Ask any leader in adland, and you’ll hear complaints that pitching has got out of control. Endless meetings, reams of strategic analysis and creative work, and deck after deck of commercial information. It’s become a nuclear arms race that sucks in more and more time and resource.
As an example, one pitch we did a while back lasted nearly six months. Our time analysis revealed that, assuming targeting a modest 15% profit margin, we wouldn’t break even until year four of the relationship.
Long pitches are killing agencies, and clients ultimately end up paying the price. The hard truth is that we are an oversupplied industry, with a finite pipeline of new business (and falling: down 28% year on year according to the latest AAR analysis).
Agencies will do whatever it takes to convert pitches, knowing that decisions are often made in the fine margins. A minority of clients – either through indecision, because they want to get as many brains on their business for as long as possible for free, or simply because they know they can – allow these processes to be long and drawn out. But they end up paying the price.
Every agency has to recoup their new business costs from client income eventually, so that will be baked into their fees. And will clients really get the service they deserve, when the top team is constantly being drawn into the next six-month pitch?
So is there anything we can do about it?
The IPA, of course, did a great job in introducing the Pitch Positive Pledge three years ago, which got the topic on the agenda. Some agencies have suggested that accounts should be handed out without a pitch (perhaps in exchange for doing the first year at cost).
Evidence suggests that relatively few CMOs are willing to make what can often be a career-defining decision, without a meaningful selection process. Those that do will favour established players, with a strong track record. This will create a narrow creative hegemony, and restrict competition, risking making the category stale.
Others propose restricting the deliverables, by calling a "strategy only" pitch. The trouble with this, however, is that in a competitive environment, every agency feels like they have to take the presentation a stage further, to be the one that stands out.
Ultimately, it comes back to the length of time pitches take. Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time given to complete the task. And this is no more true than in the world of pitching. Who’s going to want to take their foot off the gas knowing that every other agency in the process is beavering away?
When we have analysed the time and money we’ve spent on pitches and the length of time of the process, there is a crystal clear correlation. The longer the pitch, the more spenny it is. Clients may think they are being respectful by allowing for a decent amount of time for pitches, to accommodate existing workload.
In reality, it just means more pressure to use all the available time to make the pitch as amazing as it can be. And the longer the pitch goes on, the more it favours larger agencies who can throw more resource at the problem. Resource will vanish when the agency is appointed, and the fees won’t cover that size of team.
So how about this: Every pitch is just three weeks from start to finish. No restrictions on deliverables or meetings. Just a focused sprint against a clearly defined task. It tests the agency’s ability to be nimble with its thinking. We all know the best ideas tend to come at the start of the process anyway. Perhaps you choose any three-week window within a six-week period, say, to work around existing client commitments and holidays.
Yes, it’s intense, but three weeks of intensity are surely better than months of gruelling work. Okay, it’s not the perfect solution: is three weeks too long/too short/ right for every brief? But surely carrying on as we are in this ever-escalating arms race is unsustainable.
It’s about time for a new answer. And for my money, it’s about time.
Ed Palmer is managing director of St Luke’s