand. Sometimes it’s for critical one-off projects like Airtel's rebranding with the "Har friend zaroori hota hain" campaign, ad sometimes it’s just to refresh an existing campaign like what Lo Lintas has done for Coca Cola.
 
We know why advertisers or clients are doing this, but is it really good for the brand. Obviously don't think it's a good idea. On this week's Storyboard, CNBC-TV18's Pooja Ahuja Nagpal and Animesh Das set up the pro and cons of this argument. 

A big brand makes a quiet entry The USD 500 million Toblerone brand has just been launched by Cadbury India. That makes it the third brand from Kraft Foods, its parent company, to make an India debut. But unlike Tang and Oreo that were launched in March last year with a big ad splash, Toblerone’s entry has been a muted one. CNBC-TV18’s Pavni Mittal reports that this has got to do with the way the company is positioning Toblerone in India. Ad campaigns this week: Bombay Times and HCL After Mumbai Mirror, the Times of India group is advertising the Bombay Times. How do you take a paper that everyone reads, but also blames for trivializing and commercializing the news. Well, if you see the campaign, the answer is you stay unapologetic about what you do and just brazen it out. We like this new ad, its ode to the Mumbai spirit from the Bombay Times, so well done TapRoot and Benetton Coleman.
    
We are also putting the latest iteration of the "Mr HCL" campaign from HCL on Notice Board. The technology company has stayed with this theme since 2005 for its corporate brand, periodically updating the situations that Mr HCL and Mr Banker find themselves in. We like the consistency, the casting and the simplicity and all of this adds up to pretty high recall and makes the campaign effective, so well done DraftFCB Ulka and HCL.