The Pitch: Making most of a strange courtship

By GREG EICHMANN*

Pitching for new business is the life blood of every advertising agency.

Pitches are about people being being hired and fired. They are vitally important to the health of the advertising industry and as such should be based on integrity, transparency and honesty.

The purpose, after all, is to see if agency and client can work together for mutual financial and cultural benefits. Ideally, the importance of this partnership would be reflected in the process and approach to the strange commercial courtship that is the pitch.

Unfortunately, they are sometimes less about what would make a great enjoyable and mutually rewarding relationship and more about establishing the rules of who is to screw whom and how hard.

To many observers it must seem as if it is an entirely one-sided affair.

In most instances, the pitch process is initiated, prescribed and driven by clients to their criteria, their timing and their terms, at their whim.

However, the pitch process is not always as one-sided as it appears.

Most agencies are very aware of the damage to morale, the cost and the impact on existing business to enter any pitch process blindly.

The cost of entry is often high - anything up to $50,000 in hard costs and hundreds if not thousands of hours of sweat and toil.

It is a big investment, even on a level playing field, and too often, due to politics or vested interests, it's not even that.

Modern agencies have extremely tight cost structures. Few can afford to invest in pitches that become a lottery.

At FCB, we regroup after a pitch meeting to discuss feelings about the project, the expectations and most importantly the people we met.

Some clients are genuinely not worth the effort.

That is in most instances signalled early by the behaviour and attitude of the individuals driving the pitch process.

I'd suggest four types of clients that should be avoided: Firstly, the tyre kickers. They don't know what they are looking for and often aren't seriously looking anyway.

Then there are the sanitisers. They have already decided who they want but go through the motions so they are seen to be running a fair process.

And the powerbrokers, who see themselves as the biggest opportunity ever and involve every agency in New Zealand.

Worst of all are the emergency cases. Despite not normally using an agency, they turn to one for a magic panacea when their business is in trouble.

Agencies need to avoid such clients. They should restrain from throwing themselves indiscriminately at every pitch opportunity.

They need to be able to know when to say no - because ultimately it's about self-protection.

Clients can also ease the process. The clever ones recognise there are only three things that matter: the agency's work, its people and how existing clients rate the agency's contribution to their businesses.

With these things in mind, there should only really be two or three agencies involved in every pitch.

The downside to this very simple preliminary process is a lack of long lunches, and clients not having every agency in town tell you how fabulous you are.

But it would save hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising agencies' money and avoid the heartache of a pointless pitch.

*Chief executive of advertising agency FCB