What is a pitch? - Vishnu WIP

How to win big pitches

Business Development, A Multi-Faceted Journey

What is a pitch?

Other typical scopes pitched

Creative

Media

Why we pitch?

Agencies

Clients

• Tenure of existing contract
• Disconnect with incumbent agency
• Evolved business plan
• New leadership team
• Time for change
• Commercial benefits

• Revenue growth
• Increase market share
• Increase current client scope
• Develop agency offering
• Talent

Who is involved in a pitch?

Advertiser

Agencies

Consultant

Typical pitch process

Transition

Shortlist and Award

Commercials

RFP

Chemistry

RFI

Due diligence

Prospecting

Key questions to answer when identifying prospects:

Do we have intel around a potential opportunity?

Have we identified a connection to a key decision maker?

Do we have an executive who can spearhead efforts?

How urgent is the opportunity?

What is a chemistry meeting?

Thank you!

Chemistry Meetings

Following an RFI, or sometimes in parallel, the advertiser invites participating agencies to a chemistry meeting with the client team. This is exactly what it sounds like: a chance to build chemistry between the agency team and the prospective client team. These are often crucial and can set the tone for the relationship throughout the pitch process.

Aggressive pursuit of viable opportunities

Chase

Identify potential prospects, uncover key relationships, and prioritize opportunities

Identify

Gather intel on your prospect and develop tactics for pursuing

Strategise

RFP (Request for Proposal) Following a chemistry meeting, the advertiser issues a brief called an RFP – a request for proposal. This is often a detailed strategic brief that includes a key challenge that they would like us to solve, and evaluate our capabilities on. An RFP can cover any number of specialisms. Fortunately at Publicis, so can we!

Transition

Once we win a pitch, it’s time to transition the client’s business from the incumbent agency over to ourselves. The transition period is the process of moving the advertisers winning scope from one agency to the winning agency. The transition process is led by the winning agency, with the previous agency also playing an important role especially in terms of packaging and handing over business assets.

RFI (Request for Information)

An RFI (Request for Information) is a formal document issued by clients to gather information about potential agency partners before making decisions on who to shortlist for a pitch or engagement. It is the first step in a competitive evaluation process, designed to assess an agency’s capabilities, expertise, and fit for the client’s business needs.

Other typical scopes pitched

• Production
• PR
• Data / Identity
• Search - Social
• Commerce
• Digital Business Transformation (technology solutions)
• Power of One

Advertiser

• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
• Marketing
• Brand
• Media
• Procurement
• Other discipline

Consultant/Intermediary

Agencies

• Executive Sponsor
• Client Lead
• Strategy Lead
• Commercial Lead
• Discipline Leads
• Business Development Lead

Creative

• Developing comprehensive campaign concepts for a client
• Extensive and often intense:, often spanning 1-6 months
• The process typically includes creative development, multiple client meetings, and final presentations and operational models
• Tend to be run market by market or brand by brand

A pitch is where an advertiser puts out a tender to appoint an advertising agency. The agencies will write a proposal for the potential client, with the goal of winning their business. Pitches in advertising are complex and extensive as they usually have many different elements and can take up to a year to complete. Pitches are meant to allow agencies to showcases their credentials, values, creativity, strategies and commercials to address the client’s marketing needs and objectives.

Due diligence

Due diligence ensures that we make informed and strategic decisions on whether to participate with a pitch. This assessment helps us determine if we should decline, withdraw, or accept the opportunity based on a comprehensive understanding of the client, the incumbent, and the Groupe’s position.

Commercials The Commercial stage is when we get real with numbers. The advertiser asks us to provide our rates and prices – the rates we charge for the work our people do, and the prices we can offer on Publicis tech and platforms as well as media owner partnerships and deals.

Media

• Focus on media planning and buying strategies
• The process typically includes responding to strategic briefs, how the teams will be set up, commercials and data and tech, including multiple meetings and a final presentation
• Can be extensive, with large global pitches taking up to 12 months

Shortlist and Award

Clients shortlist agencies at different stages of the process. Typical cut off points are after the RFI stage, or following a chemistry meeting, but the competition gets close when agencies are shortlisted following the RFP and Commercial and negotiation stage. Once it is down to two agencies, the negotiation can get intense! Ultimately the client decides who the business goes to.