PITCH BATTLE

The one issue that seems to unite the marketing services industry, if only in frustration, is the competitive pitching process. The above-the-line sector appears to have come through the worst of it and, excluding public sector accounts, agencies are unlikely to find themselves on a shortlist which is longer than five.

During the recession particularly, the direct marketing industry had to endure being asked to pitch for business that probably wouldn’t even pay the month’s electricity bill. Although DM agencies attempted to band together and refuse to pitch for accounts under a certain value, the need for business often meant the unwritten code was ignored.

Now it is the turn of the conferences and exhibitions sector, and production houses are becoming more vocal about the fact that big clients often expect a dozen suppliers to tender for work – without so much as a pitch fee.

The issues in this sector are a little more complex, mainly because the services that the industry provides range from full-blown conference and exhibition expertise, to video production, roadshows and copywriting services. It is a relatively young industry, so the clients are often not sure what they are looking for or what to expect.

Whatever the issues, however, people are generally unhappy with the situation and are looking for change.

At the end of last year, Crown Business Communications managing director Nick Lamb rallied the troops and called for industry-wide action. He contacted his opposite numbers in 16 other companies, which he believed together represented 50 per cent of mainstream revenue, and called for action to eliminate what he called “wasteful, counter-productive and unnecessary” pitch practices.

The pitching process, he said, had become “a pointless and exhausting steeplechase, with too many runners, dangerous fences and a movable finish line”.

Lamb believes the degeneration of the pitch process is a result of at least four factors: “Clients include too many competitors within each pitch; the way in which competition is run is often arbitrary with last-minute changes and sudden revelations; the lines between credentials presentation, reasonable response to the task set in the pitch brief and free general consultancy have become blurred to the point of non-existence; and frequently clients use what is nominally an ‘open’ pitch process to gather broader industry intelligence with no real intention of leaving their current agency.”

In an industry not know for its unity, practically all the agencies contacted by Lamb responded to his call and met to discuss the issues. Lamb says that although the meeting did not produce immediate solutions, “there was an obvious common desire to set an agenda for changing the profile of the industry”.

Although production companies say there are ruthless clients out there who trawl for ideas, they believe the majority of them just don’t understand the benefits of short, sharp pitches. Once they do, they should fall into line.

However, unlike the advertising industry, which provides a fairly standard service, the variety of services available in this sector is large and growing. There are also only a handful of clients who are involved in conferences and exhibitions all the time – for the most part companies launch roadshows and other live communications irregularly. It would be unrealistic to expect the majority of clients to have more than just a basic knowledge of what is available.

Lamb says that one idea put forward at the meeting was the establishment of an organisation similar to the Advertising Agency Register (AAR), which would enable clients to see what is available in the first instance.

There is in fact already such an operation for this industry called The Visual Communications Register (VCR), formerly called Connect. Run by managing director Ron Allridge, the company, like the AAR before it, has so far had limited success in convincing the larger production companies to register.

The VCR has 70 production companies on its register and has been used by the likes of Barclays Bank, Equity & Law, BUPA and Bradford & Bingley. In all these cases, the client either had no idea where to begin looking for the right company to suit its needs, was not even sure what was on offer or sometimes didn’t even know what it wanted.

The VCR carries detailed information on each registered supplier including business sector experience and fee structures. Clients using the register also have to declare the status of their inquiry – are they just window shopping or is their budget in place and are they ready to commission?

They also have to state the total number of production companies they are going to ask to pitch for the project. When it is established exactly what the client needs, the VCR provides them with a shortlist of four relevant suppliers.

Allridge believes the real problem lies in the fact that there are thousands of production companies and suppliers – 2,176 at his last count – and too many of them claim to be able to do everything. If clients are confused, it is a situation that has been created by the industry.

“I’m not surprised clients are confused about the industry. A communications buyer in motor manufacturing told me he has received phone calls from the same new business manager working for three different organisations within the past nine months. The communications manager at a water utility told me that at the height of the low water levels she was getting ten phone calls a day from video companies. And the marketing department of a leading charity put a project out to tender to two companies and in response to the same written brief received quotes, one for 3,500 and the other for 35,000,” says Allridge.

Allridge also believes too many production companies will be whatever the client wants them to be, whether they are qualified to do the job or not.

He says: “If the client was confident it knew what kind of animal it was dealing with, then it might be happier about inviting a select bunch of suppliers to pitch rather than feeling it prudent to cover every angle and construct a pitch list the length of your arm.

“As the managing director of a high-profile production company told me recently, ‘I have one stock answer to every question any client asks me and that is – why yes, of course’.”

But it is that ability and desire to be all things to all people that the industry prides itself on.

Lois Jacobs, managing director of HP:ICM, one of the larger production houses, says: “We can be different things to different people. It depends on what is required. Because there are so many different types of agencies in our business, I wouldn’t trust another individual to put us in a specific category. I would be anxious if someone else was trying to pigeonhole us.

“The way to solve the pitching problem is by being more mature about what we pitch for. We question every pitch and I know other companies are starting to do that too. We need to treat ourselves with a little more respect.”

But Pete Brady, chief executive of the Clearwater Group which was responsible for the launch of the Rover 200 at the NEC Birmingham in November 1995, says that as the industry grows and becomes more fragmented, there could be a need for a register. He adds: “We will not pitch for any work if there are more than four companies pitching. After that, the odds against us are too high.”

Brady admits that long pitch lists are often an indication of ignorance on the part of the client, but believes this is no excuse.

“One of the things that has happened during the past three years with the recession is that companies have not been using our services as much. So people who were involved in special events lost their jobs.

“Now there are a lot of new young people in these jobs who haven’t the slightest idea what they are doing. It is understandable, but still no excuse to draw up long pitch lists,” he says.

He also admits this is a “can do” industry and that if companies are asked by clients to do something new or unusual, they will find out how to do it rather than say no.

Gary Chitty, managing director of Razor Communications, says it is not only the naive clients who are demanding long pitch lists.

“The major commissioners in this industry still ask for lots of companies to pitch. There are a few large companies commissioning most of the work, and they are not setting a good example,” he says.

The group of production companies involved in Lamb’s initiative are to meet again later this month and at that stage they are likely to decide which direction to go: whether to tackle the pitch problem head on or deal with it by raising awareness of the industry itself.

Lamb says: “If we get the solution right, whether by charter, code, practice or by whatever means we finally decide on, we will begin to eradicate the problem and re store the pitch process to its rightful status: fair and constructive competition.

“And we will also reap real long-term benefits. We will have a less insular, more cohesive and better-defined industry. We can begin to have the conversations about our collective directions and future that we should have had five years ago.”