It’s time to stop repeating behaviour and expecting a different result, it’s time to move from complaining to correcting.
TLDR
- Pitches are here to stay unless there’s genuinely no choice to be made
- What goes out for pitch – and how – must be improved by brands and intermediaries
- And agencies must push back on, or outright refuse, poor pitch process
- Repeatedly pitching small-scale projects damages everyone involved
- Intermediaries with opaque conflicts of interest must not be tolerated by brands or agencies
Introduction: Why the Debate Never Ends
The debate over advertising pitches and speculative creative work has been rumbling on for as long as I can remember, and I’m not exactly new to this industry.
Despite decades of discontent and countless calls for reform, the industry remains stuck in the same cycle of protest and reluctant compliance. Some say pitch conditions are broken beyond repair. Others accept them as a necessary evil. Like most advertising problems, it’s complicated; and today’s dysfunction stems from brands, agencies, and many intermediaries alike.
So, in an attempt to move things forward from what feels like a permanent impasse, I would like to examine two questions:
Should pitches exist at all?
And, if so, should agencies produce creative work for them?
Let’s start with the reality agencies face today.
The Problem with Pitches – the Agency Perspective.
Few would argue that most pitch processes are consistent or fair. At their worst, they’re chaotic, opaque, or so tangled in bureaucracy that they end up assessing administrative skills rather than advertising proficiency. At the better end of the scale, and sadly far rarer, lie well-designed processes: strategic, respectful and efficient, typically run by experienced, enlightened clients or proficient intermediaries.
Most, however, fall somewhere in between. And for agencies, the cost can be punishing. Pitches demand enormous time and effort, often pulling people away from paid client work into unpaid sprints with no reasonable chance of reward. For an industry already under pressure to maintain margins, wasteful pitching is a drain on resources few can afford. This comes with a human cost too: stress, exhaustion, burnout, churn.
The Pitch Positive Pledge was launched with good intentions aiming to address timing, wellbeing, and resource strain, but agencies report little change. Despite the guidance, the volume, intensity, and structure of pitches (or lack thereof) remain much the same.
So of course, agencies complain. And yet, most continue to participate, feeling they have no choice.
The Buyer’s Perspective – Why Brands Keep Pitching
From a brand’s point of view, the logic in favour of pitching is straightforward. If marketers are accountable for choosing the right partner, and if strategy and creative work can be requested upfront to demonstrate value, then why wouldn’t they ask for it?[1]
For the marketer, if their agency car breaks down, no one wants to be the one who failed to kick the tyres or take it for a test drive first.
Many organisations’ policy and governance require all significant suppliers regularly retender their positions to make sure they’re getting the best value for money for their owners or shareholders in all aspects of their supply chains.
Agencies’ case studies, websites, and showreels illustrate what they’ve done in the past, but many still trade on campaigns created by people who have long since left.
For marketers, the pitch therefore becomes the closest proxy for seeing what an agency can do next.
But let’s play devil’s advocate for a moment.
Suppose brands appointed agencies based solely on credentials, past work, and a strategic point of view. No speculative creative. Just pure thinking.
Would that stop agencies from developing creative ideas behind closed doors just to gain an edge? Could we rely on the integrity of the same agencies that have been known to try joining pitches even after the starting pistol has been fired, offering to pitch “unofficially” and “under the radar”?
And in a competitive three-way final, does anyone in adland really believe the other agencies won’t lean on their creative department to tip the scales?
If we’re honest with ourselves, pitches without spec work would require such draconian enforcement (no contact with the client, submissions only in writing and through a portal, written pledges from participants, etc) as to make public sector pitches look progressive.
So, it’s necessary for marketers to mitigate risk, and it’s inevitable for agencies to try to win by whatever means available.
The Role of the Intermediary – Often A Critical Weak Link.
Complicating matters further is the role of intermediaries, often acting as matchmakers for brands and agencies. Standards vary enormously. Some simply sell a shortlist to a client and step away – hardly a fair value exchange, while others offer a thorough more white-gloved approach.
Worse still, increasing numbers now take a commission from the winning agency’s first- and even second-year revenues. This allows the intermediary’s services to appear highly cost-competitive or even free to brands while masking the conflict of interest they knowingly cultivate.
Many brands, in need of pitch expertise, objectivity and resource, assume that an intermediary’s market share or fame equate to integrity, but agencies attest there is no reliable correlation. And large intermediaries taking win fees frequently deter the best agencies from participating; something brands are blissfully unaware of.
Meanwhile, smaller intermediaries often provide a more thorough, strategic, fully transparent service. But “free” is seductive, even when it isn’t free at all, and brands rarely know how much of their agencies’ revenue is compromised.
Intermediaries with opaque finances and conflicted interests will only thrive for as long as agencies accept their terms and brands fail to question them.
But before any agencies protest and declare they can’t possibly walk away, consider this: how much of the market does one intermediary actually control? Of the pitches they run, how many are authentic opportunities for your agency? And of those, how many do you convert? Very often, the maths simply doesn’t add up.
Brands alone should pay for intermediary services, and intermediaries that can’t justify a decent fee probably aren’t doing a decent job.
So, no, pitches aren’t going away, but the way they are run must drastically improve.
The Project-Based Spiral – Why it’s Burning People Out.
A major accelerant of the pitch problem is the rise of project-based agency appointments. Instead of building long-term partnerships, many marketers now appoint agencies campaign-by-campaign or asset-by-asset. Some smaller clients have even built creative rosters for routine beauty contests – not for different brands, but for the same product. Madness.
It may offer short-term flexibility for brands, but it creates a permanent treadmill for agencies: more briefs, shorter durations, less continuity, and fewer opportunities to build long-term value.
This model fragments relationships and multiplies the number of pitches in circulation, consuming ever more time, energy, and creative capital. Agencies that once pitched every three years for a major account now find themselves pitching constantly for the same brand, often for work of limited scope.
It’s unsustainable, and it erodes the very value agencies exist to create.
Brands should stop doing it, and agencies should refuse to participate.
That doesn’t mean every account must run on a retainer. Brands can remunerate project-by-project – but with the same agency, and for a meaningful period of time.
Agencies Must Draw the Line – Because No Pitch Runs Without Them
Agencies aren’t powerless here. Quite the opposite. No pitch can run without participants.
So, if things are to improve – agencies must stop asking whether pitches should happen, and start asking what is acceptable – and crucially, what is not.
If I were running an agency again today, I’d draw clear boundaries before entering any pitch:
- Refuse any pitch where an intermediary expects a win-fee from the agency
- Decline any pitch requiring payment of an intermediary’s subscription fee simply to be considered
- Decline any pitch requiring the purchase of an intermediary’s product or service to be included.
- Insist on full transparency of the process, timeline, and decision criteria before agreeing to participate.
- Insist on knowing which other agencies are involved, and how many will be cut at each stage.
Agencies can’t make sound commercial decisions, usually involving tens of thousands of pounds of investment or more, without knowing the rules of the competition.
Yet too many agencies abandon their principles the moment a juicy brief is dangled in front of them.
When pipelines are quiet, principles get forgotten.
And that’s exactly why poor practice persists. If good agencies keep agreeing to bad pitches, nothing will ever improve.
Double-dipping intermediaries and ill-informed brands have no reason to raise their standards when compliance from agencies is the norm.
A Call for Leadership – Especially from the Most Successful Agencies
If the industry is to rise above poor practice, the biggest and most respected agencies must lead by example.
Let’s hear when and why they refused to pitch. Call out bad actors.
Let’s create a culture in which saying “no” to unreasonable terms isn’t seen as commercial suicide but as self-respect – and leadership.
In the same vein, all agencies and brands should call out the good practice, such that shedding light on the good and the bad will steer others.
Because this isn’t just about agencies. A well-run pitch protects time, money, and mental health on both sides. It helps marketers choose the right partners and allows agencies to give their best under fair conditions.
Everyone benefits from clarity, transparency, and respect.
The Responsibility of Brands
Brands have a part to play in this too. It’s in everyone’s interest that agency relationships are more enduring and more valuable – not just a series of beauty contests for projects.
The constant pitching merry-go-round drains the energy, enthusiasm and capacity of the very partners brands rely on. Long-term partnerships build understanding, efficiency, trust, and ultimately – better work.
Bill Bernbach once said, “A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money.” That’s remains true. But the truth for brands is this: if good agencies stop turning up to the poorly-run pitches, brands will start to feel the cost too.
The future of pitching isn’t “pitchless”, but it must be principled.
Final Thought – The Agencies Who Don’t Have to Pitch
If your agency is so differentiated or specialised that it becomes the obvious (or even the only) choice – thereby circumventing the need for a pitch – then fair play to you. Jobs handed Apple back to TBWA without a pitch. It does happen.
But the agencies that sometimes win business without pitching tend to do so by demanding respect. The short-term pain of walking away from opportunities that don’t meet their standards is a necessary rite of passage. It’s how you become the kind of agency that, from time to time, doesn’t have to pitch at all.
Looking Ahead
So perhaps the industry can adopt a new resolution: accept that pitches are unlikely to disappear any time soon, and commit to demanding better standards from everyone involved.
Although rarely, I have both walked away from a client because of how they insisted I run a pitch, and I have threatened to do so to protect my integrity from an unfair process to get it back on track, but that is what my reputation is built on. I have to be trusted by brands AND agencies.
Brands can abandon intermediaries with undeclared conflicts.
Agencies can push back or abandon processes that are opaque or compromised.
Intermediaries can commit to full transparency and fair practice.
And if we all do that – then things WILL start to get better.
[1] For many who have known no other business than advertising, it’s worth noting this industry is far from unique. Architects, head-hunters, training companies all pitch as part of their cost of doing business. As one client observed to me “You think advertising is bad? Try pitching for a rail franchise.”