by The NRA’s longtime advertising firm Ackerman McQueen has formally provided notice that they will be moving to terminate their contract according to the Wall Street Journal.
In the announcement Wednesday, Ackerman said it had formally provided a notice to terminate its contract with the NRA, claiming the agreement already had been “constructively terminated” by the NRA’s own “inexplicable actions.”
The NRA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ad firm said it had implored all parties to stay true to the NRA’s membership, but instead was “attacked in frivolous lawsuits and defamed with made-up stories” peddled to the news media.
This move comes on the heels of two lawsuits by the NRA against Ackerman McQueen and a counterclaim by Ack-Mac.
There is no word what will happen to NRATV which is produced for the NRA by Ack-Mac. As a reminder, NRATV personalities such as Cam Edward and Ginny Simone are Ack-Mac employees while others like Dana Loesch are independent contractors.
While many of us have long wanted Ack-Mac gone or have, at the minimum, wanted a competitive RFP (request for proposal) search for an ad firm, this is a bit of a surprise to see Ack-Mac just walking away. It could mean that they see the NRA as a diminishing source of revenue and are fleeing like rats from a sinking ship. Alternatively, it could be a recognition by Ack-Mac of the rise of William Brewer III and his attempt to be the one stop shop for both legal and PR work for the NRA. Only time (and targeted information leaks) will tell.
Cam and Ginny are great. Hopefully they can stay on.
Without explicitly seeing the services agreement and termination provisions, its hard to know what to make of this. This could simply be a necessary step to pursue the lawsuits (i.e. formally terminate the contract for breach of contract). If they failed to exercise certain clauses they may forfeit remedies in the lawsuit. Naturally they can spin this however they want. This is all sheer speculation only the lawyers with access to the contract know the truth.
It "could mean" anything. What it most likely does mean is they are smart enough to implement some CYA to fend off or at least blunt the blows they know are coming. Probably best if NRA does the same…there ain't no innocent party in this mess, and slugging it out can only hurt both of them, and the membership, and the cause.
I'm no fan of AckMac, but as I understand it, they're the only agency of any size that isn't blatantly anti-gun. So NRA has (for years) had 3 choices – go with in house PR (not their specialty nor their mission), go with a little known and mostly tiny agency (that probably can't bid on any contracts anyway because they don't have the resources to fulfill the contract if they won it) or stick with AckMac.
Then again, I think most of the current flap is that AckMac knew this and took advantage, and kicked back enough to NRA honchos to ensure that they at least would cooperate – and torpedo any inconvenient questions from the BoD.