Pitching

A Sad Advertising Agency Business Development Story

Peter · December 4, 2022 · Leave a Comment

A Very Sad Advertising Agency Story From Keurig Dr Pepper.

Start here: By now, most people in advertising know that Kuerig Dr Pepper’s marketing team (and I must assume their procurement department) are assholes. Why AHOLES? Here is their advertising agency business development story. This from the UK’s IPA, its leader Paul Bainsfair…

“UK agencies react in horror to the bizarre Keurig Dr Pepper 360-day payment terms”

“Global consumer products giant Keurig Dr Pepper is currently running a PR agency search in the United States, where part of the ask is for agencies tendering to accept 360-day payment terms. Those that cannot are being offered the option of financing, at their own cost, through Atlanta-based, Prime Revenue.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

Why Is This Important? Cause An Advertising Agency Pitch Can Hep Your Agency Go Out Of Business

OK, yes you know that this kind of lame client shit is important to pay attention to. But, playing along with this stuff can put your agency out of business…

The cost and effectiveness of agency business development can make or break an agency. Let me give you a – real-world – worst-case example.

A few years ago a Pacific Northwest agency was one of a set of agencies trying to land a major digital account. The client’s pitch team wanted to see each agency’s strategic approach to the client’s marketing goals and the northwest agency built a comprehensive plan that included performing some market research and even the leasing of related technology. The pitch dragged on forever and the agency was racking up staff and hard costs.

The good news… the agency won the account.

Bad news… the pitch became so expensive that the agency almost went out of business – in this case, after winning the account. The agency’s costs included the cost of the initial RFP response and a four-month pitch. Add in the agency’s actual client work plus the client’s 90-day payment schedule. Yikes. The RFP response, managing and crafting the pitch itself (mega labor hours), and the actual work, once won, all added to have the agency essentially working for free for more than six months.

Could the agency have managed this insane scenario? Not sure. Every pitch and client engagement is unique. That said, the agency could have had a better handle on what was coming when they initially interviewed the client. However, I’m not sure that the client was actually forthcoming. Or worse, really knew what they needed in the first place. Or skilled in running a pitch. or skilled in working with an agency.

The takeaway is that agencies should not pitch everything. Period. Spend the time to understand the client’s needs and motivations, its past agency history, know why you should be the winner, and what the search/pitch details are – including payment terms (yes, often hard to gauge) but if anything does not feel right or professional, then bail.

Always keep in mind the cost of pitching and that, at best, an agency will only win 30% of the time.

Now ask yourself, why would an advertising agency pitch that Keurig Dr Pepper account?

Is your agency pitching too much? Read this…

One more point: Buy this book and win more pitches… I mean it.

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much?

Peter · October 10, 2022 · 1 Comment

Is Your Advertising Agency Pitching Too Much? Maybe You Need To Say No!

Here is an excerpt from my book on advertising agency pitching and presenting. This tidbit emphasizes the importance of not (allow me to repeat myself) not pitching every account that whistles. You can’t afford it. It costs too much cash, time, energy, and agency staff pain (BURNOUT!). Pitching too much causes one more problem. You will reduce your business development ROI.

There is lots more in “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book Win More Pitches.” You can buy the paperback and eBook on -> Amazon.

Yes, No, Maybe?

Before you embark on a new pitch, you should be asking yourself one extremely important question…

Should we be pitching this account?

I know what you are thinking… Levitan’s kidding right? We’ve made it through the RFI and RFP stages, and now he wants us to ask if we should even be going to the finals.

It’s still ok to say “no”, and now is the time to take a deep breath and review a go-no-go decision. You are about to spend a great deal of time and money. Are you sure that you should go through the next step? Are your colleague’s groans getting louder? Looking in any way ambivalent about the pitch will not help your pitch team feel good about charging into it. Passionless pitches don’t win.

Pitch or not is usually one of the most difficult decisions agency management has to make. There is a good chance that you think that you’ve already answered this question if you participated in an RFP that led to your selection as a shortlist candidate. I believe that even if you’ve performed a sound decision-making process, now is the time to stop to determine if this potentially expensive pitch is worth the time, effort, and human and cash costs.

The 9 Best Consumer Insight Definitions

Peter · March 31, 2022 · Leave a Comment

What Is a Consumer Insight? Some Definitions.

Importantly, Why the Use of Insights Is Critical to Advertising Agency New Business.

Whatever you want to call it… a consumer insight, marketing insight, brand insight or research insight, the idea of developing Ah-Ha insights is a primary driver of brand and revenue growth. The Ah-Ha element is critical to creating a powerful consumer insight. This is true for advertising agency B2B new business gains as well. Opening a conversation with a prospective new client with an Ah-Ha insight will get their attention, will quickly begin to help them realize that you understand their market, create a marketing opportunity and that, yup, you are smart.

Appearing smart at the start of a new business conversation delivers the Holy Grail of prospective clients’ needs – BIG word coming… confidence.

I will be writing in the coming about the wonderful world of insights and – importantly – the tools to get you there. However, I thought that it might make a bit of sense to provide a quick list of various definitions of just want a consumer insight is. As I move forward, I’ll give you examples of insights that have driven business growth (like the MAN). I’ll highlight how I think and actually know how a consumer insight can help an advertising agency win new business. Even win the pitch in the first minute.

9 Consumer Insight Definitions

Oxford Dictionary

“The capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.”

Merriam Webster

1: The power or act of seeing into a situation: PENETRATION

2: The act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things or of seeing intuitively

McKinsey

“Insights into consumers and how they think can help companies spark innovation, uncover the most promising (though not always most intuitive) sources of growth, and develop or maintain successful products and brands.

Generating customer insights through qualitative research. Qualitative research helps bring customers to life. It illuminates their needs, their decision-making processes, and their reactions to companies and brands.”

Campaign UK On Advertising Agency New Business

Peter · March 11, 2022 · Leave a Comment

Thanks… Campaign UK On Advertising Agency New Business Trends

My brain perked up when I saw that Campaign UK was doing a podcast interview show about advertising agency new business, i.e., today’s business development environment and the good, bad and ugly of the client + agency search process.

Campaign’s podcast “Agency New-Business Trends & Super Bowl Ads” enlisted Greg Paull, principal of R3 Worldwide (…a global consultancy that offers marketers access to the expertise and services required to establish and administer effective multi-national agency engagements.) And Tracey Barber, global chief marketing officer of Havas Creative Group. They were joined by Campaign’s media editor Arvin Hickman to discuss agency new business trends. The Super Bowl discussion – meh.

I’ve taken bits of the interview, edited for brevity, and popped in my thoughts. Remember other than working closely with agencies on their business development plans, I wrote, just in case you missed it, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

More Pitches But Smaller and Smaller Accounts:

Greg: There were 58% more pitches this year, but only 9% more revenue. And I think that just sends the message to agencies that it’s becoming a fight for smaller and smaller pieces of an individual business. That’s a challenge for our agency’s work.

Marketers are increasingly looking at project-based assignments and that’s always a challenge for agencies that are quite used to this traditional AOR structure. So, they’re having to pivot a little bit in order to be able to cope with the way clients want to buy their services.

Peter’s Take: Nothing new or surprising here. The client-to-agency relationship pivot started to happen way back in the late 1990’s when we began to see the shift from the 15% media commission to fee based payments. One of my mega clients fired Saatchi one day within moments of a new marketing director parachuting in. He was both an asshole (the client’s mega airline was growing faster that its competitors and we had just won two EFFIE’s for strategic brilliance and he fired us at the ceremony’s dinner table). He then gave the $60 million business to Ogilvy because they were going to charge ½ of our the AOR commission.

OK, enough bitching. Yes, clients are wanting project-based relationships. It is then up to agency managment to leverage that project into more work. Easier said than done but if you give that assignment to a junior account manager or producer, worse untrained folks, I am not sure how you effectively grow that client. A Duh coming: growing an existing account is way more efficient than running after advertising agency new business from strangers.

More Projects Less AOR

Arvin: Can I just ask in terms of that trend of it becoming a bit more project-based? Are you noticing that a bit more on the Creative side versus the Media side or is that across the board?

Greg: Yeah. It’s been more on Creative than Media. And in fact, if you looked at the top 10 wins for last year, nine of them were global for Media. Only four of them are global for Creative, and that’s been a system trend that… Creative tends to be more piecemeal, clients are always looking for the best creativity they can and as a result, they’re more and more looking at project-based work.

Peter: Even if you are a ‘creative’ agency, make sure that the client loves your media and strategic planning. Make it an integral element of your deliverable even if you have to team up with a media specialist. ‘Creative’ is way too subjective.

Plus: It is easier to fire an artist than a scientist.

Just Say No To That Pitch

Arvin: Now one agency that many would argue isn’t having this whole dissatisfaction problem would be Havas Creative. Tracy had a lot of new business wins in the past year. What was the recipe for your success do you think? [Read more…] about Campaign UK On Advertising Agency New Business

The Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch

Peter · January 21, 2022 · Leave a Comment

How To Run A Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch

Avi Dan followed me as the guy running Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide’s business development program (and, I think did a better job than me as by the end of my tenure all I could think about was the growing Internet space). Avi just wrote the following article on LinkedIn about the subject of the good, bad, and ugly advertising agency pitch. I thought that I’d respond a bit to his thinking because I wrote the New York Times best-selling book on how to run the world’s most powerful, new business-delivering ad agency pitch.

From Avi’s bio… “Avi Dan is a columnist for Forbes, a former CEO and board member of 3 major agencies, and a highly regarded agency pitch consultant. By his own estimate, he has been involved in over 200 pitches in the past 30 years.”

From Avi…

Q&A With A Pitch Consultant: “Don’t Hire The Agency That Inspires You, Hire The Agency That Is Inspired BY YOU”

In 2019, the year right before Covid, a Morgan Stanley analyst had reported that a record $35 Billion of advertising spending was up for review. That was almost more money hanging in the balance than the amount under review during the previous two years, combined. With the economy picking up now, advertisers are, once again, rethinking their agency relationships. Ad Age had recently reported that one-third of all advertisers stated that, they plan to put their business into a pitch.

Peter: One-third? Crazy. This really can only mean one of two things. Either advertising agencies are doing a shit job or clients have no clue what they really want from their agency. A smart client should be able to get smart thinking and service out of their own — current — agency. I have been an agency owner and a client. Good clients know how to manage their agencies. Well, most. It is absurd that one-third should think they have a failing relationship. Too high.

Q: Why do you think there are so many reviews lately?

A: If those numbers tell you anything, it’s that, advertisers aren’t happy with their agencies, even the good ones. For example, Wieden had lost KFC and Droga5 had recently lost IHOP. Marketing is much more complex these days, and very few agencies are capable of evolving fast enough to keep up with the needs of their client. What’s surprising isn’t that so much is in review, but, that it didn’t happen sooner.

Peter: Avi says… “very few agencies are capable of evolving fast enough.” OK, possibly true for many. But not Droga5 and Wieden. These best-of-class agencies are just too good, big and well-managed. So, I’ll point to clients as a failure point. By the way, how can anyone be expected to dramatically increase pancake and waffle sales during a pandemic?

Q: How are pitches different now?

A: The briefs for pitches that we see coming through to us now, are more transformational. Clients are deep into the digital transformation, and so is the consumer and the media. Technology, cloud services, eCommerce, data, and virtual CX are becoming critical issues for the enterprise.

Peter: The marketing world has been way about the idea of digital transformational since I left Saatchi in 1995 to put major newspapers online (and invent website advertising – yes, I did that) or in 2000 when my company Activebuddy invented interactive chatbots including SmarterChild and commercial bots for clients like Radiohead. Is Avi saying that the zillions of agency people that live and breath digital do not understand transformation? Could they be worse at it than a marketing director at IHOP? Side note. I have been a consultant in a few advertising agency pitches lately and every agency talks transformation or related subjects. How could they not?

Q: You are very critical of the pitch process. Why? [Read more…] about The Perfect Advertising Agency Pitch