Lessons from Pitching the Philips Media Business

It was an important pitch and not just because of the money Carat had other large international accounts of course but Philips was one of if not the first multigeography client won from scratch we didn39t have the business anywhere by what was then a new management teamThe Carat of those days was referred to by its competition as a NOTwork a loose collection of strong local agencies thrown together with no common culture no common tools or processes and local managements who too often prioritized their own needs over those of the organization to whom they had sold their businessesThe Philips experience helped shaped what the Carat of that era became a strong network with great international clientsThere were lessons learned that even today resonateThe first lesson is that collaboration around a common goal is essential if you39re going to win Without it you have no chanceCarat was a new network born out of local strengths It didn39t have the builtin advantages of say Mindshare that came out of two international ad agency networks JWT and Ogilvy skilled at working with global clientsNowadays the new breed of media consultancies like ID Comms place great store in common processesamp160and collaborative network procedures How an agency works is just as important as the prices it deliversIn the early days of the Carat network we needed to convince successful local managers to introduce common tools and processes The Crispin Davis initiated Carat Sphere program subtitled The Way We Work was genuinely new and different and has since been much copied The original concepts are still applicable today which is ironic as Carat no longer uses themThen there were the financials Why should a local manager resign a competitive client paying a decent fee to take on an international client at a lower local fee Why should a local manager care about any benefit elsewhereThese discussions were much to the fore when we prepared to pitch Philips The lessons we learned not least in persuasion were applied to a host of other successful international pitches from adidas through to Kraft Pfizer and CocaColaThe concept of a strong international offeringamp160with a dedicated centeramp160delivering consultancy services alongside excellent local offerings was fully established on the back of the Philips winHow local offices and local managers were assessed were shaped by the Philips experienceIn short it39s no exaggeration to say that the Philips win played a huge role in the success of CaratThe best lesson came from Philips themselves After we had won we met a senior member of the management teamI remember asking himamp160what was it that turned Philips from an unsuccessful brand spread across so many industries to what was even then a highly successful focused businessHis reply applies to us allquotWe used to invent things because we could Then we found that nobody wanted them Once we learned to listen to what people wanted before going off and inventing it we became successfulquotClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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Lessons from Pitching the Philips Media Business

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Brian Jacobs

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Lessons from Pitching the Philips Media Business

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