The Season for Media Pitches

Jim Marshall‘s latest comment piece ponders a season of pitches and asks if we’ve created a monster…

I come from an era of full service agencies and a time when the media part of a new business pitch got a nominal ten minutes at the end. Normally the pitch had been decided by then and an either bored or excited client (dependant on their view of the creative proposals) would only be interested in the number of times the ad was scheduled to appear in The Sweeney (the marketing director’s favourite programme) or the Sunday Times (the chairman’s newspaper of choice).

Clearly those days are long gone and the world of media, for both clients and agencies, has progressed to the point where media pitches not only involve the upmost rigour and ‘microscopic’ analysis but also seem to take place more regularly than even Liverpool are losing Premier league matches.

This year will witness a string of high profile media pitches, including Vodafone twice (clearly they had so much fun the first time, they wanted to do it all again) and of course the massive COI review. If you add up the billings involved it equates to around £1 billion, which is an incredible prize by any standards (or disaster depending on the success or otherwise of the competing agencies). In reality it has and will continue to be very much a case of ‘musical chairs’, with agencies winning and losing business and everyone ending up in not such dissimilar positions. Yes, sure there will always be winners and losers in the short term (or when the music stops), but the undisputed winners are the clients who will be getting better terms and value (I can’t think of a pitch where a client ending up paying more in either media rates or agency fees) and, of course, the clients advisers such as auditing companies and helpful consultancy companies, who organise and help run the pitches. And, at the moment at least, the music doesn’t look likely to stop.

There’s no point in going through the history of how we got to this position, the question is: ”Is this a good thing – great competitive opportunity, increased professionalism, etc, etc – or have we created a monster?”

I guess the first consideration is how the pitches are conducted. Inevitably this is going to be a mixed bag. I was recently asked by a client, who handled the pitch process in the most professional way (ie other clients who had reviewed). It sounded like a bit of a ‘loaded’ question and I was tempted to suggest a bunch of clients who had chosen not to review their business. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the answer that the client was looking for or indeed the answer that any confident, self respecting agency was likely to respond with even if it was the ‘right’ answer. Secondly, I was tempted to suggest those clients who reviewed and appointed us – it’s funny how the best, most professional and fairest pitches end up with your agency being appointed. Also probably the wrong answer. I think we all know how a pitch should be conducted , or more importantly how they shouldn’t be – those infamous pitches which require huge amounts of information and agency work mainly because the brief is vague and the client is trying to ask everything and anything because they aren’t that sure what they really want apart from of course ‘savings’. And, in these instances, there are usually a number of additional advisers to the client, who can (and often do) just add to the ‘data overload’ and potential confusion. Also there is nothing more infuriating for agencies, who are asked to respond to a demanding brief and a tight timescale, to then wait an interminable time as a client misses/extends their own deadlines to make a final decision. This is poor for all the contenders but particularly unfair and unpleasant for the incumbent.

Secondly, it is a question of why the review is taking place. There can be no disputing the need for a review if there is a problem with the existing agency’s relationship or performance, nor if the client’s requirements or circumstances have changed. Also there are some organisations that are required to go through a process of ‘due diligence’ on a prescribed time scale. The COI review clearly falls into a couple of these categories (the last 2) and they will manage it impeccably (I can say that objectively because over the years I’ve been on both the winning and losing side for COI assignments and I’m not directly involved in the current review) . But there are a fair number of clients that don’t have the same reasons. Often, in these cases, even though their existing agency relationship is strong and performance (analysed in great detail) is good, they feel the need to ‘test the market’. Is this really the best and most constructive approach to what should be a critically important business relationship?

Here’s an analogy.

A married couple have been together for 3 years. The husband announces : ”Yes, it’s been very good for three years. There was the problem with my Xmas present in 2007 and your mother can be a pain, but nothing major to complain about. And what you do for me, particularly on Sunday mornings, is fantastic! But it has been three years, so I do feel that it’s time to review and give myself the opportunity to ‘test the market’. Could you propose how you will improve your financial contribution to my life and maintain/improve your scope of service to me, particularly on Sunday mornings. In the meantime I’ll review a short list of other possible candidates and give you my final decision in a couple of months time. By the way, please maintain the relationship and ‘services’ as per normal during the review period. Thank you.”

Maybe we have created a bit of a monster? You decide.