Hitch: Connecting Marketing Innovators - Latest Comments

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Bill McDonough — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 11:19:40 -0000

I was with a new agency for less than a week when I went on my first pitch with the "team." The senior art director was a nervous wreck - jittery, unsure and definitely a liability. But the agency president seemed unfazed. I soon found out why. We stopped for lunch before the pitch and the art director downed three giant martinis in a about 15 minutes. Just pounded them right back.

By the time we arrived at the client's offices the art director was blasted. And he was magnificent. The client loved him, his work and his "charm."

That was more than 20 years ago and I have not yet had the courage to try this approach myself. Although I have been known to down a martini or two AFTER a pitch!

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Jonathan Schoenberg — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:22:20 -0000

We pitched Oakley last year and after our presentation we were changing into shorts and t shirts in their parking lot. Several of us were still in our underwear when their director of global marketing came out to his car, which was parked next to ours. Good times. We did not win.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Mike Gastin — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:44:35 -0000

A few years ago a vendor approached us with an opportunity. They’re a large printer in town and their customer base stretches well beyond our local market. They had a customer in New England, a national financial company, that wanted to redesign a magazine. A great opportunity.

The idea was that we would go to New England with our vendor. Together we’d pitch their customer on using our firm, Bob Wright Creative, to do the redesign and creative and our vendor would print the mag.

Simple enough, right?

We like to be prepared. We do presentations and pitches all the time and we win a lot. The reason we win is we come prepared. We take time to learn what problem our client or prospect is facing and we develop real solutions. It may sound simple but you’d be amazed at how many times our competitors have not done their homework and don’t correctly understand the problem.

I met with my contact at our vendor to talk about the opportunity and to begin to prepare how to approach our joint pitch.

“Oh, I can’t help you. Our owner is going to handle this one and he’s in NYC and is going to meet you at the customer’s HQ. Just go do your thing and it’ll be fine,” I was told.

A sense of dread mixed with panic started to set in, followed by a flurry of phone calls and emails on my part trying to get this thing nailed down, all to no avail. “Just do your thing.”

Like any smart business owner, I decided to take both my creative director and my senior project manager with me. If this baby was going south I was going to be flanked by the best. Of course, a smart business owner would have bailed and told our vendor “good luck.” Believe me, I thought about it, but felt like I was already committed and had to see it through, even if our partner was unresponsive.

So, my creative director, project manager and I drove eight hours to the hotel ready to ‘do our thing’ in the morning, whatever that meant. When we got to the hotel there was no sign of our vendor, so we went out and found a BBQ joint and had dinner. When we got back our vendor and his team of five employees were waiting for us, perturbed.

They were upset that we were not there to show them the presentation we had prepared for tomorrow.

Presentation? You’re kidding, right? We’re just going to wing it and “do our thing” like you told us. Besides, this is your customer and your presentation right? No, it’s all riding on me and my guys. Nice.

Back in my room I felt despair. What are we even doing here? We’re getting an attitude from the vendor who refused to give us any direction and now they want to know where our presentation is? Well, I was ready to go to bed, wake up the next day, skip the meeting and head home.

Fortunately, my creative director and project manager jumped in. We pulled an all-nighter and put a smashing presentation together. We had it nailed and ready to go. We crashed for a couple hours and then got ready for the day.

We met with the client and their team, about six women, and got to work. We put our presentation on and hit a home run. Lots of great dialog, great questions and thoughts from the client on how we would work together. It felt like we were winning the job. I was ready to close and ask for their business; get it done.

Then the owner of our vendor jumped in and shot it all to hell.

He said our two companies, Bob Wright Creative and his company, were like two fighter jets in a war, fighting on the same side. The Iraqi War had just begun. I knew at that moment we were doomed. But, just to make sure, the owner continued. He told all the women there to think of this as our first date. We would spend some time to get to know each other—over a figurative dinner. And then … then we could get more intimate, figuratively, of course. I was horrified.

I looked at my guys and I looked at the faces of the women in the room. We were going to bomb their village, my vendor and I, and we were going to make off with the women and have our way with them, after a nice dinner. It was stunning.

20 hours in a car, hundreds of dollars in hotel rooms, meals, fuel and tons of lost revenues for my top guys to be involved and this man was killing it all with just a few words. He was the Anti-Midas, turning everything he touched to turds.

We didn’t get the job but a legend was born that day. I can laugh about it now, but that printer doesn’t get our work anymore for fear that they might have another great opportunity for us.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Danzaroni — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:04:03 -0000

Is this ethical?

We were pitching a prospect on a New Product/Dealer event who had devoted the afternoon to hearing the presentations from us and three competitors. We asked for the first slot and even offered to buy lunch for the committee.

As an aside, we always recommend that our clients avoid serving carb-heavy lunches at events since it really damages the audience's attention and focus during the afternoon sessions - it's hard to keep them awake. For our presentation, however, we took the opposite approach. We designed a high-energy presentation while the committee enjoyed a huge helpings of fettuccini alfredo, lasagna, and cheese bread.

We won the business and we'd like to think it was because of our superior creative. However, when we asked our clients about the other presentations, they couldn't quite remember them anywhere near as well as ours. Some of the committee were practically dozing. Imagine that.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Lisa — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 12:52:50 -0000

I worked at an agency that pitched the Chicago White Sox and mispelled "COMISKEY" in the presentation!!!

Re: Ad Industry Innovator #9: NORTH

carisag — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:16:10 -0000

Just happened upon this post. I really enjoyed the part about evolution and diversity being part of the business. What a great concept - to ebb and flow, to constantly challenge to be better, to evolve with what clients actually need and want. Cheers!

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Bill Field — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:02:59 -0000

Pitching a C-store chain called Dairy Mart. Our founder Joe Hoke hated being hot so he turned down the heat to meat locker like in the conference room. Problem was it also controlled the temperature of the 78 year old head of Dairy Mart - we literally froze him out of his office. He was pissed. To add to our problems, we made a great pitch for a new sandwich called Macho Max - for contractor audiences. Their charge to us was how to sell deli meats. We didn't read the RFP carefully - it was referenced as "bulk deli meats." The client looked at us like we had to three heads. We had to scramble and sell a strategy of selling lots of sandwiches to make up for the pounds of deli meats that we didn't have ideas for. Humma humma like Jackie Gleason on the Honeymooners. (Who buys deli meats at a C-store anyway) Needless to say we aren't in the sandwich business. Neither is Dairy Mart either.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Hitch — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:08:13 -0000

Aaron. That one made me cringe. Great story, though! Thanks for sharing~

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Aaron Goldman — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:41:08 -0000

This was a few years ago. I was down in Durham, NC at McKinney for a pitch my agency was teaming up with them on. They have this awesome office -- converted tobacco factory -- with lots of open spaces and funky design elements. 30 minutes before the pitch is set to begin, I head out to the bathroom to take care of business. On my way back to the conference room, I fire off a few emails on my Blackberry and *wham* walk right into a steel beam. Split my lip and there's blood everywhere. I have the receptionist help me with some paper towels and ice. Then I ask her for a pen and paper. Walking back into the room, I hand the CEO of McKinney -- Brad Brinegar, great guy -- a note that says, "Walked into beam. Split lip. Can't talk. Don't worry, won't sue." He laughs. I laugh. Sure enough, 30 minutes later, I was talking again and was able to do my part of the presentation. We didn't win the biz but I learned the important lesson of not blackberrying and walking at the same time -- much less, chewing gum!

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Gary Ritkes — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 06:35:21 -0000

Classic David. Made me laugh because my wife knows the entire song, but I never thought to bring her with me before a big pitch, maybe my new strategy.

Thanks,
Gary

Gary Ritkes

Managing Director: Sales | SproutLoud Media Networks
15431 S.W. 14th Street | Sunrise, FL 33326
P: 954.332.7873 | C: 954.298.8788 | F: 954.332.4159
www.sproutloud.com
www.linkedin.com/in/ garyritkes

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Anders — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:34:06 -0000

Love these stories.

We were pitching a client who we knew wanted to be wowed by a seamless "techy" presentation: no boards, no charts, wow them with great ideas delivered powerfully from our shiny metal boxes. We had developed remarkable work, assembled it in a wowee zowee keynote, complete with multimedia, etc. Rehearsed it, made sure it worked from a couple of our computers, doublechecked it thru a projection system we were bringing with us "just in case."

Client is 2.5 hours away. We arrive and begin setting up in the room; the client (of probably 15 people) arrive and begin taking their seats—as I discover we forgot!!! the f&*$%ing!!! adaptor to connect our puter to the projector. (CLENCH) Oh, that little thing...

The short version is, we apologize, suggest they get out of their seats and stand, huddled together (with shorter people in front), and turn our little 17" macbook pro toward them...and we go with it.

And? The next day, we got the news. We freakin won that account. And it remains one of our agency's most creatively rewarding ones today.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Laurie Kinsman — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 23:50:40 -0000

Several years ago, my cousin started working for a very large ad agency in Toronto. At break time, midway through a pitch to one of their largest CPG clients, she said, "OK, if everyone would like to take 15 minutes to spread their legs ...". Several shades of red later ...

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Alan Schutte — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:17:46 -0000

My second favorite pitch story was from a great old school CD I worked under at Bloom in Texas back in the mid-90's. He told me a story of pitching a huge account in the early 80's. Every time they would present to the CEO, the CEO would take their creative and leave the room. After a few minutes he would come back and shoot it down. This happened four times. The fifth time they presented, the CD stayed out of the room as he was curious as to where the CEO was going each time with the creative. Sure enough, during the fifth presentation, the CEO left the room, but this time the CD watched where he was going. Turns out he was taking the creative down the hall to the typesetting pool to get their opinion, which at the time was staffed by mostly Japanese women who spoke only passable English at best, and, due to the language barrier, didn't get any of the humor in the creative the CEO was showing them.

The next time the agency presented, the CD went down to the typesetting pool before the pitch and gave each of the women $20 and told them that when the CEO came down with the advertising ideas that day, to tell him they loved it.

And thats how they sold the campaign.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Hitch — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:15:53 -0000

The rapper himself! So true, Alan.
Thanks for the story!

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Alan Schutte — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:00:29 -0000

My favorite pitch story is from one of my many mentors back in Norfolk, VA. As I recall, his shop was the only local smaller shop invited amongst the three finalists (out of over 450 RFPs sent out) to make a pitch for the Aviation Worlds Fair-part of the 100th celebration of the Wright Brothers first flight. He was up against two much bigger shops-one from Richmond, one from Washington, DC. The night before the big pitch he ran into the two Creative Directors from the other two shops in the hotel bar. They all ended up drinking quite a bit and the two CD's he was pitching against went on and on about their having pilot's licenses and flying their own planes and how they were both aviation nuts since they were kids. The next morning my friends small local shop was the first shop to pitch. He walked in and the first words out of his mouth were that he didn't own a plane, didn't have a pilot's license and never played with planes as a kid-and that's why they should hire his shop because the people that they needed to attract to this huge event to make it a success were just like him. He won that account in the first two minutes and no matter what the competition followed with, they were doomed before they even walked in the door. A great lesson to me that brilliant creative sometimes never has a chance against a brilliant strategist.

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Hitch — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:47:22 -0000

Tom, that's classic! Thanks for the stories~

Re: Funny or Favorite Ad Agency Pitch Stories – Share yours…

Tom Martin — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 18:40:58 -0000

Two actually.

First one: my co-presenter approaches the podium and looks out over a crowd of 30 outlet mall managers (the parent company made us pitch all of them and allowed the managers to select whether or not they wanted to participate in our program), places both hands firmly on each side of the podium and with a perfect straight face begins..... "if elected I will ...." crowd erupts in laughter and then he went seamlessly into his part of the pitch.

Second one, just started at a new agency, was traveling with the President/owner of the shop (I'm all of 26 at the time) and it's a Monday morning and I have all of the creative materials. We are supposed to meet on at the airport. He gets on the plane. Looks around, doesn't see me. Asks the flight attendant to make an announcement. Will Mr. Martin please ring his call button so your boss can find you. The plane goes silent. She does it again. Still silence as the whole plan realizes, some poor soul is about to get fired. ;-) I had slept through my alarm and my new boss was now on his way to the east coast with nothing to show. Long story short - I wake up, call the prospect, arrange to present in a conf room in the airport (their CEO was flying out that day on vacation) and I find a non-stop to the destination. Somehow managed to get USAir to connect me to my boss' connection gate and as he steps off the plane in Charlotte there is a gate agent with a sign. He announces he's the guy whose name is on the sign and she hands him the phone. He's so impressed with that trick he actually doesn't fire me.

I join him in the prospect's home town airport, we present and head home. Sadly, we didn't get the project. Luckily, I didn't get fired and even went on to run the new biz program there. Looking back, funny as hell but man, thought I had just bought myself a ticket out of the ad game with that one.

Re: Is your marketing a monoculture?

Anders — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 01:04:14 -0000

I want to cut out this page and stick it on my wall. Or maybe just RT it ;-) Great points David, and well put.

I think a lot of us in the communications world are attracted to the newest and shiniest. And I think if you're any good, you do need to dissect things to figure out what makes them tick in order to find out what makes them worth looking at as potentially useful. That last part is pretty important: you have to remember WHY you're using any medium—its not just to be on TV, to do a print ad, to have a Twitter acct.

Now more than ever, you can weave some very interesting, creative, sticky campaigns by letting each channel do what its naturally best suited for—and your audience can tell you that. Your audience may have moved away from print as a favorite medium, and uses online more for the purpose print once served, but their occasional print interaction may hold more power for them now; TV may have changed for them, but they still like to be wowed and engaged on a big screen without a keyboard on it; and they've probably always ALWAYS shared what they liked, what was cool, what sucked, what was moronic...and now that method happens to have a name (and more horsepower) attached to it: social "media." So give them something to talk about, something really good, and they can explode it for you.

All of is this is to say that media channels—all of them—are calling out the best and brightest strategies right now. Strategy—the harnessing of which media to use and how, for what effect—is the real rock star of our era.

Re: Is your marketing a monoculture?

Hitch — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:24:23 -0000

Well said, Nathan. Thanks for sharing your point of view.

Re: Is your marketing a monoculture?

nathancarnes — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 18:56:09 -0000

It's not uncommon for clients to come to us with the idea that a newer, shinier, bigger/faster/stronger website will help turn their fortunes around. And I'm hearing the same story from social media folks.

A great web presence, or a great social media presence (or a great traditional media presence, let's be honest) is a useful way to get your company's story out to lots of people. But if you don't have a compelling story to tell people once you have their attention, it's not going to matter. If you don't have your story straight, it doesn't matter how many people are fans on Facebook, or read your print ad.

Chasing madly after each new advertising media without a fundamentally sound brand strategy is a great way to spend a lot of money, fast, with no return on investment. (And I say that as a guy that makes websites.)

Re: 10 things your brand can learn from Trader Joe’s.

theresafoley — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:59:32 -0000

This is my first time reading your "offerings" and I LIKE it! What great info to transfer to just about any business. Thanks for your fun and informative site. theresa

Re: Beyond the Big Idea: What Marketers need from their Ad Agencies.

User generated advertising — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 18:12:58 -0000

This is a great analogy. It speaks to a conversation that occurs around our business model as well of crowdsourcing as either a valuable tool for advertising agencies or a threat to them. Zooppa is a user-generated advertising platform that leverages crowdsourcing and social media to enable brands to engage their consumers and a creative community ready to produce creative content for them. We have a similar viewpoint to yours: brands will always need agencies for strategy, research, planning, media buying, creative production - and our model is a way for agencies to accelerate some of that process by tapping a pool of advertising-minded people that are more than eager to help the cause. We see a point in the near future where, like social media has become in just a few years, crowdsourced creativity and insights are an integral part of the marketing mix.

Re: Beyond the Big Idea: What Marketers need from their Ad Agencies.

Tom Martin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:59:35 -0000

Funny - I don't think the agency's job has changed at all over the last 50 years and certainly not with the advent of digital and social media. Our job has always been, is and will always be to create commerce for our clients. In some cases that will be strategic, others executional and in still others (like Social Media) that will be discovery.

Clients need and should hire agencies that embrace new technology vs fear it. Agencies that are going out and creating small scale experiments -- proofs of concept if you will -- that demonstrate there might be gold in them there hills. Then the client needs to put their money where their agency's idea is -- and together, go down a journey of discovery designed as always, to either create commerce or figure out how to create commerce with these new tools.

@TomMartin
www.tommartin.typepad.com

Re: Beyond the Big Idea: What Marketers need from their Ad Agencies.

philsievers — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:00:25 -0000

Fascinating article. I think you're right on. The approach of using the agency as a strategic consultant would allow agencies to regain the role they have given up to consulting firms. Now it's up to us to earn clients' confidence that we can perform.

Phil Sievers
Director of Business Development
Seiter & Miller
212-843-9900

Re: Beyond the Big Idea: What Marketers need from their Ad Agencies.

Chris Lloyd — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 02:59:03 -0000

It is indeed an interesting time in the ad business isn't it? Our business used to be a lot more straightforward. It was simpler. We had a handful of forms (TV, print...) and we created entertaining stories that fit into those forms.

And then it all changed...

That handful of forms turned into a hundred handfuls. To remain relevant to our clients today we need to bring as much creativity to forms as we do to the story itself. Turns out, that's a very different business than the one I started in back on Madison Avenue.

It also turns out, this version of the business requires a lot more creativity of all of us. And I for one, find it to be a lot more interesting and a lot more fun. Bring it on.