In response to an increasingly vocal call from agencies worldwide to ditch the pitch and trade media running headlines and opinion pieces claiming the pitch is broken and even dead, we launched The State of the Pitch Research in Australia in 2023.
The second round of the State of the Pitch research was run in Australia between June and December last year. The report makes it interesting to read about what is going on, what is going wrong with pitching, and what, if anything, is improving or worsening.
Today, TrinityP3 consultants, Kylie Ridler-Dutton, Nathan Hodges, Nick Hand and Stephen Wright share their thoughts and insights on the State of the Pitch Australia research.
This podcast episode inspired journalist Arvind Hickman to write a much broader view of the State of the Pitch in Australia for B&T titled ‘Stop Hitting Agencies Over The Head On Price’ – Why The Pitching Process Is Challenged, Procurement’s Role & How To Improve It.
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If they just treated the pitch itself just like any other project that they have in their remit, in their team, they would understand the importance of the output and what the outcome’s going to achieve for them.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management consultancy and welcome to Managing Marketing. A weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
If you are enjoying the Managing Marketing Podcast, please either like, review, or share this episode to help spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
In response to the increasingly vocal call from agencies around the world to ditch the pitch and trade media running headlines and opinion pieces claiming the pitch is broken and even dead, we launched the state of the pitch research in Australia in 2023. Since then, Haymarket has taken up the research rolling it out with Campaign Canada and plans to roll it out globally in the years ahead.
The second round of state of the pitch research was run in Australia between June and December last year. The report makes interesting reading on what’s going on and what’s going wrong with pitching and what, if anything, is improving or getting worse.
Today, on the Managing Marketing Podcast, we have members of the TrinityP3 team involved in the pitching process to discuss and share their thoughts and insights on the state of the pitch Australia research. Please welcome from TrinityP3 pitch whiz, Kylie Ridler-Dutton. Welcome, Kylie.
Kylie:
Thanks, Darren.
Darren:
Managing Director Nathan Hodges. Hi, Nathan.
Nathan:
Hi, Darren. How are you?
Darren:
Good, thank you. Finance guru Nick Hand. Welcome, Nick.
Nick:
Thanks, Darren. How are you?
Darren:
Very well, and the media man, Stephen Wright. Hi, Stephen.
Stephen:
Good morning, Darren. Wonderful being here.
Darren:
It is. And we’re coming from all around Australia. So, Nathan’s in Perth at the moment and other members are in Melbourne and Brisbane, so we’re truly a national business. Look, let’s start off with the fact that this is the second round and it gives us the opportunity to look at how things have either improved or got worse. Was there anything that really stood out to anyone between last year and this year?
Nathan:
I’ll kick off Darren. The thing that surprised me and kind of disappointed a little in a way, the worst pitches seem to have got worse, that’s the biggest thing that jumped out at me. So, whereas the average has gone from, I think it’s a three point something down to a 2.9 across the piece. It’s the polarization within these results at least in the ones that the survey caught that just makes me pause for thought a little bit.
So, if the worst pitches have got worse and this market is polarizing a bit, it just seems that it’s going to be even more fertile ground for people to plant terrible stories about awful pitches that have abused agencies and have terrible outcomes.
And so, the cycle repeats and we’ll get more and more of these terrible articles saying that pitching is dead or other ridiculous things. So, I looked at that and kind of metaphorically put my head in my hands a little bit.
Darren:
And it’s true because it’s not just the averages, when you look at the spread, almost every single category of pitch type had ratings from ones up to five. It wasn’t as if there was some that seemed to score better than others, though on the average there clearly were differences.
Kylie, do you think there’s been a decrease in the quality or the execution of pitches in the last 12 months?
Kylie:
There has been listening to the market and getting out in the market and speaking to agencies. I do believe the figures show that predominantly these bad results are from marketers running or procurement running their own pitches and the conversations I’m having have not changed, I guess, from the last stats that we did receive doing this survey.
So, I believe that marketers are probably not looking at the feedback unfortunately whereas agencies are still feeling the pain. And I think that the key pain points for agencies are the transparency and the communication in these processes and not being told upfront what the expectation is and what the end result will lead to.
Darren:
Stephen, media has become so complex and complicated. Do you think that’s having an impact on the way media pitches are being run and is that leading to some of this frustration that we’re seeing?
Stephen:
Yeah, look I mean, the decrease in the scores and the quality of pitching is not surprising. I mean, media has become incredibly complex and that’s even happened over the last couple of years. There’s been a growth in in housing, and there are a lot of, even quite small clients now that have this hybrid of some services in house, using an agency, secondary other agencies employ, and it makes pitching and coming out with a perfect pitch scenario even more difficult.
And we find when clients approach us, they very often have a view of the desired outcome that we have to work with and we end up agreeing that actually the desired outcome is different to that which was part of the initial discussion.
So, if clients are running pitches themselves very often, they will then have a slightly flawed desired outcome that they’re working with from day one and that could be one of the reasons why pitches aren’t running well.
So, in tandem with that there is I think the offerings from the agency have become far more diverse as well. So, all of those factors in combination have meant that we as an industry and as a market are not doing pitches well even as well as a year ago and I think it’s probably media’s area where it’s most difficult to now do a pitch well.
Darren:
No, yeah, it’s true. I mean, there are so many options and so many challenges because it feels, particularly the media ecosystem has become much more complicated.
But Nick overlaying all this is obviously the economic changes that we’ve seen between round one and round two, the world’s been hit by cost-of-living crisis, we’ve had rampant inflation, and there are some telltale signs in some of the responses that there was much more focus on reducing costs during the pitch process, wasn’t there?
Nick:
Yeah, I think interestingly, when you look at the question of how the agencies winning these pitches would be remunerated, we’ve gone back or an increase in retainers as a high percentage of that total. Darren, you and I in particular, we’ve been spruiking output based and value-based remuneration and certainly we’ve seen an uptick in those B models in the pitches that we run at TrinityP3.
But I think broadly a lot of marketers are going back to something that’s safe and easy for them to understand and so retainers seem to be that safe haven that advertisers are going back into because they can potentially feel as though they manage the cost a bit better.
Darren:
And also, it does create a situation a bit like a smorgasbord, the client is paid for entry into the smorgasbord, and then it’s a matter of value is how much you can eat for each year.
Nick:
Yeah, I think that’s right. One of the other questions was, did the agency feel they were given a clear scope of work in order to produce their response and that’s gone backwards as well. So, I think the marketers have so much on their plate, so many channels and strategies to consider that going back to that all you can eat smorgasbord is perhaps again, a safe haven for them to hedge their bets and cover all bases.
Darren:
Now, looking at the results and we asked 30 questions and from that can pull quite a lot of insights. But starting with you, Kylie, was there any particular insight that you thought was particularly surprising or shocking?
Kylie:
I think disappointing is the amount of feedback, and I do get this when I do speak to the industry as well, of the lack of responsibility from marketers to actually give feedback. Because agencies, and we also agree with this feedback as currency, especially, there’s a very low percentage of pitches that are actually offering a pitch fee to agencies.
So, what they can get out of the pitch process is obviously experience for the people at the agency participating, but feedback at every stage, and that seemed to be a lot of the commentary, was around lack of communication, and I think extending the timeframe of a pitch process, not understanding why the process was actually changing throughout and during the process itself, and leaving a lot of agencies hanging, so to speak.
Darren:
One of my favorite quotes that came out of the research was an agency saying they were told … they did get feedback, they were told they were close second, and so they followed up with the other two agencies on the pitch to find out they were both a close second as well and discovered that the incumbent was actually re awarded the contract, even though they didn’t appear to have participated in the pitch at all.
So, the feeling it left with them with was, it was a fishing exercise to see if they could find something better and cheaper. Nick, that’s a bit of a fool’s errand, isn’t it?
Nick:
Oh, absolutely. I’ve always said that you can be blinded by the fool’s gold of something being cheaper, but if that’s not the right agency for what you need them to do, then you’ve wasted all that money. You may have “saved” some money on the fees that you were paying the agency, but if you’re not getting what you need or what you want then you might as well pull your money down the drain, it’s not going to push the business forward to help growth.
Nathan:
I mean, it’s worth saying Nick, isn’t it? And we’ve said it a hundred times, but it’s worth saying if you’re using a pitch to reduce costs from a client’s point of view, then you’re asking the wrong question, using the wrong tool for the task. If you need to go and increase efficiency, reduce costs, a pitch is a really bad way to do that and I don’t know how many times do we need to say that?
But again, in the survey, a lot of agency perception certainly is that that’s been one of the main motivators for clients to get to market and it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing to see, it won’t disappear quickly, I guess.
Darren:
And Nathan, in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, we’re not seeing budgets necessarily keep up with inflation. So, you can understand why marketers are trying to find out how to get more for less, but there are better ways than doing it than going for a pitches, aren’t there?
Nathan:
Yeah. I mean, if you want to get to your figure that’s in your head by hitting people over the head until they do it or putting your business out there until somebody low balls in after taking it, it’s a really short-term way of doing things, and it’s not a terribly productive way of doing things.
If you want to make an agency relationship more efficient, then there are specific ways of addressing that with the agency in a grown-up way, using all of the tools that are available rather than calling a pitch, which is expensive, everyone’s pocket, including the marketing team. It’s just a crazy answer to a question that really has very different, much better answers. But like I say, we say this a lot, it’s not necessarily a proposal survey.
Darren:
Stephen, it was interesting that the media buying exercise is still alive and well. How do you interpret that? Why are marketers still seem to be committed to getting agencies to make commitments to buying media for the next three years, even though it’s probably increasingly more difficult, even defining what you’re going to pay for it for the next six months?
Stephen:
Well, where do I start on how deeply flawed that approach is? I mean, the first thing is that you are focusing on price and not value and really, it’s no longer about price and pallium high and buying cheap eyeballs, it’s about finding the environments that resonate with the audience and buying them at a market appropriate price. So, price per se, in the absence of any value assessment on the trading side is deeply flawed.
The other thing is I mean, I was new business director and every new business director around town gets these templates and it’s like pinning a tail on the donkey. It’s where do I pin it, how low do I go? What do I have to promise so that I’m not adrift from other people? And unfortunately, very rarely is that attached to the reality of what you might be able to deliver.
And I’ve had CEOs, when I used to be new business director, said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll worry about the price we promised once we win the business.” And as you know, Darren, over the last sort of five or so years, we’ve had a number of clients come to us who have run a pitch, not through us but bought into pricing promises and been hugely disappointed that agencies haven’t delivered and so it is deeply flawed as a process.
Darren:
Stephen, when you engage with a marketer that’s looking at wanting to select a new media agency, what are the sort of two or three things upfront that you really help them focus on to help get a successful outcome?
Stephen:
Well, first thing is a really detailed discovery process. Only very often, because it’s such a complicated marketplace, because the client has such complicated and customized needs, they will approach it thinking that there is a type of solution and a type of outcome they want.
And what we do is we just go into that in a lot of detail and throw up other options and possibilities that very often change the way in which they’re putting their media services back together again.
We also ensure given the market is changing so quickly that they’re building something for the future rather than today. Because with the growth in housing, with the growth in digital what worked three years ago as a structure and a set of marketing service suppliers might not be ideal for the future.
Beyond that, I mean, I think the most important thing in a pitch is just to have a really tight timeline, an understanding of responsibilities, approvals, because nothing is worse for both client and agency than a pitch that has three- or four-week unforeseen delays in the middle of it from approval processes that weren’t taken into account, so I guess that’s one of the questions.
Darren:
It’s a pretty good list. Yeah, pretty good list. Kylie, what about you? Because a lot of the work you are doing is non-media, not just creative agencies, but PR and a whole range of content providers. What are the things that you try and get marketers to focus on at the outset before you even engage with any agencies?
Kylie:
What their expectations are, what they’re looking for, why are they doing a pitch process? And not only setting the expectations at the beginning of the process, but also sharing that internally. So, anybody involved or who’s going to be touching the pitch outcomes or process throughout and at the end are fully aware of what the expectations are that have been given or briefed out to the agencies that will be participating in the process, that’s one thing.
Because as Steve said, during a process, things do change, and that’s just life but making sure that that’s actually communicated at the time, and you don’t just leave agencies hanging, wondering what’s wrong, or if they haven’t been told honestly what’s happening and start to have to stress out about the lack of communication and what it means, read between the lines, so to speak.
And the second thing, as I said before, feedback is currency for these agencies again, other than experience, that’s all they’re going to get out of being involved in a pitch process unless they win, of course.
Darren:
Nathan, you are often involved in the very first and early conversations with marketers when they come to us. What do you think that the sort of main concerns or things that they may overlook that you find yourself dealing with on a regular basis?
Nathan:
I think the main thing is that there’s often quite a bit of confusion or fuzziness around the actual problem that they’re trying to solve. I always find that’s the biggest thing to get really, really clear on.
So, are you going to pitch to solve a performance problem, a capability problem, a process management problem, a relationship problem? And if you get super clear on what that problem is and then what the potential solutions could be through the pitch, then you can stay as flexible as you need to be during the pitch while staying crystal clear about solving that problem.
So, one of the phrases I often use is, no plan survives first contact with the enemy which is translated by Mike Tyson, as everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
So, given the complexity of the requirements that Stephen and Kylie were talking about here typically for most marketers, and then the number of different ways of meeting those requirements in the market, it pays a marketer going into a pitch to be a little bit flexible and a little bit open to different ways of solving the problem.
But what you’ve got to be absolutely clear about is what is that problem and what does the solution look like and then you can kind of navigate the rest of it with a bit of sense and a bit of integrity.
Darren:
Nick, on a financial perspective there are two things that I’ve noticed. Marketers will have a budget in mind when they’re going to pitch but rarely want to share it with the agencies and the second is, they don’t seem to have thought through how they pay agencies, what model areas. How do you deal with that? How do you enter into those conversations with them?
Nick:
With the budget question, fundamentally, if the agency doesn’t know the size of the prize, it’s very difficult for them to provide a considered commercial response. Clients will say, “Well, look, if I give them the budget, then they’ll spend it all.” And okay, that’s fine, so don’t give them the entire budget, give them a percentage of it.
So, it’s trying to convince the marketer that they are going to get a much sharper, potentially a better value for money response, commercial response from the agency if you actually give them some guidelines around what your business actually looks like. From the what fee model to use, again, it’s this conversation with the client about, “Okay, so what it is it that you value?”
And Nathan is very fond of saying, “Every fee model sends a message.” And so, what is the message that you, as the marketer, want to send to this agency? What is it that you value the most out of this appointment, out of this partnership? And try and steer the appropriate model based on that.
So, if there is two or three individuals within the agency personnel that the client really values, then maybe you need to pay for those people by the hour and the traditional head hour rate model, if you value the work that the agency is doing above everything else, and the people are a secondary consideration, then maybe something like an output or a value-based system is the way to go.
So, it’s sitting the client down, taking them through the various options and working out what’s going to be best for the problem that they’re trying to solve.
Darren:
Thanks Nick. One of the things that came through again this year is the apparent lack of soft skills or at least the application of soft skills, open, honest communication, timeliness. And Kylie, you’ve already raised, providing feedback and direction for the agency so that they can actually put their best presentational proposal forward.
These are things that you would, on a personal level, I’m sure all of the marketers feel that they’re doing that, but what is it that they should be aware of that they’re perhaps not aware of?
Kylie:
Was that to me?
Darren:
Yeah. Yes, it was.
Kylie:
So, I guess there’s two parts to that question. So, the first one, marketers, I guess why do they not understand the commitment that they’ll require to actually run a pitch process if they just treated the pitch itself just like any other project that they have in their remit, in their team, they would understand the importance of the output and what the outcome’s going to achieve for them as a team.
And I think for procurement, they’re usually brought in at the wrong time, probably too late, a lot of the time and especially I noticed in government tenders, it’s really what resource and procurement’s available at the time, and they may not have the skills or any exposure to marketing, so they might have procured, and I always use this as a bit of a joke, pens, for example, and think it’s transferable to a marketing tender.
So, they don’t understand the complexities, they don’t understand that they’re dealing with very skilled people running a business themselves that actually need to be treated slightly different to just acquiring goods, so to speak.
So, I think perhaps it’s a breakdown also between the internal communication between marketing and procurement, and they should actually take the time to sit down with a procurement person who’s going to be involved and explain what the expectations are and what the output of actually acquiring a marketing partner or agency will be.
Darren:
Nathan, we tender for a lot of business and a lot of those times it’s through procurement. What do you think is driving that behavior that doesn’t engage with potential vendors and doesn’t provide open and regular feedback?
Nathan:
It’s hard to say what’s driving it. I mean, I observed kind of the procurement process for pitching. Like, Kylie is very different from doing it for widgets or for products or for the other things that procurement does. But I think procurement, if it’s done well, procurement brings a real sense of professionalism, respect, and objectivity to this process.
The trouble with a lot of pitches is they become very personal very quickly. So, it’s a lot of bottomy, it’s a lot of glad handing, it’s a lot of establishing rapport. God, I hate that phrase, establishing rapport during the course of the whole thing and there’s a falseness to that if the professional and the commercial relationship underneath that is not absolutely solid, honest, direct and open.
And this is where marketers then part company with the whole process because they can’t, you know, for them, “Oh, I’ve got to know them, they seem really nice people,” and suddenly, sorry, seems to be the hardest word for those marketers, they don’t want to tell them the truth. Now procurement will, procurement will do it.
And somewhere between the two, there needs to be that happy medium, the good place that a pitch lives where there’s a realization that you can, if you want to get a friend, get a dog, if you want to get an agency, keep it professional and keep it commercially advantageous for both sides and keep it really direct and businesslike.
And on that firm foundation, can you then, if you choose, build some rapport and some friendship and some collegiality, if that’s a word, and I’m not sure it is. So, there’s that always going on here and I think it drives a lot of the behaviors that we see in the outcomes of this survey.
Darren:
Steve, because in the media space, there’s quite a lot of focus on the dollars but there’s also a need to build relationships and test out that chemistry isn’t there?
Stephen:
Well, I think what we do when we are involved in a pitch, we spend a lot of time with procurement. The media side has two large sets of dollars attached, one for the fee and one for the funds under management and what we have to do is move procurement beyond price into the value for both, because on the trading side, it’s not about the price, it’s about the quality of the appropriateness of the inventory.
And in terms of the fee, it’s about the quality of the service. And they see it as the services are very functionary from agencies because they don’t understand the nuances of how well agencies deliver. So, it’s really about moving procurement beyond price into value.
The second area that procurement irritate agencies is in asking for a lot of detailed documentation and RFPs upfront. And there’s always a lot more of the numbers and the governance and the forms and to fill in on the media side.
And if you are asking that upfront in quite a lot of detail from aid agencies, they’re all very busy. No one’s got a team of new business people sitting there waiting for a pitch, the better agencies will turn you down.
And we’ve had that happen when they’re busy, if you demand a lot of paperwork up front to be one of aid and have to complete a very work intensive RFP, some of them are reluctant to participate, and it’s always the better ones that have more options that will turn you down.
And really the way we try to look at it at TrinityP3 is to, for the first stage where it might be six agencies, a credentials or a chemistry meeting, is try and really minimize the amount of paperwork that needs to be done for those six agencies.
Most of them we know are not going to fall foul of any of the financial requirements in place. A lot of them are holding companies by of billion dollar networks. It really is a process that only has one outcome. So, getting all agencies to do that up front.
Once it gets down to three agencies at stage two, then you can legitimately ask all those agencies to go through that and they are happy to do it because they have a 33% chance of securing the business.
Darren:
The holding companies are less likely to go under or be insolvent, but they certainly seem increasingly more common for them to merge. And suddenly the agency you thought you were with now has a whole lot of competitors as clients.
Nick, one of the issues is around this thing of people seem to think you need two different approaches for the sort of relationship versus the contracting and financials, yet the two actually go hand in hand, don’t they?
Nick:
Absolutely they do. We talked earlier about the issue with the lack of the scope of work and what the budgets are and a lack of desire to disclose those. Coming back to the problem that the client or the market is trying to solve, you need to give the agency as much information as you can in order to get the right commercial proposal out of them.
So, one of the questions in the survey was around payment terms and how that seemingly has increased to 60 and even 90 days in some cases. All that information is necessary for the agency to put together a considered proposal.
And if you’re trying to separate that information from the process, if you’re trying to as you say Darren have two parts to the process and not have them come together at any point, it makes it very difficult for the agency to put together a proper proposal that is going to A, be competitive and B, the client’s going to see value in. So, it’s important to have all those factors disclosed up front to get the best response.
Darren:
I remember a cartoon of quite a few years ago, and the marketer says to the agency, “Congratulations, you are the agency we want to work with. Now, I’ll just hand you to my procurement team who’ll screw you on the price.” And that idea of splitting the two, I think, is quite damaging and reinforces a perception that never mind the quality, look at the price is the issue.
Nick:
If you want an agency that as a commodity and you don’t particularly care about the quality of the services, then that’s an excellent way to go about it. But if you do care about value and making sure you’re getting the best result you possibly can, all these things need to be considered as a whole.
Darren:
Now, it’s not just the marketers and it’s not just procurement, and it’s not just consultants, the agencies themselves can do things to make this process work better. And so, what I’d love to get is from each of you a recommendation of something an agency can do when they’re invited into a pitch that that would actually help them suffer less as part of that process. But I’ll start with you, Nathan.
Nathan:
I’d say two things. There’s the thing that we always say, which is, you need to be prepared to walk away. So, if it doesn’t work for you, or if it isn’t equitable, or if it isn’t a proper process, or you suspect that the problem that’s being solved is not really a problem that should be solved with a pitch don’t participate.
That’s difficult for a lot of agencies because the scrabble for new businesses is constant and new business never sleeps. So, I understand that you put your hand in the ring, but the second thing you can do, don’t underestimate the power that you’ve got in that conversation.
So, if you as an agency want to call out where things have gone wrong or where things are not right, or where things are unclear, or where you feel that the process is not suitable or industry standard, call it because actually you’ve got a lot more power in this conversation than a lot of agencies think.
And marketers, if they’re worth assault, will listen very hard to feedback from agencies saying that there is something awry with this process because they’re more exposed than you think their reputation is out there.
Journalists are dying to write bad things about pitchers that are in the market, and it reflects badly on the marketing team and then the brand and the corporation as a whole, so you’ve got more power than you think.
Darren:
Yep. Yep. Kylie.
Kylie:
Very much agree with what Nathan just said. I think the best thing that agencies can do is ask questions. And I do try when I’m running a pitch process to ensure that everybody understands they are allowed to ask questions.
Because I think that’s a barrier sometimes because they have been in a tender process that you’re not allowed to communicate very often, or if it’s going through procurement, it’s a very strict communication path that doesn’t make you feel like you can ask questions. So, ask as many questions as you can upfront or at every stage of the pitch.
And I’d say, our industry most of us are in this industry because we’re inquisitive creatures and asking questions is going to help you, but also do your research, ask around. Industry also loves to gossip, so sit, try and find out what the history is with when did they last go to pitch or what was the outcome of that or what was the business problem, has it changed since so?
Do as much pre-work as you can to research what the business is about, any history on the clients, where their background is to ensure that the problem that they’re trying to solve during the pitch process and even after the pitch process, what the requirements will be and what are the capabilities that you will require as an agency, make sure that that’s all very clear before you actually accept.
And as I always say to agencies, and I do believe that we’re maturing as a market a lot, and I am seeing a lot more agencies say no, as Stephen also mentioned. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.
Darren:
Stephen, what advice have you got for agencies and particularly the indie agencies because they’re growing in number all the time?
Stephen:
I think you need to find out what the process is, what the steps are, and what the timeline is. And those are perfect, legitimate questions to ask because as a product, if you are an indie or if you’re a holding company, you will have particular strengths and you do understand that the pitch process allows you to dial up those strengths and play to those strengths.
And with some pitch processes, which are very much about RFP and documentation don’t allow you to sell the qualitative aspects of your product and the strength of the individuals you can bring to the party.
So, I think you need to ask a lot of those questions and then determine whether that actually suits the agency product you have, whether you’ll be able to put your best foot forward in the type of process that’s being run and ask about the timeline.
And a good pitch process will have a timeline before they talk to the first agency. If they haven’t got a timeline, I can’t confirm a timeline or won’t confirm a timeline that’s a red flag. That’s a red flag.
Darren:
It’s like a relationship, too many red flags and you’re out of there. Nick, particularly from a contracting and financial point of view what are the things that agencies could be doing to make their life a little less battered?
Nick:
I think first thing is answer the RFP, a lot of times these RFPs are quite prescriptive and there’s many and various reasons for that. And I’d like to think the pitches that we run, we are a little bit more flexible if an agency doesn’t respond exactly how they’ve been asked, we’ll go back and we’ll clarify and ask questions and get to the point that it needs to be.
But in a lot of cases, particularly those pitches that are solely procurement run, if you don’t comply with the requirements, you get counted out immediately. So, that’s the first thing, answer the RFP.
But then on top of that, I would also say if you believe that there is other information that you can offer, or another way that you think something could be done that is better and going to provide either more value to the advertiser or make the marketer’s life easier, then make sure you state that but answer the requirements first.
Darren:
Now, recently as part of the state of the pitch report release, I was invited to go on the Mumbrella cast with Tim Burrowes, where he suggested that perhaps TrinityP3 is part of the pitch problem. And I addressed that at the time, but I’d just be really interested in your thoughts and whether you think, are we part of the problem and how do we avoid being part of the problem, Nathan?
Nathan:
Oh, well, alright. So, Tim made a very clever point. Yeah, of course, by definition we are part of the problem because we’re part of the process. So, if you think that pitching’s a problem, we are part of that, okay, fine. Well done, thanks, logical point Tim.
But to take that logical point to its logical conclusion, what’s he suggesting we do, we get out of pitching altogether and we stop advising clients and we stop making it better. I mean, it becomes ridiculous very fast.
So, look, I mean the objective here, whether we’re running these pitches or whether we are advising on them and I’ll come back to that in a second, is that we’re trying to make the damn thing better and we’re trying to be a voice for sense and process and openness and directness.
That advisory thing is the stickiest one for us and maybe that’s why we’re all a bit more sensitive about it. Increasingly, we’re being asked by procurement to join a team with the marketers where we are industry advisors rather than actually managing the whole process.
So, for compliance reasons or governance reasons, the procurement team needs actually to front up and to write a procurement plan front up to the agencies and be the representative of the client. And the trouble with that is that not all our recommendations see the light of day in terms of a process outcome.
Which doesn’t mean that we don’t argue as vehemently as we did. It doesn’t mean that we don’t make a difference because we do is just that the perfect outcome is not always available to us, it’s a better outcome than it was before. I don’t know.
I always say when people like Tim raise these things, “Look, we’re trying our hardest to make it better. We’re not afraid to get our hands dirty in so doing.” And I think we’re better inside trying to make things work than outside, kind of throwing stones at the whole thing. That’s where I end up anyway.
Darren:
Steve, what’s your perspective on that?
Stephen:
I think Nathan’s been too polite. I think Tim is talking out of his backside. We’re actually part of the solution. We are part of the solution, not the problem. Pitches have become far more complicated; we understand them better than anyone else.
We work very hard with procurement; we push back against marketing and procurement to make the pitch process better and swifter for agencies. So, we are part of the solution, not the problem. And I haven’t said anything directly to Tim, but I really think he just doesn’t understand what we do and happy to educate him at some point in the future.
Darren:
Well, there’s the point that we’re tracking to do more than 30 tenders, major tenders a year. There would be very few people in the market. Imagine being a marketer running that many in a year, it’d be a full-time job. Kylie.
Kylie:
Look, we often obviously it was something that you asked us to all do many years ago when we’re running pitch processes is use radical candor and I wish some people in the industry or agencies would use some of that to actually give us some negative feedback.
So, we always say that’s the only way that you can improve or improve a process and we are happy to take that feedback. Obviously, there’s some shitty comments once in a while anonymous online and you can’t work out what the root of that was or what the pitch was about to actually improve things.
But I seriously only get positive feedback from most marketers and agencies and agencies that don’t even win a pitch process because what they’ve gotten out of a process, which is valuable is respect, feedback and an understanding of their business as well and how tough things are out there. We’re not going to just use and abuse people just to make up a list.
So, yeah, look, at the end of the day, we are brokers of information, and we are just helping to make that process and help the marketers and procurement people understand what information they require to actually run a smooth pitch process.
Darren:
Thanks Kylie. Nick, benchmarking and financials money is an area that often causes a lot of tension for people. Do you think we could be better at what we do or are we doing the best that we can in the circumstances?
Nick:
Look, I think there’s always room for improvement. Anyone says that they’re perfect is lying to you. I think, where we can add value is on a fee perspective, a commercial perspective informing clients where these proposals sit in relation to what we’re seeing in the rest of the market and in other comments been made a couple of times already, cheaper is not always better and quite often the agency that low balls the fee in order to “buy” the business that just ends up leading the problems down the track.
And we can cite countless times where the agency’s not being paid enough money to keep the relationships sustainable. And then equally, if an agency is quoting above the rest of the market, then we can help guide the client into determining whether they see value in paying that premium or not.
And then if not, then they’re clearly helping to negotiate it back to a level that the client’s comfortable paying and that they see value in paying. So, I think from that perspective, it’s a very valuable exercise to rather than just comparing the three or four proposals against each other, well, how does that compare against the broader market and providing advice and council off the back of that?
Darren:
And look, one of the things is the misunderstanding of what benchmarking’s about. There are a lot of consultants and procurement people that purely use a very flat average of all suppliers as their benchmark, so I think there’s also an educational role.
I remember very early on when I started TrinityP3 David, not David Morgan, Rob Morgan, sorry, when I started TrinityP3, Rob Morgan at Clemenger said, “It’ll be people like you that destroy this industry.” And I had great delight in reminding him of that a few years ago and saying, “I think you did a good job doing it yourselves, it didn’t need our help.”
So, I think that and as I said to Tim, I think we’re constantly looking for ways of improving the pitch process because ultimately the measure of success isn’t just a client selecting an agency, but that being the start of a long-term, highly productive and high performing relationship. We don’t want clients having to go to tender every two or three years, it’s much better if they manage to maintain long-term and productive relationships.
Look just quickly, the time’s got away from us, but how can we use this research to really engage with marketers to see that there are better ways of selecting agencies and managing the pitch process? Kylie, have you got thoughts on that?
Kylie:
I think going back to one of my earlier points about making sure there’s not a disconnect between procurement and the marketing team or any other departments that you think need to be across what the output of this pitch process is going to be that they consider running.
In today’s climate, they have to understand that agencies, especially with all the indies out there, that they’re running a business just like the marketers and it’s really expensive to do, it’s really hard to keep people employed in today’s climate.
So, just have a slight understanding of that and understand that drawing out a pitch process for months at a time or just saying that we’ve completed the pitch process, but now it’s going to take two months for procurement to give us a result, is really going to impact and effect in a negative manner the agencies that have given you their time and knowledge in a trusting free relationship.
Darren:
Stephen, advice of ways of getting marketers to engage in a better pitch process?
Stephen:
Well, I think just recognizing that whilst they may be in the industry very engaged and been involved in a long while, there are so many nuances and complex issues to grapple with in a tender or a pitch process that getting external advice on what has worked for other people and the best pathway through is a worthwhile investment. And nearly every client that approaches us now has two or three issues or dilemmas within the pitch that they’re uncertain about.
So, recognizing that uncertainty and that external advice and using an external partners such as ourselves as a sounding board from the very start of the process will reap dividends. There’s a lot of ways to go wrong in a media pitch and so, it’s better to talk to people who can help understand and have worked with similar issues with other clients.
Darren:
Nick.
Nick:
I think it has been said a couple of times that a lot procurement markets will often go in with a view of cost and price and have a number in their head. I think take a step back from that and try and close the value loop. What does success look like with this appointment? And how is that going to impact our business? What is the value that we’re going to get from a successful relationship rather than just how much it costs is an extra step to take.
Stephen:
And just picking up on that point, Darren, we spend a lot of time working with procurement and marketers find it far more difficult. They’re beholden to procurement, that procurement oversee them. So, we can be a very useful asset in bringing procurement to understanding the value versus price equation and how those dynamics work.
Darren:
And Nathan leaving the last word with you, how what do you see as the opportunity here?
Nathan:
Look, I think there’s two things that we can underline here. The first is just being super clear about the problem that you’re setting out to solve and just making sure that the pitch actually solves it. And the second one is being unswervingly honest and direct and clear at every stage in that pitch with all the participants, including the internal stakeholders of marketing.
Darren:
It doesn’t sound hard, does it? But let’s hope that when we repeat this research, we start to see an improvement rather than the drop that we saw this year. Look, thanks very much for joining me. I want to thank you Kylie Ridler Dutton, the pitch whiz and Nathan, the managing director, Nick, the financial guru, and Steve, our media man, thanks very much for coming and chatting about the state of the pitch in Australia.
Nick:
Thanks, Darren.
Kylie:
Thanks for the chat.
Nathan:
Thanks.
Darren:
And interestingly, looking at the results from Canada, where Campaign Canada ran the state of the pitch, very similar results across the board, but interesting the level of engagement that they’ve had, not just from agencies but from industry bodies, both on the marketer and the agency side. So, it’ll be interesting to see as state of the pitch rolls out across the rest of the world in the coming 12 months or more.
Thanks very much for joining us on Managing Marketing.
state_of the pitch 2025
Speakers: Darren Woolley, Nathan Hodges, Nick Hand, Stephen Wright, & Kylie Ridler-Dutton
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management consultancy and welcome to Managing Marketing. A weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
If you are enjoying the Managing Marketing Podcast, please either like, review, or share this episode to help spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
In response to the increasingly vocal call from agencies around the world to ditch the pitch and trade media running headlines and opinion pieces claiming the pitch is broken and even dead, we launched the state of the pitch research in Australia in 2023. Since then, Haymarket has taken up the research rolling it out with Campaign Canada and plans to roll it out globally in the years ahead.
The second round of state of the pitch research was run in Australia between June and December last year. The report makes interesting reading on what’s going on and what’s going wrong with pitching and what, if anything, is improving or getting worse.
Today, on the Managing Marketing Podcast, we have members of the TrinityP3 team involved in the pitching process to discuss and share their thoughts and insights on the state of the pitch Australia research. Please welcome from TrinityP3 pitch whiz, Kylie Ridler-Dutton. Welcome, Kylie.
Kylie:
Thanks, Darren.
Darren:
Managing Director Nathan Hodges. Hi, Nathan.
Nathan:
Hi, Darren. How are you?
Darren:
Good, thank you. Finance guru Nick Hand. Welcome, Nick.
Nick:
Thanks, Darren. How are you?
Darren:
Very well, and the media man, Stephen Wright. Hi, Stephen.
Stephen:
Good morning, Darren. Wonderful being here.
Darren:
It is. And we’re coming from all around Australia. So, Nathan’s in Perth at the moment and other members are in Melbourne and Brisbane, so we’re truly a national business. Look, let’s start off with the fact that this is the second round and it gives us the opportunity to look at how things have either improved or got worse. Was there anything that really stood out to anyone between last year and this year?
Nathan:
I’ll kick off Darren. The thing that surprised me and kind of disappointed a little in a way, the worst pitches seem to have got worse, that’s the biggest thing that jumped out at me. So, whereas the average has gone from, I think it’s a three point something down to a 2.9 across the piece. It’s the polarization within these results at least in the ones that the survey caught that just makes me pause for thought a little bit.
So, if the worst pitches have got worse and this market is polarizing a bit, it just seems that it’s going to be even more fertile ground for people to plant terrible stories about awful pitches that have abused agencies and have terrible outcomes.
And so, the cycle repeats and we’ll get more and more of these terrible articles saying that pitching is dead or other ridiculous things. So, I looked at that and kind of metaphorically put my head in my hands a little bit.
Darren:
And it’s true because it’s not just the averages, when you look at the spread, almost every single category of pitch type had ratings from ones up to five. It wasn’t as if there was some that seemed to score better than others, though on the average there clearly were differences.
Kylie, do you think there’s been a decrease in the quality or the execution of pitches in the last 12 months?
Kylie:
There has been listening to the market and getting out in the market and speaking to agencies. I do believe the figures show that predominantly these bad results are from marketers running or procurement running their own pitches and the conversations I’m having have not changed, I guess, from the last stats that we did receive doing this survey.
So, I believe that marketers are probably not looking at the feedback unfortunately whereas agencies are still feeling the pain. And I think that the key pain points for agencies are the transparency and the communication in these processes and not being told upfront what the expectation is and what the end result will lead to.
Darren:
Stephen, media has become so complex and complicated. Do you think that’s having an impact on the way media pitches are being run and is that leading to some of this frustration that we’re seeing?
Stephen:
Yeah, look I mean, the decrease in the scores and the quality of pitching is not surprising. I mean, media has become incredibly complex and that’s even happened over the last couple of years. There’s been a growth in in housing, and there are a lot of, even quite small clients now that have this hybrid of some services in house, using an agency, secondary other agencies employ, and it makes pitching and coming out with a perfect pitch scenario even more difficult.
And we find when clients approach us, they very often have a view of the desired outcome that we have to work with and we end up agreeing that actually the desired outcome is different to that which was part of the initial discussion.
So, if clients are running pitches themselves very often, they will then have a slightly flawed desired outcome that they’re working with from day one and that could be one of the reasons why pitches aren’t running well.
So, in tandem with that there is I think the offerings from the agency have become far more diverse as well. So, all of those factors in combination have meant that we as an industry and as a market are not doing pitches well even as well as a year ago and I think it’s probably media’s area where it’s most difficult to now do a pitch well.
Darren:
No, yeah, it’s true. I mean, there are so many options and so many challenges because it feels, particularly the media ecosystem has become much more complicated.
But Nick overlaying all this is obviously the economic changes that we’ve seen between round one and round two, the world’s been hit by cost-of-living crisis, we’ve had rampant inflation, and there are some telltale signs in some of the responses that there was much more focus on reducing costs during the pitch process, wasn’t there?
Nick:
Yeah, I think interestingly, when you look at the question of how the agencies winning these pitches would be remunerated, we’ve gone back or an increase in retainers as a high percentage of that total. Darren, you and I in particular, we’ve been spruiking output based and value-based remuneration and certainly we’ve seen an uptick in those B models in the pitches that we run at TrinityP3.
But I think broadly a lot of marketers are going back to something that’s safe and easy for them to understand and so retainers seem to be that safe haven that advertisers are going back into because they can potentially feel as though they manage the cost a bit better.
Darren:
And also, it does create a situation a bit like a smorgasbord, the client is paid for entry into the smorgasbord, and then it’s a matter of value is how much you can eat for each year.
Nick:
Yeah, I think that’s right. One of the other questions was, did the agency feel they were given a clear scope of work in order to produce their response and that’s gone backwards as well. So, I think the marketers have so much on their plate, so many channels and strategies to consider that going back to that all you can eat smorgasbord is perhaps again, a safe haven for them to hedge their bets and cover all bases.
Darren:
Now, looking at the results and we asked 30 questions and from that can pull quite a lot of insights. But starting with you, Kylie, was there any particular insight that you thought was particularly surprising or shocking?
Kylie:
I think disappointing is the amount of feedback, and I do get this when I do speak to the industry as well, of the lack of responsibility from marketers to actually give feedback. Because agencies, and we also agree with this feedback as currency, especially, there’s a very low percentage of pitches that are actually offering a pitch fee to agencies.
So, what they can get out of the pitch process is obviously experience for the people at the agency participating, but feedback at every stage, and that seemed to be a lot of the commentary, was around lack of communication, and I think extending the timeframe of a pitch process, not understanding why the process was actually changing throughout and during the process itself, and leaving a lot of agencies hanging, so to speak.
Darren:
One of my favorite quotes that came out of the research was an agency saying they were told … they did get feedback, they were told they were close second, and so they followed up with the other two agencies on the pitch to find out they were both a close second as well and discovered that the incumbent was actually re awarded the contract, even though they didn’t appear to have participated in the pitch at all.
So, the feeling it left with them with was, it was a fishing exercise to see if they could find something better and cheaper. Nick, that’s a bit of a fool’s errand, isn’t it?
Nick:
Oh, absolutely. I’ve always said that you can be blinded by the fool’s gold of something being cheaper, but if that’s not the right agency for what you need them to do, then you’ve wasted all that money. You may have “saved” some money on the fees that you were paying the agency, but if you’re not getting what you need or what you want then you might as well pull your money down the drain, it’s not going to push the business forward to help growth.
Nathan:
I mean, it’s worth saying Nick, isn’t it? And we’ve said it a hundred times, but it’s worth saying if you’re using a pitch to reduce costs from a client’s point of view, then you’re asking the wrong question, using the wrong tool for the task. If you need to go and increase efficiency, reduce costs, a pitch is a really bad way to do that and I don’t know how many times do we need to say that?
But again, in the survey, a lot of agency perception certainly is that that’s been one of the main motivators for clients to get to market and it’s disappointing. It’s disappointing to see, it won’t disappear quickly, I guess.
Darren:
And Nathan, in the context of the cost-of-living crisis, we’re not seeing budgets necessarily keep up with inflation. So, you can understand why marketers are trying to find out how to get more for less, but there are better ways than doing it than going for a pitches, aren’t there?
Nathan:
Yeah. I mean, if you want to get to your figure that’s in your head by hitting people over the head until they do it or putting your business out there until somebody low balls in after taking it, it’s a really short-term way of doing things, and it’s not a terribly productive way of doing things.
If you want to make an agency relationship more efficient, then there are specific ways of addressing that with the agency in a grown-up way, using all of the tools that are available rather than calling a pitch, which is expensive, everyone’s pocket, including the marketing team. It’s just a crazy answer to a question that really has very different, much better answers. But like I say, we say this a lot, it’s not necessarily a proposal survey.
Darren:
Stephen, it was interesting that the media buying exercise is still alive and well. How do you interpret that? Why are marketers still seem to be committed to getting agencies to make commitments to buying media for the next three years, even though it’s probably increasingly more difficult, even defining what you’re going to pay for it for the next six months?
Stephen:
Well, where do I start on how deeply flawed that approach is? I mean, the first thing is that you are focusing on price and not value and really, it’s no longer about price and pallium high and buying cheap eyeballs, it’s about finding the environments that resonate with the audience and buying them at a market appropriate price. So, price per se, in the absence of any value assessment on the trading side is deeply flawed.
The other thing is I mean, I was new business director and every new business director around town gets these templates and it’s like pinning a tail on the donkey. It’s where do I pin it, how low do I go? What do I have to promise so that I’m not adrift from other people? And unfortunately, very rarely is that attached to the reality of what you might be able to deliver.
And I’ve had CEOs, when I used to be new business director, said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll worry about the price we promised once we win the business.” And as you know, Darren, over the last sort of five or so years, we’ve had a number of clients come to us who have run a pitch, not through us but bought into pricing promises and been hugely disappointed that agencies haven’t delivered and so it is deeply flawed as a process.
Darren:
Stephen, when you engage with a marketer that’s looking at wanting to select a new media agency, what are the sort of two or three things upfront that you really help them focus on to help get a successful outcome?
Stephen:
Well, first thing is a really detailed discovery process. Only very often, because it’s such a complicated marketplace, because the client has such complicated and customized needs, they will approach it thinking that there is a type of solution and a type of outcome they want.
And what we do is we just go into that in a lot of detail and throw up other options and possibilities that very often change the way in which they’re putting their media services back together again.
We also ensure given the market is changing so quickly that they’re building something for the future rather than today. Because with the growth in housing, with the growth in digital what worked three years ago as a structure and a set of marketing service suppliers might not be ideal for the future.
Beyond that, I mean, I think the most important thing in a pitch is just to have a really tight timeline, an understanding of responsibilities, approvals, because nothing is worse for both client and agency than a pitch that has three- or four-week unforeseen delays in the middle of it from approval processes that weren’t taken into account, so I guess that’s one of the questions.
Darren:
It’s a pretty good list. Yeah, pretty good list. Kylie, what about you? Because a lot of the work you are doing is non-media, not just creative agencies, but PR and a whole range of content providers. What are the things that you try and get marketers to focus on at the outset before you even engage with any agencies?
Kylie:
What their expectations are, what they’re looking for, why are they doing a pitch process? And not only setting the expectations at the beginning of the process, but also sharing that internally. So, anybody involved or who’s going to be touching the pitch outcomes or process throughout and at the end are fully aware of what the expectations are that have been given or briefed out to the agencies that will be participating in the process, that’s one thing.
Because as Steve said, during a process, things do change, and that’s just life but making sure that that’s actually communicated at the time, and you don’t just leave agencies hanging, wondering what’s wrong, or if they haven’t been told honestly what’s happening and start to have to stress out about the lack of communication and what it means, read between the lines, so to speak.
And the second thing, as I said before, feedback is currency for these agencies again, other than experience, that’s all they’re going to get out of being involved in a pitch process unless they win, of course.
Darren:
Nathan, you are often involved in the very first and early conversations with marketers when they come to us. What do you think that the sort of main concerns or things that they may overlook that you find yourself dealing with on a regular basis?
Nathan:
I think the main thing is that there’s often quite a bit of confusion or fuzziness around the actual problem that they’re trying to solve. I always find that’s the biggest thing to get really, really clear on.
So, are you going to pitch to solve a performance problem, a capability problem, a process management problem, a relationship problem? And if you get super clear on what that problem is and then what the potential solutions could be through the pitch, then you can stay as flexible as you need to be during the pitch while staying crystal clear about solving that problem.
So, one of the phrases I often use is, no plan survives first contact with the enemy which is translated by Mike Tyson, as everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
So, given the complexity of the requirements that Stephen and Kylie were talking about here typically for most marketers, and then the number of different ways of meeting those requirements in the market, it pays a marketer going into a pitch to be a little bit flexible and a little bit open to different ways of solving the problem.
But what you’ve got to be absolutely clear about is what is that problem and what does the solution look like and then you can kind of navigate the rest of it with a bit of sense and a bit of integrity.
Darren:
Nick, on a financial perspective there are two things that I’ve noticed. Marketers will have a budget in mind when they’re going to pitch but rarely want to share it with the agencies and the second is, they don’t seem to have thought through how they pay agencies, what model areas. How do you deal with that? How do you enter into those conversations with them?
Nick:
With the budget question, fundamentally, if the agency doesn’t know the size of the prize, it’s very difficult for them to provide a considered commercial response. Clients will say, “Well, look, if I give them the budget, then they’ll spend it all.” And okay, that’s fine, so don’t give them the entire budget, give them a percentage of it.
So, it’s trying to convince the marketer that they are going to get a much sharper, potentially a better value for money response, commercial response from the agency if you actually give them some guidelines around what your business actually looks like. From the what fee model to use, again, it’s this conversation with the client about, “Okay, so what it is it that you value?”
And Nathan is very fond of saying, “Every fee model sends a message.” And so, what is the message that you, as the marketer, want to send to this agency? What is it that you value the most out of this appointment, out of this partnership? And try and steer the appropriate model based on that.
So, if there is two or three individuals within the agency personnel that the client really values, then maybe you need to pay for those people by the hour and the traditional head hour rate model, if you value the work that the agency is doing above everything else, and the people are a secondary consideration, then maybe something like an output or a value-based system is the way to go.
So, it’s sitting the client down, taking them through the various options and working out what’s going to be best for the problem that they’re trying to solve.
Darren:
Thanks Nick. One of the things that came through again this year is the apparent lack of soft skills or at least the application of soft skills, open, honest communication, timeliness. And Kylie, you’ve already raised, providing feedback and direction for the agency so that they can actually put their best presentational proposal forward.
These are things that you would, on a personal level, I’m sure all of the marketers feel that they’re doing that, but what is it that they should be aware of that they’re perhaps not aware of?
Kylie:
Was that to me?
Darren:
Yeah. Yes, it was.
Kylie:
So, I guess there’s two parts to that question. So, the first one, marketers, I guess why do they not understand the commitment that they’ll require to actually run a pitch process if they just treated the pitch itself just like any other project that they have in their remit, in their team, they would understand the importance of the output and what the outcome’s going to achieve for them as a team.
And I think for procurement, they’re usually brought in at the wrong time, probably too late, a lot of the time and especially I noticed in government tenders, it’s really what resource and procurement’s available at the time, and they may not have the skills or any exposure to marketing, so they might have procured, and I always use this as a bit of a joke, pens, for example, and think it’s transferable to a marketing tender.
So, they don’t understand the complexities, they don’t understand that they’re dealing with very skilled people running a business themselves that actually need to be treated slightly different to just acquiring goods, so to speak.
So, I think perhaps it’s a breakdown also between the internal communication between marketing and procurement, and they should actually take the time to sit down with a procurement person who’s going to be involved and explain what the expectations are and what the output of actually acquiring a marketing partner or agency will be.
Darren:
Nathan, we tender for a lot of business and a lot of those times it’s through procurement. What do you think is driving that behavior that doesn’t engage with potential vendors and doesn’t provide open and regular feedback?
Nathan:
It’s hard to say what’s driving it. I mean, I observed kind of the procurement process for pitching. Like, Kylie is very different from doing it for widgets or for products or for the other things that procurement does. But I think procurement, if it’s done well, procurement brings a real sense of professionalism, respect, and objectivity to this process.
The trouble with a lot of pitches is they become very personal very quickly. So, it’s a lot of bottomy, it’s a lot of glad handing, it’s a lot of establishing rapport. God, I hate that phrase, establishing rapport during the course of the whole thing and there’s a falseness to that if the professional and the commercial relationship underneath that is not absolutely solid, honest, direct and open.
And this is where marketers then part company with the whole process because they can’t, you know, for them, “Oh, I’ve got to know them, they seem really nice people,” and suddenly, sorry, seems to be the hardest word for those marketers, they don’t want to tell them the truth. Now procurement will, procurement will do it.
And somewhere between the two, there needs to be that happy medium, the good place that a pitch lives where there’s a realization that you can, if you want to get a friend, get a dog, if you want to get an agency, keep it professional and keep it commercially advantageous for both sides and keep it really direct and businesslike.
And on that firm foundation, can you then, if you choose, build some rapport and some friendship and some collegiality, if that’s a word, and I’m not sure it is. So, there’s that always going on here and I think it drives a lot of the behaviors that we see in the outcomes of this survey.
Darren:
Steve, because in the media space, there’s quite a lot of focus on the dollars but there’s also a need to build relationships and test out that chemistry isn’t there?
Stephen:
Well, I think what we do when we are involved in a pitch, we spend a lot of time with procurement. The media side has two large sets of dollars attached, one for the fee and one for the funds under management and what we have to do is move procurement beyond price into the value for both, because on the trading side, it’s not about the price, it’s about the quality of the appropriateness of the inventory.
And in terms of the fee, it’s about the quality of the service. And they see it as the services are very functionary from agencies because they don’t understand the nuances of how well agencies deliver. So, it’s really about moving procurement beyond price into value.
The second area that procurement irritate agencies is in asking for a lot of detailed documentation and RFPs upfront. And there’s always a lot more of the numbers and the governance and the forms and to fill in on the media side.
And if you are asking that upfront in quite a lot of detail from aid agencies, they’re all very busy. No one’s got a team of new business people sitting there waiting for a pitch, the better agencies will turn you down.
And we’ve had that happen when they’re busy, if you demand a lot of paperwork up front to be one of aid and have to complete a very work intensive RFP, some of them are reluctant to participate, and it’s always the better ones that have more options that will turn you down.
And really the way we try to look at it at TrinityP3 is to, for the first stage where it might be six agencies, a credentials or a chemistry meeting, is try and really minimize the amount of paperwork that needs to be done for those six agencies.
Most of them we know are not going to fall foul of any of the financial requirements in place. A lot of them are holding companies by of billion dollar networks. It really is a process that only has one outcome. So, getting all agencies to do that up front.
Once it gets down to three agencies at stage two, then you can legitimately ask all those agencies to go through that and they are happy to do it because they have a 33% chance of securing the business.
Darren:
The holding companies are less likely to go under or be insolvent, but they certainly seem increasingly more common for them to merge. And suddenly the agency you thought you were with now has a whole lot of competitors as clients.
Nick, one of the issues is around this thing of people seem to think you need two different approaches for the sort of relationship versus the contracting and financials, yet the two actually go hand in hand, don’t they?
Nick:
Absolutely they do. We talked earlier about the issue with the lack of the scope of work and what the budgets are and a lack of desire to disclose those. Coming back to the problem that the client or the market is trying to solve, you need to give the agency as much information as you can in order to get the right commercial proposal out of them.
So, one of the questions in the survey was around payment terms and how that seemingly has increased to 60 and even 90 days in some cases. All that information is necessary for the agency to put together a considered proposal.
And if you’re trying to separate that information from the process, if you’re trying to as you say Darren have two parts to the process and not have them come together at any point, it makes it very difficult for the agency to put together a proper proposal that is going to A, be competitive and B, the client’s going to see value in. So, it’s important to have all those factors disclosed up front to get the best response.
Darren:
I remember a cartoon of quite a few years ago, and the marketer says to the agency, “Congratulations, you are the agency we want to work with. Now, I’ll just hand you to my procurement team who’ll screw you on the price.” And that idea of splitting the two, I think, is quite damaging and reinforces a perception that never mind the quality, look at the price is the issue.
Nick:
If you want an agency that as a commodity and you don’t particularly care about the quality of the services, then that’s an excellent way to go about it. But if you do care about value and making sure you’re getting the best result you possibly can, all these things need to be considered as a whole.
Darren:
Now, it’s not just the marketers and it’s not just procurement, and it’s not just consultants, the agencies themselves can do things to make this process work better. And so, what I’d love to get is from each of you a recommendation of something an agency can do when they’re invited into a pitch that that would actually help them suffer less as part of that process. But I’ll start with you, Nathan.
Nathan:
I’d say two things. There’s the thing that we always say, which is, you need to be prepared to walk away. So, if it doesn’t work for you, or if it isn’t equitable, or if it isn’t a proper process, or you suspect that the problem that’s being solved is not really a problem that should be solved with a pitch don’t participate.
That’s difficult for a lot of agencies because the scrabble for new businesses is constant and new business never sleeps. So, I understand that you put your hand in the ring, but the second thing you can do, don’t underestimate the power that you’ve got in that conversation.
So, if you as an agency want to call out where things have gone wrong or where things are not right, or where things are unclear, or where you feel that the process is not suitable or industry standard, call it because actually you’ve got a lot more power in this conversation than a lot of agencies think.
And marketers, if they’re worth assault, will listen very hard to feedback from agencies saying that there is something awry with this process because they’re more exposed than you think their reputation is out there.
Journalists are dying to write bad things about pitchers that are in the market, and it reflects badly on the marketing team and then the brand and the corporation as a whole, so you’ve got more power than you think.
Darren:
Yep. Yep. Kylie.
Kylie:
Very much agree with what Nathan just said. I think the best thing that agencies can do is ask questions. And I do try when I’m running a pitch process to ensure that everybody understands they are allowed to ask questions.
Because I think that’s a barrier sometimes because they have been in a tender process that you’re not allowed to communicate very often, or if it’s going through procurement, it’s a very strict communication path that doesn’t make you feel like you can ask questions. So, ask as many questions as you can upfront or at every stage of the pitch.
And I’d say, our industry most of us are in this industry because we’re inquisitive creatures and asking questions is going to help you, but also do your research, ask around. Industry also loves to gossip, so sit, try and find out what the history is with when did they last go to pitch or what was the outcome of that or what was the business problem, has it changed since so?
Do as much pre-work as you can to research what the business is about, any history on the clients, where their background is to ensure that the problem that they’re trying to solve during the pitch process and even after the pitch process, what the requirements will be and what are the capabilities that you will require as an agency, make sure that that’s all very clear before you actually accept.
And as I always say to agencies, and I do believe that we’re maturing as a market a lot, and I am seeing a lot more agencies say no, as Stephen also mentioned. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.
Darren:
Stephen, what advice have you got for agencies and particularly the indie agencies because they’re growing in number all the time?
Stephen:
I think you need to find out what the process is, what the steps are, and what the timeline is. And those are perfect, legitimate questions to ask because as a product, if you are an indie or if you’re a holding company, you will have particular strengths and you do understand that the pitch process allows you to dial up those strengths and play to those strengths.
And with some pitch processes, which are very much about RFP and documentation don’t allow you to sell the qualitative aspects of your product and the strength of the individuals you can bring to the party.
So, I think you need to ask a lot of those questions and then determine whether that actually suits the agency product you have, whether you’ll be able to put your best foot forward in the type of process that’s being run and ask about the timeline.
And a good pitch process will have a timeline before they talk to the first agency. If they haven’t got a timeline, I can’t confirm a timeline or won’t confirm a timeline that’s a red flag. That’s a red flag.
Darren:
It’s like a relationship, too many red flags and you’re out of there. Nick, particularly from a contracting and financial point of view what are the things that agencies could be doing to make their life a little less battered?
Nick:
I think first thing is answer the RFP, a lot of times these RFPs are quite prescriptive and there’s many and various reasons for that. And I’d like to think the pitches that we run, we are a little bit more flexible if an agency doesn’t respond exactly how they’ve been asked, we’ll go back and we’ll clarify and ask questions and get to the point that it needs to be.
But in a lot of cases, particularly those pitches that are solely procurement run, if you don’t comply with the requirements, you get counted out immediately. So, that’s the first thing, answer the RFP.
But then on top of that, I would also say if you believe that there is other information that you can offer, or another way that you think something could be done that is better and going to provide either more value to the advertiser or make the marketer’s life easier, then make sure you state that but answer the requirements first.
Darren:
Now, recently as part of the state of the pitch report release, I was invited to go on the Mumbrella cast with Tim Burrowes, where he suggested that perhaps TrinityP3 is part of the pitch problem. And I addressed that at the time, but I’d just be really interested in your thoughts and whether you think, are we part of the problem and how do we avoid being part of the problem, Nathan?
Nathan:
Oh, well, alright. So, Tim made a very clever point. Yeah, of course, by definition we are part of the problem because we’re part of the process. So, if you think that pitching’s a problem, we are part of that, okay, fine. Well done, thanks, logical point Tim.
But to take that logical point to its logical conclusion, what’s he suggesting we do, we get out of pitching altogether and we stop advising clients and we stop making it better. I mean, it becomes ridiculous very fast.
So, look, I mean the objective here, whether we’re running these pitches or whether we are advising on them and I’ll come back to that in a second, is that we’re trying to make the damn thing better and we’re trying to be a voice for sense and process and openness and directness.
That advisory thing is the stickiest one for us and maybe that’s why we’re all a bit more sensitive about it. Increasingly, we’re being asked by procurement to join a team with the marketers where we are industry advisors rather than actually managing the whole process.
So, for compliance reasons or governance reasons, the procurement team needs actually to front up and to write a procurement plan front up to the agencies and be the representative of the client. And the trouble with that is that not all our recommendations see the light of day in terms of a process outcome.
Which doesn’t mean that we don’t argue as vehemently as we did. It doesn’t mean that we don’t make a difference because we do is just that the perfect outcome is not always available to us, it’s a better outcome than it was before. I don’t know.
I always say when people like Tim raise these things, “Look, we’re trying our hardest to make it better. We’re not afraid to get our hands dirty in so doing.” And I think we’re better inside trying to make things work than outside, kind of throwing stones at the whole thing. That’s where I end up anyway.
Darren:
Steve, what’s your perspective on that?
Stephen:
I think Nathan’s been too polite. I think Tim is talking out of his backside. We’re actually part of the solution. We are part of the solution, not the problem. Pitches have become far more complicated; we understand them better than anyone else.
We work very hard with procurement; we push back against marketing and procurement to make the pitch process better and swifter for agencies. So, we are part of the solution, not the problem. And I haven’t said anything directly to Tim, but I really think he just doesn’t understand what we do and happy to educate him at some point in the future.
Darren:
Well, there’s the point that we’re tracking to do more than 30 tenders, major tenders a year. There would be very few people in the market. Imagine being a marketer running that many in a year, it’d be a full-time job. Kylie.
Kylie:
Look, we often obviously it was something that you asked us to all do many years ago when we’re running pitch processes is use radical candor and I wish some people in the industry or agencies would use some of that to actually give us some negative feedback.
So, we always say that’s the only way that you can improve or improve a process and we are happy to take that feedback. Obviously, there’s some shitty comments once in a while anonymous online and you can’t work out what the root of that was or what the pitch was about to actually improve things.
But I seriously only get positive feedback from most marketers and agencies and agencies that don’t even win a pitch process because what they’ve gotten out of a process, which is valuable is respect, feedback and an understanding of their business as well and how tough things are out there. We’re not going to just use and abuse people just to make up a list.
So, yeah, look, at the end of the day, we are brokers of information, and we are just helping to make that process and help the marketers and procurement people understand what information they require to actually run a smooth pitch process.
Darren:
Thanks Kylie. Nick, benchmarking and financials money is an area that often causes a lot of tension for people. Do you think we could be better at what we do or are we doing the best that we can in the circumstances?
Nick:
Look, I think there’s always room for improvement. Anyone says that they’re perfect is lying to you. I think, where we can add value is on a fee perspective, a commercial perspective informing clients where these proposals sit in relation to what we’re seeing in the rest of the market and in other comments been made a couple of times already, cheaper is not always better and quite often the agency that low balls the fee in order to “buy” the business that just ends up leading the problems down the track.
And we can cite countless times where the agency’s not being paid enough money to keep the relationships sustainable. And then equally, if an agency is quoting above the rest of the market, then we can help guide the client into determining whether they see value in paying that premium or not.
And then if not, then they’re clearly helping to negotiate it back to a level that the client’s comfortable paying and that they see value in paying. So, I think from that perspective, it’s a very valuable exercise to rather than just comparing the three or four proposals against each other, well, how does that compare against the broader market and providing advice and council off the back of that?
Darren:
And look, one of the things is the misunderstanding of what benchmarking’s about. There are a lot of consultants and procurement people that purely use a very flat average of all suppliers as their benchmark, so I think there’s also an educational role.
I remember very early on when I started TrinityP3 David, not David Morgan, Rob Morgan, sorry, when I started TrinityP3, Rob Morgan at Clemenger said, “It’ll be people like you that destroy this industry.” And I had great delight in reminding him of that a few years ago and saying, “I think you did a good job doing it yourselves, it didn’t need our help.”
So, I think that and as I said to Tim, I think we’re constantly looking for ways of improving the pitch process because ultimately the measure of success isn’t just a client selecting an agency, but that being the start of a long-term, highly productive and high performing relationship. We don’t want clients having to go to tender every two or three years, it’s much better if they manage to maintain long-term and productive relationships.
Look just quickly, the time’s got away from us, but how can we use this research to really engage with marketers to see that there are better ways of selecting agencies and managing the pitch process? Kylie, have you got thoughts on that?
Kylie:
I think going back to one of my earlier points about making sure there’s not a disconnect between procurement and the marketing team or any other departments that you think need to be across what the output of this pitch process is going to be that they consider running.
In today’s climate, they have to understand that agencies, especially with all the indies out there, that they’re running a business just like the marketers and it’s really expensive to do, it’s really hard to keep people employed in today’s climate.
So, just have a slight understanding of that and understand that drawing out a pitch process for months at a time or just saying that we’ve completed the pitch process, but now it’s going to take two months for procurement to give us a result, is really going to impact and effect in a negative manner the agencies that have given you their time and knowledge in a trusting free relationship.
Darren:
Stephen, advice of ways of getting marketers to engage in a better pitch process?
Stephen:
Well, I think just recognizing that whilst they may be in the industry very engaged and been involved in a long while, there are so many nuances and complex issues to grapple with in a tender or a pitch process that getting external advice on what has worked for other people and the best pathway through is a worthwhile investment. And nearly every client that approaches us now has two or three issues or dilemmas within the pitch that they’re uncertain about.
So, recognizing that uncertainty and that external advice and using an external partners such as ourselves as a sounding board from the very start of the process will reap dividends. There’s a lot of ways to go wrong in a media pitch and so, it’s better to talk to people who can help understand and have worked with similar issues with other clients.
Darren:
Nick.
Nick:
I think it has been said a couple of times that a lot procurement markets will often go in with a view of cost and price and have a number in their head. I think take a step back from that and try and close the value loop. What does success look like with this appointment? And how is that going to impact our business? What is the value that we’re going to get from a successful relationship rather than just how much it costs is an extra step to take.
Stephen:
And just picking up on that point, Darren, we spend a lot of time working with procurement and marketers find it far more difficult. They’re beholden to procurement, that procurement oversee them. So, we can be a very useful asset in bringing procurement to understanding the value versus price equation and how those dynamics work.
Darren:
And Nathan leaving the last word with you, how what do you see as the opportunity here?
Nathan:
Look, I think there’s two things that we can underline here. The first is just being super clear about the problem that you’re setting out to solve and just making sure that the pitch actually solves it. And the second one is being unswervingly honest and direct and clear at every stage in that pitch with all the participants, including the internal stakeholders of marketing.
Darren:
It doesn’t sound hard, does it? But let’s hope that when we repeat this research, we start to see an improvement rather than the drop that we saw this year. Look, thanks very much for joining me. I want to thank you Kylie Ridler Dutton, the pitch whiz and Nathan, the managing director, Nick, the financial guru, and Steve, our media man, thanks very much for coming and chatting about the state of the pitch in Australia.
Nick:
Thanks, Darren.
Kylie:
Thanks for the chat.
Nathan:
Thanks.
Darren:
And interestingly, looking at the results from Canada, where Campaign Canada ran the state of the pitch, very similar results across the board, but interesting the level of engagement that they’ve had, not just from agencies but from industry bodies, both on the marketer and the agency side. So, it’ll be interesting to see as state of the pitch rolls out across the rest of the world in the coming 12 months or more.
Thanks very much for joining us on Managing Marketing.
