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The Advertising Agency Pitch Playbook

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The Levitan Pitch Playbook – The Tools

FYI: This Advertising Agency Pitch Playbook (a pitching toolset) supports my book on advertising agency presentations and pitching…  The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. It is the definitive ‘How To’ book on advertising agency pitching & winning. Look up to the top of this page to get a free chapter or just go for it and buy it (for the price of a couple of lattes, you will win more new accounts).

Yogi.

“Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.”

– Yogi Berra

I love this famous quote because Yankee Hall Of Famer Yogi Berra is so right. By the time you make it to the majors, i.e. the opportunity to pitch for a new client account that might change the direction and fortunes of your advertising agency, you’ve done some serious mental work, and now it’s time get the physical part right.

If you are smart and beautiful, you are probably holding a copy of my ‘mentally physical’ book and that’s how you got here.

OK. OK. Let’s get on with it. [Read more…] about The Advertising Agency Pitch Playbook

Advertising Agency Pitch Book Update

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A Quick Update On My Advertising Pitch Book

distinctivePeople are banging down my door to get their copies of my book on pitching. LOL-Not. Well, they might be when it gets published (later this summer) and the word gets out. Again, a bit of LOL.

The book will be about 60,000 words, has a few deep interviews with experts (search consultants, the 4A’s, the ANA, an IP lawyer and more) and has a list of pitch mistakes garnered from a range of USA and beyond agency search consultants and… Because I really like to point out mistakes, the book has a series of 12 cartoons that highlight what I think are the most egregious mistakes agencies make when pitching. These are mistakes that all agencies make at some point. I try to make these errors go away by telling you that if you want to loose your pitch, then go ahead and make them.

Don’t Be Distinctive

Here is a sneak preview. One of my favorite cartoons is above. This one is about the advertising agency’s fear of sounding too different. Too distinctive. Too bold. You know, “What if we sound too assertive, have ideas that scare the client, take a too strong position, are wrong…” This thinking leads to sameness. The sameness that My friend Steve Klinetobe and his The Cartoon Agency (check them out) illustrates in his 12 cartoon series.

These cartoons will be in the book and will be animated for the web to increase their virality (is this a word?)

Pass Along Help Please

One of the things that I talk about with my agency clients is that they should ask their clients, ex-clients, suppliers, partners, family and friends to refer the agency when appropriate. You know, just ask politely.

So in the interest of asking: Please pass this post on to your friends and ask them to sign up for my weekly newsletter below so that they hear about the book before it is sold out. Uh, yeah, another LOL. But one that I want to happen.

 

 

1 Reason To Pitch French Advertising Clients

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One of the better weekly newsletters I get is from the long-time-insight-rich-website Six Pixels of Separation. As the website says:

TWIST IMAGE PRESIDENT, MITCH JOEL, BRINGS YOU DIGITAL MARKETING AND MEDIA HACKING INSIGHTS AND PROVOCATIONS FROM HIS ALWAYS ON/ALWAYS CONNECTED WORLD.

Twist Image is a digital agency with offices in Montreal and Toronto that kicks most digital agency’s marketing butt and, as you can see, has a blog that adds value and drives agency awareness. Interesting fact… the agency website does a location lookup to personalize the home page. In my case, it knows that I am in Mexico right now. Nice touch.

Twist Image

OK, Back To Pitching French Clients

The blog has a guest feature called: Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention. This week it points to the news that the French government has dictated that management can’t email employees after work hours. In France that means after 6PM. Here is the post along with a link to the CNET News article.

French say ‘non’ to work email after 6 p.m. – cNet. “Ahh, who doesn’t want to spend their entire childhood and teenage years studying in an old school education institution that is making young people miserable, feeling inadequate and, ultimately, forcing them into a regiment of memorization of things they should never need to remember? I see this often when you look at more traditional European countries and their non-progressive school curriculums The good news? You get to graduate and become a ‘fonctionnaires,’ (if you live in France). A place that makes insane rules like this. I have a better idea: why stop at email? Just shut down the electricity for all fonctionnaires so nobody has to do anything? Alternately, you could just say, ‘hey, what if we let these adults make their own rules and attempt to find their own balance? Wow, what decade are we living in? How stupid do we think that people are?” (Mitch for Hugh).

My take…

  1. France is fucked up. I am not a small government guy but please… can’t people run their own lives? Are the French babies that need coddling?
  2. Recent press has discussed France’s issue of losing talented digital / programming / entrepreneur / creative class types to countries where they can do their thing in a pro-business environment.
  3. It must be a sign of the times when management (this means some of you) has to be told to let people live their lives. I never emailed my staff after 6PM. I am a really good, understanding, caring pro family guy. I didn’t need laws to be act like a decent person.  🙂

If French agencies are going to work at say 80% of capacity then go and get business from the French clients that need 100% agencies. Hello Peugeot. That said, you will need to have a French language website like Twist Image (it helps that they are in Quebec where the government dictates that they need a bilingual website.) Hmm… is there something about French speakers?

Bon chance!

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