Why it's time to take pitching on a date.
By Jemima Monies, Chief Operating Officer at McCann London. First published by Campaign Magazine, 23.08.23
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Expensive, political and process-y. Pitching has struggled for a long time to shake off its bad rep.
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The Positive Pitch Pledge seeks to enhance the existing process and the financial cost of pitching is currently being hotly debated.
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As someone who’s built a career on pitching, my view is that anything that fights for better practice in one of the most challenging areas of agency life is worth pursuing.?
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But when you strip it down to its core, pitching is a human process, run by people for people.?
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A ‘getting to know you’ stage fuelled by more feeling than logic, and more heart than brain – with joyful highs and, as Nick Emmel duly noted, painful losses.
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As such, it has more than a little bit in common with the business of modern dating.
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So, what if we applied the lessons of dating to pitching??
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Introducing, some alternative rules of attraction for those who find themselves on the agency dating scene…
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When you know, you know?-?our industry is built on relationships. If you love working with an individual or team so much that you want to work with them (again), feel empowered to move your business without a pitch. If that means convincing the board or procurement, invest the time. It’s better than stringing a bunch of hopefuls along when they don’t stand a chance.
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Lose any baggage –?carve out time to understand any unconscious bias you may have for people or agencies on your long list. Perhaps you dated them in a different role or didn’t have a good experience with an agency under a different leadership team. People and agencies grow and evolve - work hard to level the playing field before you put anyone on the pitch. If you really can’t, that’s fine, but keep swiping.
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Don’t force chemistry?– if you feel it’s not there, then truly consider if it’s worth continuing to see the client.?The dynamics during the dating phase are generally a good indicator of what it would be like to step out together formally.?Pulling out of a pitch Is hard, particularly when the stakes are high, but more often than not your gut will be right.
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Avoid getting so lost in lust?that you forget to do your due diligence. Ask if marketing procurement are involved, and if so engage them from the start to really understand the needs of the business and what value looks like. Often the RFI doesn’t carry the level of detail needed to fully understand the commercial picture and you don’t want to find yourself having spent the first years’ fee during the pitch process.?
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Go public –?once you’ve got your final pitch list, tell the agencies who else you’re dating. In any competitive sport the teams can see who they are up against. Full transparency can only contribute to a fairer process.
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Use each other?– agencies there is no point declining to pitch the day after Easter, if the competition is seemingly happy to. Assuming you know the other agencies involved, have an informal chat with them to see how you might educate the client on positive pitch practice.
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The language of love –?whilst agency leaders ultimately have a duty of care to protect the wellbeing of their staff, clients can play a role too by considering the little things which make a big difference. No more Monday 9am or Friday 4pm starts please, bring the same client team to every meeting and welcome agencies to your offices like you would any guest.
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No ghosting –?still too often intermediaries are delivering the bad news and the feedback is non-specific. The little things go a long way in helping agencies learn and evolve, so spend the time collating your feedback and don’t be afraid to raise anything that might help them in their next dalliance.?
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Bring the LOLs -?we can all play a role in making the process more enjoyable, win or lose. It’s not ideal when the branded biscuits come back the perfect size for a borrower or the fire alarm goes off just as you’re about to do the big reveal. But it’s not the end of the world. Let’s laugh together more in those moments and keep the dating stage fun. Even if it doesn’t lead to a long-term commitment, everyone will have enjoyed moments on the dates and hopefully learnt something along the way.
Chief Growth Officer @ Collective | Excited by next-gen tech | Passionate about ??
1 年There are some great points here Jemima Monies, thanks for sharing. I can say I have experienced all the behaviours you advise clients not to have, from cancelled pitches the day before to having to assume we lost due to no feedback. I 100% support the chemistry process, understanding what each other stands for, and finding out what people are like to work with, but the try-before-you-buy approach to strategy and creativity is a killer and a rut that ad agencies have got themselves into (giving so much away for free - I know, it is a real challenge to deal with and row back from). Working in digital products, our product is the process/approach/methodologies we use to arrive at the outcomes needed, so we can't show what it is like until it is done. So we have to sell ourselves, the process, our unique approach and how we can partner to drive outcomes...quite a difference. Agile can be difficult to sell to procurement teams that want to detail what outputs they are going to get, rather than an outcome (which can have many different solutions). I am not sure how advertising can get there when clients expect strategic and creative outputs in pitches, but I hope it can.