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ID CommsMay 18, 20222 min read

How Will You Excite Agencies with Your Pitch?

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When you launch your pitch right you get a better response from agencies that are fully engaged with your brand.

Starting a pitch process is one thing, inspiring agencies to want to take part is another. The best opportunity for advertisers to do that is at the all-agency briefing.

This gives you a huge platform to create excitement in the market about the prospect of working for your brand or brands. It’s a chance to tell all the agencies in the room what you stand for, what role media plays in your company and where you are looking for agencies to help.

Done well, the very best deliver desire among the agency community, they encourage them to compete and allow advertisers to see the best that the agency world can do.

Done badly, and the teams that will line up to compete could be the B team or the C team as agencies decide to focus their best efforts on more inspiring brands and briefs.

An all-agency review also sets the tone when it comes to integrity of process. It highlights to non-incumbents that there is a level playfield and from an advertiser point of view, it means there is only one briefing to run, ensures you provide consistent information and have the time to make sure the event is high quality.

Brands need to put on a show. You are selling yourselves to the agencies and they want to see you, they want to know who’s involved and who the decision makers are? They want to see a good quality brief that’s easy to understand. You need to craft the briefing and ensure that the narrative is consistent whether it’s the media director, COO or CPO who’s taking the stand.

Download ID Comms Best Practice Guide - How to plan a media agency pitch

Having run dozens of such events over the last decade or more, including many virtual ones in the last few years, we believe there are three critical ways in which advertisers can boost the power of the briefing:

First, try and do it face to face. Make sure that the environment is inspiring so don’t use a basement boardroom with no windows. Think about going offsite, ID Comms has run them at Yankee Stadium in NY, Stamford Bridge in London and even at a flagship chocolate shop and museums. If you can link the location with the theme of the briefing then even better.

Second, bring together the most senior stakeholders you can. This was easier when briefings were run digitally but being able to line up your CEO to talk in a powerful lucid way about the company’s vision for media can really inspire the agency community. It highlights just how much media has risen up the corporate agenda in recent years.

Third, engineer enough time in the event to build real human connections. The incumbent may know your team but the rest of the agency representatives will not. Allow moments such as coffee breaks to give everyone at the briefing a chance to get to know you better.

The all-agency briefing is an advertiser’s Agincourt moment, it’s the time to inspire the agency troops to fight the good fight for your account. Get it right and you will see the very best of the agency community.

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