‘It’s costly, it’s disruptive, and it rarely results in the best work’: Has pitching become adland’s poisoned apple?
With frustrations over the state of pitching hitting fever pitch, Mumbrella’s Kalila Welch and Lauren McNamara spoke to leaders from all sides of the industry as we investigate whether the situation is really worsening.
It seems pitching was the biggest bug bear on every agency leader’s mind as the 2023 calendar year came to a close.
Defined as the competitive process through which advertising agencies and consultancies win new business, presenting an advertising solution in response to a client’s brief, ‘the pitch’ is widely understood to be an intrinsic life-force of the advertising industry, but has often come under fire for being inherently flawed.
These criticisms span from its costly and consuming nature for both client and agency, to its inability to encompass the true scope of an agency-client relationship. It has thus been a point of friction in the advertising industry for as long as most adland veterans can remember.
I’ve been reading this same article for 25 years. The answer is yes.
Most marketers in Australia are woefully underwhelming at their job. The standard of briefing has hit rock bottom and their ability to run a professional relationship with their agencies is questionable.
Wouldn’t it be great if anytime a marketing employee called a pitch, that they also had to reapply or “pitch” for their job? Perhaps against 12 or so other people who would all be putting forward a marketing plan and budget forecast for the next couple of years and all without any certainty over that they’d be getting paid should they be successful. In fact, the only certainty for the incumbent CMO is that they would be getting paid less for an increased and unclear scope.
Within agency circles, being involved in a pitch and proudly venting about how busy you are with it and how impressed the client was with your contribution is a badge of honour. On the client side it is a way to demonstrate the value you bring to the business (better quality work for less) for many people in precarious positions.
There is bad behaviour and inefficiency on both sides. That is never going to change. We put in late hours, complain about a nightmare pitch, then do it all over again.
Never do a pitch unless you know you will win. If you enter a process without an inside track or an advantage over the competition you will lose. So best not to play the game. Do something pro-active for one of your existing clients instead.
This area is up there with programmatic transparency and industry diversity as areas that are talked about for feel god factor but never change.
Pitches serve agency bosses desperate for a whiff of acknowledgement from their accountant overlords and make marketers look like they’re saving money to procurement who are widely more influential. Both sides win nothing but the optics are good for the winners.
The losers know the game and complain only when they lose.