Handle with care!

This year we have been fortunate enough to be involved in a variety of pitches and, even after 15 years of designing and running pitch processes on behalf of client companies, we remain surprised at how little both the purchaser and the supplier really understand the motivations for pitching. 

Pitches are an exciting opportunity to change the direction, or the dynamics, of a strategic relationship, in the client company’s marketing supply chain. They are an inspiring opportunity for an agency to grow and develop. Or they can be a nerve wracking process to defend valuable revenue, profile, and indeed, the jobs of people the agency may have worked with and grown close to, for many years. 

But, whilst each of these facets are, in themselves, significant, they each miss one thing; the point of connection, around which both client and supplier can properly discuss what is mutually important. They intrinsically are self-serving. They do not offer the opportunity to properly discuss what will win the pitch, what the absolute reason underpinning the initiative of pitching, really is. 

No matter what the details behind the pitch, there is one thing that, in our experience, unites all pitches. The desire for accelerated change within the client organisation: heightened market share, extended distribution, increased trial, improved user experience, a change of perception or positioning. Whatever the core issue that is being addressed by the pitch brief, there is a realisation that the current ways of working, with the current suppliers, will not achieve the results soon enough and either the ways of working, or the supplier, or both needs to change. And fast. 

For the client company, entering a cycle of accelerated change requires careful planning, careful communication and careful operation to ensure the right questions are asked, the right decisions are taken and the right operational tenets established, to make sure that the change is effective and sustainable. This year we have been party to a European decoupling process, to reduce the cost of marketing communications production without impacting quality. We have helped a client review their media strategy to support detailed local marketing and enhanced social engagement. And we have reviewed a brand’s positioning in order to accelerate growth. Each time the mechanism of pitch was used and each time we recognised one thing, preparation is the most important phase of the pitch. The time when you can frame the challenge ahead and be really precise about how you will best be able to address that challenge. Too often, this step is rushed or not used wisely enough to get the challenge into sharp focus and define the skills, experience and culture of organisation necessary, to properly fulfil the requirement.

Once that is clear, you need to investigate the market to establish which suppliers are configured appropriately for your challenge and which can fit within the rest of your roster. This is not as easy as it sounds. The market has fragmented and consolidated with equal tenacity over the past few years, and the source of support for your specific marketing challenge is no longer straight forward. There are several sources that now have in-depth and up-to-date knowledge of the specific talents of agencies, but nothing can replace direct questioning about your specific challenge to identify which companies may be best placed to support you. 

Once you have the change you are looking for clearly articulated and you have the contenders you wish to review, you need a clearly articulated task to assess the capabilities and approach of the agencies you are considering. This should have been defined in the preparation phase of your process, but as you talk to your agencies, the support material you might want to share will become clearer. There will be things you haven’t anticipated, and so you will need clear guidelines to ensure you share what is necessary and edit out what is not. The more information, generally, the better the result. But too much and the agencies can lose sight of the challenge you have laid down. 

The way you separate the agencies is a real skill. Often, in the interests of fairness, pitch processes box agencies in to very similar responses. Significant change will rarely be driven from similar strategies with different executions. The greater the latitude for an individual approach, the more you will see the true potential of the agency you are considering. Carefully determining how you will choose the agency to impact your accelerated change is pivotal to a sustainable result. 

And finally, but once again an element that should be considered from the outset which is all too often left until the last minute, is the handover. What needs to be passed over to the new agency from the existing one. Or just as importantly, if the incumbent is to continue working on the business, what must change and how will both parties assure that that change will be sustainable through the coming months and perhaps years. Included in this is the contract and service level agreement that should be ready for agreement as soon as possible for the comfort of both parties. 

So, simplifying the process, you will see embedded in the above a very straight forward route map for the pitch process:

P.I.T.C.H. 

This is the process we adopt for all pitches. It seems to work. But it is the experience of running processes of this nature that gives the simple structure its potency. Making sure that the flexibility of how you can run the process doesn’t get in the way of the precision needed to find what you are looking for. Pitches are not complicated processes. But for the best results, handle with care. 

 

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