Agencies and Brands Promise to 'Pitch Positive'—Can They Fix What's Broken?

For agencies, pitching, at its worst, can be an expensive, time-consuming exercise leading to late nights, low morale and diminished creative output. For brands, they're often procurement-driven with the potential to diminish relationships with agency partners and lead to churn. To tackle these problems in the U.K. sector, ad trade bodies the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) and the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) have banded together to get brands, agencies and intermediaries to commit to the Pitch Positive Pledge. Supported by mental health charities, the Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) and the National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS), the framework has garnered 70 signatories committed to working toward a new set of guidelines for pitching. Those include high-street pharmacist Boots, consumer goods producer Nestlé and tech company Samsung; agencies such as BBH and Wunderman Thompson have enlisted, as well as intermediaries including the AAR. Participants will commit to three basic actions: to be positive that a pitch is necessary; to run a positive pitch that takes wellbeing into account; and provide a positive resolution, including feedback on an agency’s performance. A 'badge of honor' for brands There were examples of poor pitching behaviors long before the pandemic, but Covid-19 gave rise to fresh ways of working, according to ISBA. While good practice was deployed in the days of lockdown, the organization wants to maintain the momentum. This is a global issue for the ad sector. A recent Provoke Insights study in the U.S. suggested 11% of agency professionals are involved in a pitch every week, and more than half pitch 10 times per year or more. In line with this trend, a study from industry charity NABS found almost 40% of the U.K. ad industry workforce had felt stressed or anxious in the last 12 months. The Pitch Positive Pledge has been designed to crack down on some of the factors driving poor mental health and make the process more “intentional, accountable and responsible for both advertisers and agencies.” In turn, ISBA and the IPA hope this will result in “better quality work, fewer costs and less wastage.” Julian Douglas, vice chairman of VCCP and IPA president, said while pitching can be “good for agencies,” he has learned firsthand how unnecessary some can be, especially when it comes to clients selecting a new roster. “A lot of it is unnecessary, it’s inherently wasteful. I've had pitches we've lost which had been a positive experience and pitches we've won that have been negative,” he added. The proposal to improve the pitching experience has been on Douglas’ agenda since he was appointed as IPA president in 2021. Though it’s been carefully planned, the marketing veteran said many told him not to take it on, which only fueled his desire to do so. https://twitter.com/The_IPA/status/1524419820330102787?s=20&t=WBuVOGZ-CBIdf63VjlMd9w In developing the initiative, he has spoken to business development professionals working in countries including Australia and taken learnings from how companies have employed Kitemark initiatives, like securing B Corp status. Douglas also spoke to ESG consultants for inspiration. “I want it to be a badge of honor for advertisers and to be doing testimonials that I can drip feed out and to tell positive stories [around pitching],” he explained. An unsustainable business model Charlie Carpenter, CEO of Creativebrief, said he supports anything that gets clients to consider the perils of pitching—although he believes that the points made in the guiding principles should have already been in use as basic “hygiene” factors. He also asserted previous industry edicts have failed to drive any “fundamental change” in this area but agreed the time for change was now. Amid a record period for ad spend, Carpenter has observed agencies struggling to respond to the sheer number of pitches being thrown their way. With agency budgets being slashed too, pitching has become a “zero-sum game.” There are echoes of Stockholm syndrome baked in here for our industry as a whole.—Julie Cohen, CEO, Across the Pond “We’ve now got to a point where things have to change because the agency business model cannot support it any longer,” he added. “The expectation agencies can continue to sink weeks of resource into these processes and give away free strategy and creative doesn’t add up any more.” Carpenter also underscored how the pitch process doesn’t realistically emulate what a real-life working relationship would be like between two parties: “Another big issue is the expectation that at the end of [a pitch] an agency will come back with answers and solutions to a client brief," he asserted. Industry Stockholm syndrome Julie Cohen runs indie agency Across the Pond, working with tech giants like Snap Inc. and Facebook. She refuses to pitch for any new business, instead building steady relationships with clients over time. As for Pitch Positive, she applauded the intent but feels the scheme "entirely misses the point." She argued it simply cemented an uneven playing field that leads to "unhealthy supply and demand, longer working hours, lack of confidence, autonomy, morale and poor mental wellbeing." The founder and CEO claimed: "There are echoes of Stockholm syndrome baked in here for our industry as a whole." She added: "This verifies a broken process and validates that we are willing to continue to adopt this archaic behavior, even if a little nicer. It’s just not the only way to do business." Cohen continued: "There is such irony in how transformational and progressive the world of advertising can be. Surely we are the only industry that undermines itself in this way? The world has changed, so we need to change the process, we can’t just make it prettier." The expectation agencies can continue to sink weeks of resource into these processes and give away free strategy and creative doesn’t add up any more.—Charlie Carpenter, CEO, Creativebrief Adam Graham has worked in new business for 15 years and is now the founder of his own consultancy, Gray Matters. He said that time has seen him encounter countless stressed agency colleagues, fed up of doing speculative unpaid work. He is more optimistic about the pledge, which he believes has the power make a real difference to the human and environmental costs of pitching. "All agencies should be signing up for this and demanding changes are made," he said. "The mission is to make pitching more intentional, accountable and effective for both advertisers and agencies. Bad practices need to be exploited and good practices should be celebrated." Things have to change Cohen's anti-pitch is reflective of this era in which staff burnout and poor mental health support are contributing to the industry's own Great Resignation. She said, in order to attract and maintain talent, the way new business is conducted needs a total rethink. "To attract and maintain the talent we need to thrive, we need to build and maintain inclusive environments that promote autonomy and fuel our sense of purpose. The institution of pitching goes directly against this," she said. Graham issued his own rallying cry to advertising peers: "This is about putting emotion, common sense and decency at the heart of competition in the advertising industry." He concluded: "Too often, pitch decisions are led by capitalism, invisible shareholders, ego or just pure laziness or ignorance. And in doing so, people just get walked over." With new business at record levels, and agencies struggling to source and retain staff, one thing the industry can agree on is there's never been a greater demand for improving pitching conditions than there is now. How to Win the Challenge of the 'Great Reassessment'