Load of old s**t

Pitching is a difficult process, for clients as well as the agencies involved.

There’s the time, the trouble, the expense... on both sides.

X-Factor cliché alert – “It’s an emotional roller-coaster.”
So, now that we’ve established some empathy, let me get something off my chest.

There’s one thing I wish I could change.

Wouldn’t it be great if clients could just be a little more, well, truthful?

If the work is rubbish, tell us.

If we’ve missed the brief, let us know.

If there’s someone on the team who’s rubbing you the wrong way, call them on it.

I’ve been involved in 100s of pitches over the years.

And apart from one solitary occasion, no one has ever said anything other than a variation on “That was incredible, on brief, great ideas, energy, time, trouble, effort...you guys did an incredible job.”

If those comments were really true, you’d expect me to have won every one of those pitches.

But, of course, I didn’t.

Let me take you back a few years to a pitch for John Smith’s Bitter.

I say ‘a few years’ but I’m talking about the days before Twitter, mobile phones and PowerPoint.

When the design department submitted their concepts on the wall of a cave.  

Anyway, I was playing the part of 3^rd assistant bag carrier, a part I played very well.

Halfway through the presentation, the marketing director got up from his chair, strode to the creative boards that we had laid round the room, gathered them up and, with a cry (the memory of which still send me into a cold sweat)  threw them out of the 2nd floor board room window.

He ordered us to leave.

As we hurriedly packed our bags, his words rang in our ears.

He told us that this was the biggest load of old s-h-one-t that he had ever seen.

And if we wanted to rescue our agency relationship, we’d better go and do something about the quality of work.

He then listed all the things that he felt were wrong with the campaign.

We rushed down stairs picking up the boards strewn across the car park in the rain.

Was it a harsh reaction? Undoubtedly.

Was his response fair? Maybe it was.

Did it work? Yes it did.

There were some dark days that followed.

Lots of hard work, and soul searching.

But we emerged from the process stronger and more focused than ever before.

You see, being nice about a pitch doesn’t help the agency develop.

The “It was very close, you were pipped at the post” conversation adds no value.

You were terrible; these are the three things you should work on.

Now we’re talking.

We’re grown ups. We can take it.

Truth is hard to take and we all want to be nice but honesty really is the best policy.