Pitching

Bob Hoffman | The Ad Contrarian On Advertising Agency Presentations And Pitching

April 13, 2022 By Peter Leave a Comment

In This Podcast, Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian, Delivers His View On How To Make Smarter Advertising Agency Presentations and Pitching For That New Account.

A slight update to an older post about my Bob Hoffman interview as a way to point out one of my primary expertise zones – how to create winning advertising agency presentations… we are supposed to be a bit self-loving, right?

I have a prospective agency client in Europe. She has a new business pitch to nail before we are going to talk about my services so I sent her a list of my writings on pitching and am telling her to buy my book, The Levitan Pitch (see it at the top of this page).

To help YOU win more business, go to this omnibus page loaded with my pitch thinking and while drinking a milkshake, arak, or a nice red wine, scroll through the list and as I say, Win More Pitches.

Back To Bob and Building Smarter Advertising Agency Presentations

In this podcast interview, we share the A.I. version of Bob Hoffman’s interview with me about the advertising agency pitch process. Bob tells it like it is. He is not known for being tepid. The interview is from my extremely best-selling book, “The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.”

Bob Hoffman is the Chief Aggravation Officer at The Type A Group, and much more. I’ll just save some time and let Bob tell you about himself:

“Bob is the author of five Amazon #1 selling books about advertising. He is also one of the most sought-after international speakers on advertising and marketing. One of his books, “BadMen: How Advertising Went From A Minor Annoyance To A Major Menace” exposed many of the dangerous data abuse practices that are now making international headlines. It was selected “Best of Marketing 2017.”

He is the creator of the popular “The Ad Contrarian” newsletter, named one of the world’s most influential marketing and advertising voices by Business Insider.”

SHOW LINKS

Bob Hoffman’s Website

The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches.

Do not forget to subscribe to Advertising Stories whenever you Listen To Podcasts. See the handy links to podcast players.

A nice thing for me… Feedspot has already recognized Advertising Stories as being a top 15 advertising podcast.

The 9 Best Consumer Insight Definitions

March 31, 2022 By Peter 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

March 11, 2022 By Peter 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

January 21, 2022 By Peter 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

34 Advertising Agency Search Consultants

October 21, 2021 By Peter 6 Comments

Advertising Agency Search Consultants – The Personal Shopper Of The Ad World

I’ve updated my list of the advertising agency search consultants universe. After updating we’re at 42. But, I can not update the “34” URL – so, there. Let me know if I am missing any consultancies. Thanks.

Before I get into the subject, I want to make an important point. Whether or not your agency has the chops and appropriate expertise to get the attention of a search consultant, please try to look and act different. Be unignorable.

Yes, you might be a great social media agency or media planning and buying group. But, I bet you have at least a dozen look-alike competitors.

Get It Right – First = Ask The Tough Questions Before You Contact Advertising Agency Search Consultants

Ask how you will stand out under the scrutiny of expert agency search consultants. Ask yourself, would you be interested in your agency? Ask me to help you.

The Big World of Advertising Agency Search Consultants

Advertising agency search consultants help clients locate the perfect agency out of hundreds, even thousands, of small and large agency options. It is estimated that about 10% to 15% of all searches use the services of a consultant (I am thinking about dollar volume, not total agency searches.) I suspect that the number of consultant-led pitches is well over 50% for clients that have large budgets, complicated accounts and now, highly specialized agency requirements.

Should Your Agency Contact An Advertising Agency Search Consultant? It Depends.

Should your agency contact the search consultants on this list? Well, yes and no.