It's long been a sore point that many companies in Philadelphia seem to look elsewhere to find an advertising agency, overlooking the hometown talent.

One of those "elsewheres" is Texas. And one of those agencies is the Richards Group, which last year snagged Wawa and, in May, Comcast Corp.'s telephone advertising. Not far away, in Austin, GSD&M is among six agencies vying for the Subaru of America account, now handled by TM Advertising (formerly Temerlin McClain) in Dallas.

Like any self-respecting Philadelphian (and Dallas Cowboys hater), I'm wondering, What's so great about these Texas agencies?

"I'm not sure I'd characterize it as a Texas thing. There are some terrific agencies here, but that can be said about a lot of places. It's more about the work," said David Hall, a Richards Group principal who is overseeing the Comcast telephone work.

Simple enough, and yet Philadelphia agencies might love to say the same thing. Just ask Ritter Inc., which used to handle Wawa, or the now-closed Weightman Group, which lost the Tasty Baking Co. account last year to Berlin Cameron/Red Cell in New York.

Russel Wohlwerth, p­rincipal at Select­Resources International, the West Hollywood, Calif., consulting firm that helped Wawa in its agency search, said the mid-Atlantic ad community has been in a slump in recent years, squeezed by economic factors and New York's advertising dominance.

Yet Wohlwerth and Richards Group's Brad Todd, the principal overseeing Wawa work, both credited Philadelphia's Quaker City Mercantile, a finalist for the Wawa business, for energizing the agency scene here. I'm sure a few dozen agencies here would like to add their own names -- and probably deservedly so.

Still, kind words don't change the fact that Wawa's selection of a Dallas shop was a sore point within the ad industry locally, lambasted at a Philadelphia Advertising Club meeting and down Broad Street.

"Unfortunately, there was a lot of fallout [when Wawa chose Richards]. People said, 'How come you're not picking a Philadelphia agency?'" Wohlwerth said. "Ultimately, Wawa is a growing company and it needed a strong agency."

The day and age of a company picking a hometown agency is gone, the Richards folks say.

"We have Frito Lay, Dr Pepper, 7-Eleven, ExxonMobil [in Dallas]. ... They don't do their business here. The grass is always greener somewhere else," Todd said."