I'm Not Sure We Want to Pitch Your Business

Over time and several review cycles, our rates were literally at the bottom of the market and our quality metrics were barely at par … which is fine, that was the brief and I and my team were lauded for delivering an improved media agency model.

The last global pitch I led was a few years ago and it totally changed my view on how to uncover a meaningful, trust-based and lasting client/media agency relationship. I will keep people and company names out of the narrative, though anyone who knows me can easily figure it out.

Part 1: I am not sure we will be joining the pitch.

We briefed in all the major agencies you would expect to vie for a top 20 advertiser’s media business. We held initial calls with the senior agency heads to talk through the RFI we had just sent them and these all went as expected … except one.

Pitch consultant: Thanks for joining the call, what questions do you have on the RFI?

Agency president (very politely, but matter of fact): Thanks for the RFI, but I’m not sure we will be pitching.

Me (spit takes Poland Spring): I’m sorry, what?

Agency president: You fired us a few years back and we don’t feel like we will have a reasonable chance at winning your business. Your timeline will require me to have a bunch of my staff cancel their summer holiday plans and I can’t do that to my team unless I feel like we have a shot.

Me (picks jaw up off floor): Um, OK, well let us address that.

To me, this was as risky as it was ballsy, but it got our attention. I remember reporting back to the larger team after the call that we should expect the unexpected from these guys as we go. It turns out this agency did join the pitch once we laid out the clear and objective criteria that would guide the decision-making process.

Part 2: Your brief is clear; we just think it’s impossible to deliver.

At the initial presentations in our largest market along with me are the CMO, Chief Digital Officer, various Marketing and Procurement VPs and my local leadership team. I opened the meeting and made some comment among my remarks along the lines of  "… we weren’t quite sure we’d be welcoming you this morning to kick off the presentations, but glad you are here." The agency president seized the opening to recap our earlier discussions for the larger group about whether this agency would join the pitch and their thought process behind that. Again, risky/ballsy, but the message landed well with the audience.

But … this little exchange was just the warm-up. The global account lead then took the floor. After a little small talk, the first slide goes up, titled "Your Ambition," essentially restating the brief in a few bullet points. OK, cool, makes sense, heads nodding. Slide 2 goes up "Within Your Ambition is Contradiction" and shows five points where they saw disconnection. An obvious example that I am sure is in every RFP is speed in conflict with accuracy; another is scale in conflict with relevance. There were three others I won’t list as these were bespoke to our brief.

I feel the eyes in the room focusing on me for some sort of response. As I was in the "expect the unexpected" mindset coming out of our initial discussion with this agency, I was able to chime in once the slide was presented. I may have referenced the Emperor’s New Clothes in my response, but the point I made was that we wanted partners who 1) would be willing to challenge our thinking and 2) knew how to do it in a deft, constructive manner, and finally let’s see what else these guys have in store for us.

The agency maintained this spirit of thought partnership throughout all phases of the review and once we awarded them the assignment has been what we came to expect and appreciate from this agency throughout the relationship.

Part 3: Why should you care?

I tell this story all the time as it shows two things that are at the nucleus of a successful partnership relationship: 1) a media agency needs to speak their truth, even if they believe their client may not want to hear it and 2) clients need to respond positively when challenged along these lines. This will allow delivery of the best media work of the collective team back to senior leadership that grows brands.

My observation is the media agency/client relationship is not where it needs to be at this moment in time. Too often, commercial terms drive actions and not necessarily what is in the best interest of the brands we serve. I say this as a broad generalization based on my own experience and industry observations and I do not lay the blame with any one party.

It is dangerously easy to keep an OK relationship chugging along rather than actively challenging norms around compensation models, innovation, transparency, staffing, scope, tracking and reporting, the role of data, etc. And this does not necessarily mean a pitch as much as it means good governance and candid two-way discussion.

Media clients are taking more accountability for things like driving out wasted spend in the media supply chain and brand safety, and this is as it should be.

Media clients are being asked to look hard at adopting media in-housing programs to drive efficiencies and transparency; this makes sense in some instances, and not in others. A good client/agency relationship can result in an overall model that allows for an in-housing plan that is set up to succeed.

Media clients are put in a tricky spot of being an internal advocate for their media agency, while at the same time, challenging that agency to deliver beyond expectations.

To get to a place of mutual trust and respect takes work. In my personal experience, I found a new level of that dynamic when I got to know the agency that was not sure if they were even going to pitch our business. I am grateful they were willing to put themselves out there in such a high-stakes setting. I am equally grateful my team and stakeholders were open to that level of "real talk" and responded favorably to it. This allowed me to deliver the best agency model and partnership to drive growth for my company at that time, and the partnership remains strong almost two years after my departure.

Self-published at MediaVillage through the www.AvrioB2B.com platform.

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The opinions expressed here are the author's views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillage.com/MyersBizNet.