Rick
Stanton, Creative Director / President
Stanton & Everybody Advertising + Design + Media
It has
been fairly well documented as to how I feel about agency pitches and how
mismanaged and misguided 95% of them are and now there’s new evidence.
The AMC
cable channel has announced a new reality show called The Pitch.
Ironically
it will air right after Mad Men.
It’s based
on the still used but antiquated process clients try and put agencies through
for their accounts.
Essentially
you give the would-be account your thinking for free and if your agency is the
one that gets lucky, you win.
I love
this quote from Charlie Collier, AMC President and general manager in the New
York Times article.
“It wasn’t
born out of Mad Men at all. It was born out of a moment that’s universal, when
you have to come up with a great idea under pressure and sell it in, lay it all
on the line for what you believe.”
This why
the “process” is flawed and why this show will only serve to justify agencies
being treated like hookers.
Great
advertising does not result from pulling something out of your butt and
standing for what you believe in.
It’s the
results of considered thought from research and discovery.
It comes
from listening to consumers, understanding what is really important about a
client’s business and finding chinks in the armor of competitors. It comes from
being responsible, not luck.
Subway
will be one of eight companies to benefit (or not) from a “bake off” between
two shops every week.
The
participants include some large names in advertising including the California
arm of local WongDoody.
How
embarrassing.
Val
DiFebo, chief executive at Deutsch said, “Our reality precluded us from
participating.”
Which
translated means, we have more respect for the clients who pay us and we have
real work to do.
Now I have
another B.S. show about advertising to hate along with Mad Men and Bewitched.
Read this
article.
Posts
You're not alone. I read an article about "The Pitch" in Advertising Age about a year ago. The gist of the article was about how many agencies contacted by the shows producers flat out refused to take part—not wanting to align themselves with a show that would—and is—arguably trivializing the process of client presentations and reducing it to a Donald Trump caricature.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Eric. When are ad agencies ever going to grow a spine and have some self respect? The answer is never.
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