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This is one of those blog posts which has been bubbling with the team at BEcause for a while, but which we haven’t delivered – as it might cause some offence. But we feel it needs to be said, so here it is. We’ve observed for years now the cycle of how new business is sought and won by British agencies. It generally follows something like this: 1. Tenders are issued for a new contract/project (hopefully after a chemistry meeting, but often not) 2. Agencies line up to present their solutions 3. Brand spends time sifting/sorting 4. Brand then either: a. shortlists a number of agencies for another round OR b. retains the incumbent OR c. asks all agencies to deliver some more free thinking OR d. rethinks why they’re doing this altogether 5. Hopefully, eventually, the final partner is selected Without wanting to be controversial for the sake of it, a main learning to come from our considerable experience of pitching for business is the fact that the whole pitch process can often be a damaging and wasteful process for all concerned. Over the years, we’ve learnt to identify key watch-points upfront. On receipt of a brief, we do what is very hard for most agencies - we actually start by asking is this business really worth pitching for? Is this a brand that is in line with our strategy? Will our team relish the chance to get to work on this account? Will it enable our business to progress? As you can imagine, this can often become a lively internal debate. But I’d rather we spend some time here upfront than simply jumping on whatever opportunities come along. And whilst the campaign start date remains fixed, the traditional pitch process always takes up a chunky period of time – invariably longer than the brand envisages. This often means that when the final partner gets the green light, short cuts may have to be taken to deliver on time. We’ve a plethora of examples over time of Brand Managers not doing their pre-pitch homework fully, briefing in an alphabet of agencies and now quite commonly using the pitch itself to source free creative solutions. In a bid to make pitch time more effective for everyone, here are our five suggestions for brands: 1. Do your homework well and pre-select a maximum of three agencies with the proven capabilities to deliver against your brief (we all have pockets of specialism, so choose wisely) 2. Spend time with each agency getting to know who will be running your business and help the team to understand your business so they can ensure they get the strategy right first time 3. Declutter the pitch process. Ask for all the assurances and detail in advance. No-one when presented with reams of data can make sense of it at first glance 4. Focus the presentation on the winning idea and looking for your winning team. Who will value your business as much as you do? 5. Take the time to give proper feedback (we’re potential customers of your brand too!). Often the pitch process does not make the best possible use of everyone’s time, efforts, energy and creative inputs. Considering how much goes in to the pitch process (and much of the time pro bona) this can be soul destroying for the pitch team. With a little more prior research, and less beauty parade, both agencies and Brand Managers would be more creative, more engaged, more successful and more profitable at year-end. An interesting concept. This idea has been developed with considerable popularity here (hyperlink to http://www.winwithoutpitching.com/manifesto) by Blair Enns with a positive and far-reaching response from agency-land. For the first half of this year we’ve been involved in more pitches than throughout all of last year – and whilst it’s fantastic to be considered for so many projects, if more Brand Managers did more pre-pitch homework, we’re confident that the end results would be better for all parties involved. Of course agencies need to be honest with themselves too. Our advice to fellow agencies before you go into another pitch-based beauty parade, is to ask yourself the following questions 1. Are you really up for the project? 2. Will it add something to your agency to have this new brand on your client list (it’s not always simply about the bottom line)? 3. Will your people be excited to work on this project for its potential ‘fame’ or its potential ‘fortune’? If neither, you might want to leave it. 4. Can you be as passionate about the brand as they are about themselves? What do you think – is the pitch process fundamentally flawed? We’d love to hear from brands and agencies who think there’s a better way to do things.
Article Source: http://www.largedirectory.info
An independent monthly round-up of brand news from the world of Brand experience marketing. Every month we gather information about which brands are connecting with their consumers through investing in experiential marketing.
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