Pitch Mania, Part Two: How Will It End?

There has been much speculation as to why there are so many pitches all at once Consultants agency CEOs and journalists have very largely put this down to one of two things mandatory reviews undertaken as a matter of course by many large companies after a defined number of years or a sudden realization that the world has changed and amp8220Itamp8217s about time we took a look at all this interweb stuff I keep hearing aboutamp8221I donamp8217t think this is the complete picture How come there are so many pitches happening nowOf course some will be mandatory reviews although for there to be so many all at once is unprecedented And yes the world has changed although that hasnamp8217t just happened over the last couple of monthsThen thereamp8217s the question of whether wholesale change will make much of a differenceThey hate to hear it but most large networked agencies are pretty similar Change the logo on the charts and itamp8217s quite hard to tell one from the other So if Agency A is a big loser and Agency B a big winner will anything much change Hardly especially in this part of the world where the TUPE laws mean that many of those working on the pitching account will simply pack their bags at Agency A one Friday and show up to start work on the same account at Agency B on the Monday morningAlthough theyamp8217re pretty similar most large network agencies are also highly competent They all know about digital this and native thatSo from an advertiseramp8217s perspective why change when change is disruptive and expensiveI suspect there may be two further reasons for the review bonanzaFirst clients are fed up with having certain terms dictated to them by their agencies Terms that often deliberately obfuscate have been designed to confuse and are regularly opaqueWhen youamp8217re fed up you try to renegotiate If the agency during one of what are evermore frequent lapses of memory that lead them to forget whose money this is and for whose benefit theyamp8217re spending it wonamp8217t move on transparency or kickbacks or value banks or agency deals or technology taxes or whatever it is then you threaten to take your ball away You call a pitchSecond there are signs that advertisers may have fallen out of love with the amp8220we can do anythingamp8221 culture that exists in so many media agencies This long ago stopped being a desirable attribute and became nothing more than a rather tawdry attempt to upsell services outside of the agencyamp8217s core competenceCocaColaamp8217s inclusion of Ogilvy on their strategic media planning shortlist which brings back memories from the 1990s when Coke gave a series of creative advertising assignments to Creative Artists a talent agency to much squawking from the ad agency community is by far the most innovative and interesting element of this pitch bonanzaIt conjures up one solution to the issue raised by many including Jon Mandelamp160in the USAamp160and the Cog Blog here the issue that too often the agency buys whatamp8217s best for the agency as opposed to whatamp8217s best for the clientIf you suspect that the buys have started to drive the plans then why not put the planning somewhere elseFinally when the dust has settled will things look pretty well the same They might of course Omnicom might win WPP might lose or the other way around The music stops and everything just moves around a littleBut I suspect not I suspect some smaller independent agencies with planning and buying transparency at the very heart of what they do will win I suspect the huge agencies will net lose assignments And I suspect one or two new models involving players from outside the media agency holding units will emergeThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage management or associated bloggers

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Pitch Mania, Part Two: How Will It End?

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Brian Jacobs

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