Pitching can be a challenging exercise, stretching resources and time, with no guarantee that you will prevail. The reality being, that most agencies lose more pitches than they win.

With a greater degree of rigor now generally required, the amount of work involved during the pitch process is increasing and, therefore, it costs agencies even more to participate.

Looking at some of our more recent pitches, on average, we spent a total of 125 hours per pitch, which equates to 18 working days of staff time!

That’s the equivalent of one employee working for nearly one month on just one pitch. Even if you only did 12 pitches per year, that’s effectively one year lost!

125 hours of non-billable hours per pitch is alarming, but is this just an unavoidable reality now or could the overall process be improved and streamlined?

Collectively, media agencies have tried and failed to introduce viable remuneration in exchange for our strategy and thinking, but the ever-increasing demands, especially from procurement, are real and a concern for all.

A recent pitch we lost, was awarded based on price which only feeds the ‘win it and worry about it later’ narrative, which we don’t subscribe to. Unfortunately, this rarely works out for the benefit of any party. Instead, all it does is lead to investing time in yet another agency review, as the client and incumbent realise neither party got what they signed up to.

I’ve talked about the importance of chemistry over data before. Surely there has to be a better way to reduce the overall demands of, and time spent on, pitches for everyone?

Duncan Collins

Managing Director