This article may cause some offence, but it’s been in the back of our minds here at BEcause for while.

But we feel it needs to be said, so here it is.

For years now, we’ve watched the process of new business being sought and won by British agencies, and the cycle generally goes 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

Now, we don’t want to be controversial just for the sake of it, but we’ve found this process of pitching to be quite damaging, as well as wasteful, for all parties concerned – and this comes from our long experience in the area.

We’ve begun to use a strategy that most agencies will find extremely difficult when presented with a brief: we start by asking ourselves whether the business is actually worth pitching for. This presents a few more relevant questions, such as whether our team will enjoy working on the account, whether the brand is in line with our strategy, and whether it will allow 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 quite a large amount of time – invariably longer than the brand envisages. This will quite often mean that when the final partner has been given  the all-clear, in order to deliver on time short cuts may have been taken. 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. Get to know who will be running your business, and spend some time with each agency to help the team better understand your business – so they can get it right first time

3. No-one can make sense of reams of data at first glance, so de-clutter the pitch process by asking for all the assurances and detail in advance

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.

An interesting concept, perhaps then, that with a little more research and a little less of the beauty parade, everyone involved would be more creative, engaged, successful and profitable.

This idea has been developed with considerable popularity here 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.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the brand experience.

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