When even the guys who make a dollar out of organising pitches say they are fatally flawed, it might be time for a change.
A recent AdNews article got me thinking again about pitches. Most agency types hate them. But an increasing number of marketers are realising that pitching, as a process is slow, ineffective and ultimately very expensive.
You may seem to be getting free submissions from creative agencies when they pitch, but you are not.
Let’s say every large agency is spending, 10% of their time and resources on pitching. They can only pay for this by charging existing clients. It’s not as though they have other income streams.
So every client they have is paying an extra 10% just to cover the cost of pitching. That’s right. You are paying your agency to chase other work. And if they win and it conflicts with your category, you may be dumped as well!
It’s nuts!
Unfortunately most of the alternatives suggested by the ‘Pitch Doctors’ seem like variations on the theme of, ‘tell me again how we would work together’. Workshops and ‘getting to know you’ sessions are becoming more popular.
Either way, the personal charm of senior agency management makes or breaks the deal. Then management steps a side and a bunch of strangers actually does the work.
Is there a better way? Yes.
An incredibly effective way to test real working relationships is to simply work together. The client chooses an agency they’ve heard good things about and briefs a single real life project. Then they get to see how the real, behind the scenes, agency works.
Do the creatives get narky when asked for changes? Is the finished art full of typos? Does the agency hire quality suppliers? Are the contact people 12 years old? Does the agency rely on a conveyer belt of freelancers?
These are questions that will actually affect the clients business. And they are questions that are impossible to answer at a pitch or its modern variation, the workshop.
When the project is over the client can give more work to the agency. Or if the reality has turned out to be less than inspiring they can try a new one.
The client will save a lot of time, a lot of money and they’ll build up a very strong knowledge of who really performs.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Pitch Pitch Pitch
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Advertising will survive. Not so sure about agencies though.
I was having a chat with a couple of tennis dads on Saturday. One of them, John Bird, is an experienced Ad industry guy. He summed up the position of ad agencies (as distinct from the ad industry as a whole) quite well I thought.
“20 years ago an ad agency made 17% on a client’s media billings. Today they make an average of 3%.”
Or put another way, ad agencies are making a fifth of what they used to, for doing the same work. This can’t last!
The structure of the industry will have to change. It’s only a matter of time.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
How to turn bad viral press into good viral press.
OK. Naked has demonstrated how NOT to handle 'a viral campaign/PR stunt/journalists in general'. The final bullet in the foot was when they released an ad 'exposing' the journalists they had fooled! This is not a joke. I wish it was.
http://mumbrella.com.au/2009/02/06/naked-publishes-names-of-the-journalists-it-hoaxed/#more-2142
But for an example of how to get it so right I attach another link. It shows how the world's greatest PR men, Sir Richard Branson, handles bad viral press. Using humour he turns it into good press.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/laughing-my-head-off-branson-on-that-complaint-letter-20090211-84eg.html
I was going to write that Branson is a genius. He's not really. He just presents himself and his brand as being normal, considerate, and having a sense of humour and proportion. We can all learn a lot from him.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Marketing in troubled times.
I like journalists and think they provide an essential service. BUT they do have a propensity for the dramatic. While crazy financiers have started a worldwide economic bushfire, the media are cheerfully screaming ‘Run for your lives! We’re all going to die!’ Bad news sells papers. But is the news really that bad?
Is an economic downturn really the end of the world? Or is it an opportunity to review how we worked in the past and to improve those practices for the future? I think it is.
We all know that ‘marketing’ is the first department of any company to have its budget slashed in economic slowdowns. It’s an easy way for the bean counters to save money. But of course reducing marketing exposure leads to reduced revenue and the prophecy of doom is self-fulfilled.
Short of holding a gun to the CFO’s head, we must live with the fact that budgets will be tightened in the coming year or so. The question is then, “How do I maintain and grow my business with less money and fewer resources?”
The answer is that you have to work in different ways. Picking up the phone and calling ‘the agency’ is easy but it’s expensive. Here are some examples from real firms who invested a little extra time to save big money ... and they still achieved outstanding results.
1. YouTube campaign. Company A had a confectionary product that researched well and seemed like a market place winner. Traditionally it would have gone straight to TV (with the associated high media costs). Because it was ‘fun’ and targeted to ‘young people’ a YouTube campaign was devised. Production costs were kept low and media costs were $0.
Cost to the marketer – She had to really work her email database to get the viral traction the campaign needed. And she had to give up the control she would have normally had with a TV campaign.
2. Virtual Agency. Company B assembled a group of talented creatives to execute a one-off creative campaign. They paid about half what they would have done with a full service agency for the same or better minds and options.
Cost to the marketer – He had to find the right people for the job.
3. Website Renovation – Company C had an existing website that was a little out of date. Rather than tear it down and start again the marketing person employed a copywriter to revamp the copy, improve the SEO and add a few new features all within the existing structure.
Cost to the marketer – Finding the time to accurately brief the copywriter.
There are many other ways of maintaining strong marketing communications in troubled economic times. The cost can be as low as looking around for alternative suppliers.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
How big are you?
In the past few weeks I’ve been asked 3 times how many people I employ. It’s a funny question really, a bit like asking how many pens I have. I guess prospects want to know if I have sufficient ‘resources’ to service their business.
If I were running a mill in the eighteenth century, numbers of worker bees would matter. But the digital revolution has changed all that. Brain-power has replaced man-power.
Choosing a creative supplier has never been easy. One way of judging a company’s success was to count heads. The bigger the better. Right? Wrong.
Take a little company I know of. Last time I heard, it had 5 full time staff and no plans to expand that number. If you met the founder, Jimmy, at a party you might think that he was a slightly nerdy guy who did things to do with computers or the internet. You’d be right.
Jimmy Wales runs Wikipedia, with only 5 full time staff. That's right. Mighty Wikipedia runs on only 5 full time staff! Sure they have thousands of eager helpers. And that's just the point. A modern company can run very well with a few full timers supported by contractors as and when needed.
Wikipedia is probably the best example of the power of outsourcing. But there are many others.
When a friend wanted a full orchestral sound and real opera singers to launch a brand of pasta sauce, did he go hunting for a building that contained just such a group of talented individuals? Of course not.
I went to Raphael May, who has a staff of one (himself) and works from a home studio. Raf hired the best opera singers and classical musicians that Australia had to offer. My mate watched in awe as a small group of musicians laid down it’s tracks and left his studio to be replaced by the next group and the next layer of sound.
Soon they had an outstanding soundtrack that was the core of a very successful TV campaign and launch.
How many staff did Raff have? One. How many did he hire for the task? Twenty or so. Were they the best professional musicians available? You bet!
A third example is Omo detergent. I ran the creative advertising business for about 18 months. We produced 4 TV campaigns and 5 print campaigns. I was alone … but I wasn’t alone. I had a line up of professionals helping me every step of the way with this multi-million dollar account. My client got very effective work for a fraction of the cost.
So when it comes to creative suppliers, maybe the question should not be the quantity of staff we have, but the quality of contacts we have.
Jimmy has thousands of contributors filing entries in Wikipedia. Rafael knows Australia’s best mussos. And I have a little black book bulging with golden phone numbers.
We all create outstanding results ... even if Friday night staff drinks are a little quiet.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Squeeze a few fruit
I was listening to the radio the other day and the story was about giant American food stores entering the Australian market. To get the predictable ‘I think it’s outrageous’ comment, they contacted a local fruit and vege shop owner called Nick Mashadis.
To everyone’s surprise Nick thought the arrival of mega food barns would be a good thing. Far from being negative about the idea he thought it would be great for his business and shoppers over all.
The reason? Simple choice.
Nick reasoned that shoppers would try the new places then try his stores and make up their own minds. He was confident that he had what people wanted: quality product, product tailored to local needs and preferences, and outstanding service. He even believed he could compete on price, as his rental overheads were so much lower.
This little surprise story reminded me of the choice facing marketers when they need advertising help. Currently most FMCG clients have ‘an agency’. They have been encouraged since advertising began to make a lifelong attachment to a big agency. (I once met a very senior marketer who was conducting her first and probably only agency pitch)
The theory is of course that the agency is a consistent ‘brand expert’. This idea had some merit 20 years ago, when agency staff stayed put for longer than 18 months, and when the client had a lot less involvement in marketing communications.
But today the argument is a little hollow and starts to smack of a simple (and understandable) need to hang on to business at all costs. ‘We’ve always done it this way’ is no longer an excuse in the public service. It should never be an excuse in the world of advertising.
Large agencies need the ‘wedded for life’, or as ‘long as possible’, model to perpetuate. New ideas and models are mercilessly derided by an industry that ironically prides itself on creativity. Mark Buckman, Marketing Director of the Commonwealth Bank, broke with tradition by going offshore for creative. He used a US ad agency for the ‘Brand‘ part of the Comm Bank business. The Ad Industry’s reaction was predictably shrill and obviously self-serving. I wrote a letter to AdNews congratulating Mark on his ‘creativity’.
I’m not saying trash the system if you’re happy and it works for you. But out of the hundreds of marketers I’ve talked to over the years I can remember one, that’s right one, who was 100% happy with his agency’s creative, service and price.
I know that Head Office usually prefers/demands the same agency worldwide. Again if this works well - great. All I’m saying is that there is always choice available, even within a contracted relationship.
The most obvious example is the booming ‘branded format advertising’ phenomenon. Big marketers with rusted on agencies have managed to separate a tactical/short term strategy and use it successfully.
Other examples include quite large marketing companies briefing one-off ‘tactical’ projects out to smaller creative agencies. This usually starts as a simple cost saving measure. But clients are often surprised by the quality and service they also receive.
Project work has many other benefits to the marketer. It gives the opportunity to sample other ways of doing things and of meeting other creatives and suppliers. And just as importantly, working with other companies allows you to build up a ‘feel’ for what things really cost.
Most marketers have no idea of the enormous depth of creative firepower available to them. And why would they? Your average client might have heard of 10 agencies, because that’s all they read about in the trade press.
But did you know B&T lists 794 Australian companies who call themselves Advertising Agencies? Even if half are kidding themselves, that’s still a lot to choose from.
So go on, take Nick the fruiterer’s advice. Try a few shops and squeeze a few fruit. You might be pleasantly surprised.
