Author Archives: David Angell

About David Angell

David has been a media agency practitioner for fifteen years, holding several senior positions in the UK and Australia. During this time, he has worked with a number of blue-chip organisations. David is the General Manager and Head of Media at TrinityP3. He lives in Melbourne with his wife and children.

Pitfalls to avoid when losing a pitch.

Posted on May 28, 2018 by David Angell

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God knows, pitching is hard on agencies. To be honest, it’s hard on everyone, but the diligence required to make an informed and holistic decision about a commercial relationship of this nature naturally requires a lot of work. When agencies win pitches, they are naturally ecstatic. And why not? It’s payback for the sheer hard work that’s gone in. Continue reading →

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How to know if you need to pitch your agency

Posted on November 20, 2017 by David Angell

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I often get asked by our clients to see them ‘about running an agency pitch’. The decision to pitch, for whatever reason, is generally already taken by the time they speak to me. Yet sometimes, based on what I hear, my advice is ‘actually, don’t pitch’, for a number of reasons. Reviewing an agency can often be an intuitive reaction to a given situation, change or perception. But, of course, this doesn’t always make ‘pitching’ the best option. Loss of IP, disruption to your BAU communications, internal stress and diversion of resource, and the risk of ‘new relationships with the same problems’ are all challenges associated with making the decision to go to market for something shiny and new. Continue reading →

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Losing pitches, part 2: a further 7 ‘less obvious’ reasons why agencies lose pitches

Posted on August 11, 2017 by David Angell

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I recently wrote an article about some of the less obvious reasons that an agency, after all the hard work involved, can end up losing a pitch.

Well. After thousands of reads, shares and a number of comments (most of them made privately to me, as is the norm with this sensitive topic) it seems that the article generated some interest – whether you agreed with the content or not. Continue reading →

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8 ‘Less Obvious’ Reasons Why Agencies Lose Pitches

Posted on May 26, 2017 by David Angell

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Pitches can be very capricious. The blend of human intuition, rhetoric, substance and circumstance can make even the best agency lose over the course of a pitch process. No one says that it’s perfect. But there’s a world of difference between a well-run pitch process and a bad one. Some mistakes are clichés…some are not. There are some pitch mistakes, made by agencies, which are obvious although often repeated (chest thumping attitude, not listening, not bringing the right people, banging on about oneself, profound gender skews in meeting rooms, etc). Continue reading →

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Why providing consultancy with integrity is more important than ever

Posted on May 22, 2017 by David Angell

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Consultants. They often get a bad rap, particularly in the marketing industry. I work with many clients in a consultative capacity, across anything from bespoke vision or structural alignment projects, through contractual and remuneration assessment, to market pitches or agency selection work. I’ve also worked with many consultants in my agency days. The majority of the clients we work with are pretty happy. I would like to say that the majority of agencies we’ve worked with are – well, at least not unhappy – with the way in which we handle them. Continue reading →

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Who’s to blame for the current digital media mess? We all are.

Posted on April 7, 2017 by David Angell

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Commentary regarding the various issues facing the digital advertising industry continues to grow. Dishonesty, corruption, complexity, lack of knowledge, inadequate marketing, inadequate agencies, inadequate measurement…the list goes on. Based on the work we do with our clients, these issues are certainly becoming more recognised – even if many advertisers are still extremely challenged in their understanding of who, or what, they need to look at. The trouble is, so much of the commentary lacks objectivity. Continue reading →

Posted in agency remuneration / compensation, agency solutions, data & direct marketing, industry news & trends, marketing process optimisation, marketing procurement, media planning & buying, social media & digital marketing | Comments Off

Is your programmatic media function right for you – and what are your options?

Posted on November 30, 2016 by David Angell

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Programmatic media. For a while, the word ‘programmatic’ was an industry buzzword, a sign of things to come. More recently, programmatic trading of digital media has of course gained huge traction. For many advertisers, the programmatic function is completely or partly run by a programmatic trading team (or ‘Agency Trading Desk’) operating as part of an overall media agency arrangement. Various data sources forecast continued double digit year on year growth of digital media expenditure, with programmatically traded media accounting for at least 40-50% of those dollars. Continue reading →

Posted in agency search & selection, agency solutions, data & direct marketing, industry news & trends, interesting observations, marketing process optimisation, media planning & buying, social media & digital marketing | Comments Off

When an agency pitch is not the right answer – Case study

Posted on November 23, 2016 by David Angell

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The marketing team responsible for a $50m marketing budget approached TrinityP3 wishing to consolidate its agency roster via a pitch process. The team had experienced servicing challenges with its current roster of agencies. Furthermore, a new focus on cost and efficiency following a merger had generated downward pressure and a perceived need to demonstrate significant efficiency gains. The client operated in a complicated sector, and was required to navigate numerous stakeholders to achieve change of any kind. Continue reading →

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The most important quality in client agency relationships (and no, it’s not trust)

Posted on November 21, 2016 by David Angell

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I was contacted the other day by a long lost British client, from my UK days. Someone who I ‘cut my teeth on’ in the early part of my career, and with whom I eventually developed a client-agency relationship so strong that it would end up representing a springboard to promotion. All very good. But her reaching out to me, after nearly fourteen years, also jogged a suppressed memory of one of the biggest client relationship mistakes I ever made. Continue reading →

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Has the future of the media agency just been shown to us?

Posted on September 14, 2016 by David Angell

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Has anyone heard of Blackwood Seven? They’re a media agency – no, check that – they’re a technology company – that has recently launched out of Denmark. And they are already posing a threat of sorts to the traditional media agency model. Having worked in and around the media agency business for a while, I get used to predictions about ‘the death of the media agency as we know it’. Continue reading →