Head to Head: Does a client have the right to see its agency’s media pitch?
In this series, Mumbrella invites the industry’s senior PR professionals to share their opposing views on the industry’s biggest issues. This week, Liam Fitzpatrick, head of communications at Commswork, goes head to head with Opr’s Graham White and M+C Partners’ CEO Justin Kelly on whether clients should be able to see their agency’s media pitch.
Should clients be able to see what their agency is going to pitch to the media? Commswork’s head of communications and founder Liam Fitzpatrick says they absolutely should be able to in order to ensure both the client and the agency are aligned and projecting the same message.
Graham White, group managing director of technology and business at Opr, argues it’s not necessary, since a good client relationship should be built on trust.
Meanwhile, M+C Partners’ CEO Justin Kelly says clients don’t always understand what journalists want to see in a pitch and if the pitch contains too much “waffle and gibberish” from the brand, it will get rejected.
Consider the main business drivers to engage the services of a PR or marketing services agency – available bandwidth/time and expertise. You hire these guys to lighten your load, and deliver quality outcomes that will support/drive business outcomes.
A clear brief and review of capabilities when you hire them, decent onboarding, then adequate KPIs set for ongoing work should ensure agency work is on the money, and in line with business needs. There are certainly occasions where client and agency will workshop a hero story to pitch (for big opps or announcements), but the events where opportunities are seen from a news moment, media relationship or tweet, should be jumped on by agency reps in trusted relationships with clients. It’s often the best comms results that are landed in this fashion.
Otherwise it can turn into that awkward situation called ‘micromanaging’ – Good for neither the client or agency partner. #dontbethatclient