Someone is Not Happy with The State of The Pitch

The team at TrinityP3 have been busy engaging the industry in the second wave of research (if you’d like to participate, please go here). As we were reviewing the current inputs, my attention was drawn to a less–than–friendly comment—not in answer to a specific question in the survey but more as a general rant.

At its heart, the comment had a couple of charges:

Firstly, TrinityP3 shouldn’t be the authority on what’s “wrong with pitching” (for the record, we’re not trying to be)

Pitch consultancies have driven the so-called “race to the bottom” on price and poor staffing

No one in the industry will be honest about the problems and therefore the whole exercise is a farce. 

Lots to unpack there.

It’s hard to know how to respond to something like this, but I choose to embrace it.

I hope that the relationships I and the rest of the TrinityP3 team have with so many good agency people, many of which go way beyond ‘pitching’ and have survived both pitches lost and pitches won, are genuine.

As I say, I’m not sure we’ve appointed ourselves as anything; we’re sticking our heads above the parapet and inviting commentary about pitching in a systematic way, and reporting back on it - the good, the bad and the ugly, not just ‘what is wrong’.

The commenter also argued that ‘our model’ as a pitch consultancy was flawed. They were looking for someone to blame. 

Other than the fact that we did not invent the ‘model’ of pitching, it’s also true that in the average year, we are generally involved in a relatively small number of pitches in Australia, typically 5%- 10%. 

The rest of the pitches are run by marketing teams, procurement teams, and other pitch consultants. The rest of our business—the majority of it, in revenue terms—focuses on areas adjacent to pitching.

With the best will in the world and without trying to be defensive, I’m not sure that the evils of pitching can be laid entirely at our door or that running a survey to give not just us but the industry a wide-angle lens on the state of new business hurts anyone.  

But obviously, things aren’t perfect. And this person is furious about it. So, who can we blame?

Can we blame agencies for continually accepting shoddy deals, participating in shoddy processes, ruthlessly cutting each other off at the knees to win a piece of business? 

Well, yes and no – agency acceptance does set benchmarks and precedents in a number of ways, but at the same time, what are they supposed to do, just refuse to play?

Many agency bosses have spoken to me about the adrenaline of winning, and the benefits to the agency inherent in pitching that can be found like diamonds in the rough of all the cost and time and stress – the forged teamwork, and the confidence brought by a win.

Okay, then can we blame procurement teams for strangling agencies on fees?

Well…kind of, but not entirely. Procurement teams will react to the market, and what the market will yield; and they are often internally KPI’d on cost and cost alone. Some procurement teams understand agencies, and some don’t. Some respond well to our counsel about the definition of value in an agency and some are much more reserved. The power dynamic between marketing and procurement in any given organisation varies significantly. 

Can we blame marketing teams for flawed processes or, decision-making, or unreasonable demands in pitches?

Sometimes, for sure. But then some marketing run pitches get glowing feedback from agencies. Some marketers have helped to evolve the industry as a whole by having the courage to build new agency roster models or redefine what success looks like in ways that bring opportunity to different types of agencies that would otherwise have been overlooked. Marketers running crap pitches…it’s not universal.

Can we blame industry bodies for not having teeth? Pitch Positive Pledges, all that kind of thing.

It’s not easy herding cats - let alone getting them all to walk in a straight line. 

They’re doing their best, and the intent is great, but without fundamental structural change in terms of the remit such bodies have, they can only really influence and guide; they can’t enforce. It’s up to agencies, marketers, consultants, and all the rest of us to adhere to or reject such initiatives.

Can we blame pitch consultants?

Like any other area, there are good consultants and bad consultants. I’d like to think we fall into the good category, and feedback from agencies and clients suggests that most of the time, we do. However, that doesn’t absolve us of everything. It just means we continue to try and are genuine in our attempts to do our best.

Blame’ is useless, in the context of the various spinning plates involved. It is much better to shine a light on the challenges, celebrate the positives and chip away, one pitch at a time. It’s what we try to do with the State of The Pitch. It’s not going to solve the world’s problems on its own. But it’s something constructive and facilitates a discussion on something most agencies focus on.