When is an agency pitch, not an agency pitch?

This post is by Darren Woolley, Founder and Worldwide CEO of TrinityP3. With his background as an analytical scientist and imaginative issue solver, Darren brings exceptional insights and learnings to the marketing system. He is thought of a global imagined chief in optimizing marketing efficiency and overall performance across marketing organizations and provider rosters.

Advertising is a person of the most visible interaction professions. And language is an vital component of communication. Still, as an industry, the liberal software of language communicates all forms of misconceptions. Now, in advance of you accuse me of remaining a language pedant, I will acknowledge that I nevertheless feel that remuneration and payment are not demanding synonyms of each other. But what a do disagree with is calling all tenders, company assortment processes and market place assessments a pitch.

In accordance to Collins’ English Dictionary, to make a pitch, or make one’s pitch usually means to attempt and persuade men and women to do or invest in the object of the pitch. Now, this is where the argument gets to be nuanced. The traditional speculative imaginative method could be categorised as a pitch. With the a variety of businesses building strategic and artistic recommendations and pitching them to the shopper.

But the conventional Ask for for Proposal (RFP) or RFI or RFT, with the often-rigid format and intensive list of certain thoughts, feels far more like completing an work software for the agency than acquiring an possibility to pitch. And whilst these two procedures for picking an advertising or media company are extremely common, they are by no implies the only strategies of selecting a new company. Quite a few of which are not a marketing option at all but are in its place a far more centered and defined way to examination and select the right company lover.

Let’s glance at a couple of these methodologies for deciding upon a new agency and discover their strengths and limits and see if we can categorise the tactic.

1. The resourceful splendor parade (The speculative resourceful pitch)

Pick a few agencies. Give them a imaginative short. Enable them operate on it and occur back and pitch their suggestions. And the best strategy wins. A single of the most prevalent approaches of choosing an plan. Excellent if you are buying an notion. But not so excellent for obtaining an agency you are hoping will create tens, hundreds or even thousands of fantastic ideas more than the time period. The problem is you do not know who, what or how they generated the notion they pitched and if they could do it once more.

This is the definitive pitch, with all its inherent complications.

2. The Ask for for Proposal (The position application)

A favorite with procurement as it allows a vast-ranging examination of lots of areas of the numerous organizations. But it is constrained in this exploration by the thoughts questioned and the structure in which the organizations can answer. So excellent for compliance but complicated when hoping to evaluate intangible skills, capabilities, and chemistry. In point, this favours the companies competent in producing RFP responses in excess of those people competent at furnishing the companies you truly want.

Literally additional like a position software than a pitch.

3. The Chemistry and Qualifications (Exhibit and Tell)

Also identified as the showcase, this is how many skilled expert services and other imaginative products and services are selected. From architects to composers, artists to movie directors, and a lot more. It includes only examining a showcase of the get the job done that has been completed in the the latest earlier and assembly with the group to make sure abilities and chemistry align. This suggests you evaluate the company on the do the job they do for many others.

A lot more exhibit and notify, with the agency pitching them selves, not their recommendation.

4. The No Pitch, Pitch

It is more and more popular to just take an incumbent company to pitch or tender at the conclude of a contract to overview the recent preparations. The trouble is the aggressive pitch is made to find a new company with only one particular in four incumbents retaining the business. This tactic is to have the incumbent pitch alone. The shortcoming is the likely deficiency of current market know-how, but this can be very easily accessed through unbiased third parties who supply this assistance.

Additional of a professional review than a pitch.

5. Strategic / Imaginative Workshop (The Test Travel)

Ever more well-liked, it effectively will take a few agencies for a take a look at drive. Pick a dilemma and supply it as a temporary so that the marketing workforce can do the job with every agency on a entire or half-day workshop. This is much more about the journey than a vacation spot, with the procedure an chance for both customer and company to operate alongside one another openly and transparently. It also indicates, not like a pitch, the client is more very likely to see the agency expertise at get the job done, somewhat than the presentation group in action.

This is a examination push that is as shut to the true thing as you can get.

As you can see, though all of these are casually referred to as pitches, it is only the 1st just one, the speculative innovative pitch that is actually a pitch, with the collaborating companies pitching their suggestions to earn the business. Yet, they are all labelled as pitches. But all fulfil a diverse require. And some are even utilised in combos.

The issue is rather than equating all these procedures with pitching, we require to commence contemplating about what the purpose of the company range system is and then use the finest methodology (or a combination thereof) to attain the preferred consequence. If the approach is to opt for a new agency, then 2, 3 and 5 are the very best preference and the selection of which of these would be based on the size of the account or contract, timing, complexity, and possibility mitigation. If it is only to uncover a winning concept, then 1 is the ideal selection. And if you do not want to opt for a new company, but simply will need to evaluation the incumbent, then the minimum wasteful and most arduous technique is 4.

It is just a issue of allowing language to tell objective and intent. Somewhat than lazily labelling everything as a pitch.