VEGAS : The Seven Year Pitch

AdMedia, May 1, 2007 by Peter Vegas

The best pitch idea I've heard was the one about Saatchi London pitching for a railways account.

The client's posse turns up for the meeting and are asked to have a seat in the flash reception area. After about 10 minutes one of the client's minions is sent to inquire as to the cause of the delay. A receptionist politely explains that someone will be with them shortly.

After another 15 minutes and feeling rather hot under their collective collars the client gaggle storms off into the lift. When they reach the ground floor the Saatchi brothers are standing there waiting for them. "Now you know how thousands of your customers feel every day," says one of the brothers.

They usher the dumbstruck client back into the lift. Head up for the presentation and go on to win the business.

Apart from Axis, a pitch is about the only time you'll see the CD in their Sunday best. But it isn't only the staff that gets dressed up. Sometimes the agency gets a little more treatment than a fresh set of flowers in reception.

A great example was the time when Damon & Basil had to pitch to Air NZ to keep the NPC business. This is heartland rugby. About as far removed from a wanky agency boardroom in Parnell as you can get.

So they turned the boardroom into a local rugby ground. They built a stand (Damon didn't help - he didn't want to mess up his Versace jeans) and dressed the room down to the last detail. Including astro turf laid across the floor.

Halfway through the presso one of the secretaries came in and walked through the stand giving out pies and drinks. I can't remember what the work was like but it must have done it for the client. Saatchis kept the business.

You know, it would almost be worth becoming a client just to go through the process of a big pitch to see the different songs and dances agencies put on.

I'm sure a lot of the performances blend into sameness. You'll have the over-eager greeting in the reception area, then the initial break-the-ice joke by someone senior from the agency to show we're fun quickly followed by the formal opening of the ceremony to show that while we are fun we get serious when it comes down to business.

There will be the introductions and the assurance by the MD that all the people the client sees in the boardroom will really work on their business and this is not the old '90s trick where the agency fills the room with people the client won't see again till the Xmas party.

Then there's the work. Does work win pitches? I don't know. When an agency wins a pitch they tend to imply it was because of the work. All the losing agencies tend to imply it had nothing to do with the work and drop hints about it being a done deal before the pitch.

How often does the work an agency presents to win a pitch actually get made? Part of the agency's presentation often involves the spiel about truly getting to know the client's business. If that's true, how can work produced in a couple of weeks based on one or two meetings with some of the client's people, really deliver?

And then there's the old argument about the fact that we are giving away all our goodies on the first date. A client sees four or five agencies produce fully fledged campaigns in a matter of weeks for nothing, then the winning agency suddenly turns around and overnight tries to place a huge price tag on a commodity they were happy to paste on black card all over the boardroom for nothing.

This brings us to the old discussion of a pact by agencies to insist on a pitching fee. Fine in principle, but if the MD is worried the client will simply go down the road and find an agency that will drop their pants for nix. He'll err on the side of caution and tell the client it's all free including the fancy sandwiches.

For the plethora of small agencies out there, asking for a pitch fee is more of a necessity. They simply don't have the resources to devote hours of free time to a gamble. I think it should be SOP for any agency. Even if you play the old 'Normally we would charge for a pitch but under these rare circumstances we are prepared to forgo our fee' line, at least the client gets the illusion that the agency places value on its product.

Anyway, didn't mean to wander off into the land of pitch fees. They barely cover the late-night pizza, 200 cans of adhesive spray and five-metre stack of black card.

So what did Lotteries people have in store for their pitching agencies? In a wise move they decided not to put the media business up for pitch. That cut down on the chances of slipping into a coma during the media section of the presentation.

Hey, no disrespect to my media mates. I mean how do you turn, 'We'll buy TV, press, radio and billboards and whatever wacky new ambient media that takes the fancy of you or the creative department at really good prices' into a presentation that lasts more than two minutes?

So what extra idea could the pitching agencies have thrown in to add something memorable to the big fat juicy Lotteries pitch? Turn the reception area into a Lotto outlet? Have a Catalina fly past towing a banner that read, 'We promise to get it right the first time this time'?