Creative pitch process ethics

In spite of the industry's own representative body, the ACA, advising strongly against its members getting involved in creative pitches, the vast majority enthusiastically rally to the call of every major advertiser when accounts come up for review. The cost is huge and the client's morality often questionable.

Questionable ethics

I remember a few years ago, Mignon Botes, then head of ad agency Tequila, telling me she had a call from one of the big banks asking if her agency would participate in a pitch. When she phoned back, the executive she had spoken to earlier was out and she asked the obviously junior assistant who answered the phone if she could tell her why the account was coming up for review.

"Oh no," the youngster replied, "we're not changing or agency, we just have these pitches every now and then to get new ideas..."

I am not suggesting for a minute that this is commonplace but what does happen a lot is that in spite of clients promising never to use ideas presented during pitches by losing agencies, somehow the really good ideas eventually end up being used at some stage or other - either by design or inadvertently. Which suggests that by participating in these creative pitches, many agencies are giving away their family silver for nothing.

A couple of weeks ago, Tony Koenderman wrote an excellent article in FinWeek in which he presented diverse viewpoints from two of the country's leading admen.

Opposite views

Mathew Bull of Lowe Bull, he wrote, would never let his agency participate in a creative pitch. Whereas the Jupiter Drawing Room's Graham Warsop took the opposite view, arguing that agencies were forced to get involved in creative pitches or quite simply lose out on a lot of business.

Now, while one can see both points of view, the question one needs to ask Bull and Warsop is which of them retains accounts longer? Is it better to get involved in the musical chairs situation that is the consequence of creative pitches or to try and keep clients longer?

Because it's my bet that advertisers who indulge in the creative pitch process tend to do this fairly regularly and most often than not they end up changing their agencies. It stands to reason that the kind of mentality that sees an overriding benefit in creative pitches is precisely the sort of mentality that would see a major benefit in changing agencies regularly.

Human compatibility

On the other hand, those advertisers who choose their agencies based on track record and human compatibility probably tend to keep their agencies longer and surely this is first prize for any agency?

It does seem odd that advertisers continue to opt for the creative pitch process. Because these are based almost entirely on the premise that some agencies are more creative than others. And if this were true, then why on earth do the majority of big advertisers allow the agency that won their business to employ all those creative people who were put out to pasture when their former agency lost the account? All of which means the same creative and often client service teams end up working on the account anyway.

Creativity or track record?

It would be fascinating to see some research aimed at finding out which clients have been with which agencies for a long time and whether these accounts were originally won through a creative pitch process or simply on track record and credentials.

Equally fascinating would be research indicating whether advertising efficiency improves with time or whether it spikes upwards every time an account changes hands.

And finally, it's my guess that if research had to be done on the most important factor in successful advertising, it would not be the agencies' ability with regard to creativity or strategy but almost exclusively the level on which those people on the agency side are able to understand, communicate and interact with their counterparts on the client side.

And that's not something that easily evolves from a pitch process that concentrates on the creative obvious and to all intents and purposes simply assumes that everyone will get on with each other.

Prime example

Look for example at what TBWA\Hunt\Lascaris achieved for Nando's when John Hunt and Robbie Brozin worked together. And then at what the same agency achieved for SAA. Absolute chalk and cheese.

Hunt\Lascaris did not lose the SAA account because it wasn't creative enough - the whole ball of wax fell apart because their people were all poles apart.