Melbourne v Sydney: Gruen’s The Pitch to take on a ‘State of Origin’ feel in new series

Anderson (centre) with panelists Russel Howcroft and Todd Sampson

Some of the bigger creative agencies in Australia are setting intra-agency teams against each other for one of the most popular segments in the next series of the advertising and marketing panel show Gruen.

Speaking to Mumbrella Gruen host and executive producer Wil Anderson said they had made tweaks to the format to The Pitch segment, where agencies are asked to create ads to sell the unsellable, to attract some of bigger agencies to take part adding “a lot of it will be state versus state, State of Origin style”.

Anderson explained: “This year we wanted to get some new voices to pitch for us. In the past it was problematic getting some of the bigger agencies in to pitch on the show – because of their workload but also going up against a smaller agency on the TV there’s a risk factor, you don’t want to lose to a smaller agency on national TV but you also don’t want to come in as the big bullies either.