So next week Carlsberg go to media pitch, inviting media land's great and good to jockey for the right to plan and buy media for the Danish drinks group. 

Let me say upfront I'm a fan of Carlsberg btw - the stretch of "Probably..." is pretty smart, much like MasterCard's "Priceless...." - they've created an asset out of a single word and that's not easy and damn cool right?)

However, I'm suggesting that "probably..." isn't nearly exact enough when it comes to the timing of their media pitch which possibly couldn't be running at a worse time if (as I expect, I haven't seen the final brief so I'm making a few assumptive comments here) their intention is to get commitments of smart resource, cheap fees and strong buying discounts from a media supplier.

Why is it a bad time? Well all the big players (minus ZenithOptimedia I believe) are still smaking their lips and flirting with the Unilever media review, some $5bn potential billings, which with all the best intent in the world makes Carlsberg a pretty low priority in an agency's projections. How will any candidate agency be able to sensibly commit to Carlsberg on resources available and especially media discounts when they have no idea where $5bn is about to shift to in the market place...?

An account the size of Unilever media can change the shape of the billings table and as a result can impact on an agency's pricing once the weight of Unilever shifts and shifts the centre of balance of an agency...it takes a while to recover from either winning or losing that scale of billings. Not the time to be bedding in a new 'smaller' client ideally. 

It might be smart for Carlsberg and indeed anyone else out there considering a large media pitch at the moment, to drag your heels for a few months and see where Unilever ends up before making a decision. If your incumbent are pitching Unilever they'll be a bit distracted, if your choice agency wins they won't notice you for 6 months, however if they lose they'll be desperate for a win and you'll end up getting a better deal all round post-Unilever than pre.  

Alternatively you could just give it to ZenithOptimedia who I'm sure would do a cracking job anyway and won't be distracted by the Unilever lottery for the next few months...they can just get on with the job without a fuss. 

Now wouldn't that be a novelty....