KEY POINTS:
Part show and tell, part beauty competition and part corporate speed dating, the process for advertisers to select a new advertising agency is also a complex meeting of minds with millions of dollars at stake.
Advertising is not the only sector in New Zealand business that has to pitch for work.
But the advertising pitch is probably the most elaborate. Agencies can spend six-figure sums to form a new business relationship with potential clients.
"If you are a marketing director, you will never feel more loved than when you have three or four agencies pitching for your business," says Mark Champion, the chief executive of the advertising agencies organisation, Caanz.
Advertisers say this is shaping up to be a big year for pitches. We have already seen three high-profile examples - for the New Zealand Lotteries Commission, Vodafone and Noel Leeming - whose machinations have revealed the complexities of the process.
The days when advertising was regarded as "the show business of business" have faded, as have the days when agencies would charge advertisers whatever they could get away with.
Top ad executives are not going hungry in the streets, but brand new Porsches are more rare in agency carparks than they were 20 years ago.
And while industry institutions like the Long Lunch have disappeared, The Pitch still lies at the heart of business. Advertising is still about selling and hyperbole, so agencies pull out all the stops when it comes to selling themselves.
Advertising bosses say pitches re-energise an agency as it focuses itself on the prospective client. Winning a big new account in a pitch can make an agency. Losing an existing account can break it.
There is a truism in advertising: people like winners. And when you start winning accounts there is a chance you can get on a roll.
Approaches to the pitch vary among agencies.
Ross Goldsack is chairman of Y & R New Zealand and remembers a successful pitch in 1999 for the Tui beer account where it rented "the classic scungy student flat" in Wellington.
It sent a typical student to pick up its clients at DB headquarters in Petone, driving an old HQ Holden in the beer's orange brand colours. They won that pitch.
Some agencies say it is is important to get clients out of their offices and into the agency where they can be cajoled away from the distractions of sales reports and the daily grind.
One Saatchi & Saatchi executive, who asked to not be named, said agencies often created a "war-room" for a big pitch and selected an "A-team" to win it.
There is a "sense of empowerment" that the team selected to handle the pitch are the best, and if the account is particularly prestigious the pitch can take precedence over other business. That is the danger for an agency, says Jon Ramage, the chief executive of Y & R Advertising, who played a key role in taking the Bank of New Zealand account from his old agency, Colenso BBDO, which held it for 23 years.
"You have to be careful your existing clients are getting the proper attention - that they know they are still loved."
It all leads to the day when the advertiser typically notifies the unsuccessful pitchers first and the winners at the end.
Said one former ad executive: "You have been working 20 or 30 days at a trot and are waiting, and the buzz gets around.
"It's such a huge relief to find you have won. You're exhausted, but there would be an instant party with champagne corks popping."
But it is not all Moet and skittles. For every winner in a pitch there are two or three losers.
Advertising executives are put through an elaborate and time-consuming process that can cost $100,000 or more - and not even win.
And for advertisers looking for a new agency, a badly handled pitch can also eat up time and money, even if it ultimately leads to the right choice.
Greg Eichmann is a veteran of the New Zealand advertising business and a former chief executive of FCB Advertising. He has formed The Clinic, which acts as an intermediary "working for the advertiser and with the agency".
He and business partner Robert Coulter aim to deal with the complex "dance"of the pitch, working for the advertiser and with the agency during the process.
"It is about selling ideas at a very early concept stage and and saying, 'Go with this and we will make it work,"' said Eichmann. "One person could say 'that is crap' and another could say 'that is brilliant', and they would both be right."
Dollars and cents become a factor, but it is also about sizing up personalities.
Cindy Mitchener is an independent consultant, a former managing director at Saatchi & Saatchi who has a similar marriage guidance role between agency and client after they wed.
A close confidant of Theresa Gattung, she acts as intermediary for Saatchi clients Telecom and for TVNZ to handle the wider relationship between client and agency.
Like Eichmann and Coulter, she believes some advertisers rush too quickly into pitching and wind up in a major marketing decision, sometimes realising after lots of expense and disruption that the existing relationship can be fixed without the upheaval of appointing a new agency.
Jeremy Irwin, executive director of the New Zealand Advertisers Association, says changing agency costs millions and is sometimes done for the wrong reasons.
The advertising pitch typically begins with an invitation for agencies - maybe up to eight or even 10 - to present credentials such as a basic CV of the agency, its people and its work.
The client will choose three or four on the short list.
"Typically, they will give them a task to perform and invite them to go away and come back with the treatment," says Eichmann.
The tricky part for clients is to decide which agency they are suited to, and for agencies to decide whether the client is seriously looking. The suspicion sometimes is that they have already decided whom they want but feel obliged to go through a competitive pitch.
"There is a lot of intellectual property passed on during the pitching process, but in the end it comes to a matter of trust," says Y & R chief executive Jon Ramage.
It can work the other way. There are usually confidentiality agreements, but the problem can be acute for an advertiser that dumps its longtime agency with an intimate knowledge of the company, with the potential for them to pitch to a competitor.
Presenting something that cuts through to clients - with "the wow factor" - can be a key part of the charm offensive.
Roger MacDonnell is chief executive of the Clemenger Group - whose agencies Colenso BBDO, Colenso .99 and its direct marketing arm, Aim Proximity, recently won the big Vodafone account.
He remembers a pitch for Mainland Cheese in which his agency flew Mainland executives by helicopter to a farmhouse in the Manawatu which reflected the brand.
They signed that day.
One adman said that advertising people can get carried away during a pitch, pumping in more effort and resources. "It can get a bit like a heroin addict - you just want more and more to get that hit."
Mark Champion puts the problem in a different light. "Advertising people are the most optimistic people in the world," he says.
Pitched battle: The big three ad pitches so far this year
'It's just not working out'
NZ LOTTERIES COMMISSION
Suitors: Included Lowe (the incumbent), Saatchi & Saatchi, Colenso BBDO and DDB Group.
The pitch: Just three years after a new Lotteries CEO dropped long-time and award-winning agency Saatchi & Saatchi for Lowe, the commission was dissatisfied, complaining that key executives had left Lowe.
Lowe was invited to try again but realised it was futile and pulled out. Saatchi & Saatchi had a love affair with Lotto, having won international awards for its bungy jumping ads, and was desperate to get it back.
Colenso BBDO was keen too but its existing client, casino operator Sky, was wary and miffed that Colenso was prepared to put their relationship at risk.
The winner: The business went to DDB, a big, solid agency that had hired a top new creative director.
'Let's get married ... and bring along your friend'
VODAFONE
Suitors: Lowe (the incumbent), JWT Advertising with Ogilvy, Colenso BBDO with its retail advertising arm Colenso 99.
The pitch: Another highly attractive target - Vodafone is a global giant. The client is demanding and a pitch several years ago lingered for 18 months, before it went back to its incumbent, Lowe. Lowe developed its own styles and sales boomed, but that changed when Telecom's ads improved and Lowe left the pitch before it was dumped. Vodafone wanted to make local advertising better fit its global image, so JWT - which runs many of its campaigns in other countries aligned with expanding Ogilvy, had a chance.
The winner: In the end it went to Colenso BBDO.
'Comings and goings'
NOEL LEEMING AND BOND & BOND
Suitors: IdeaWorks, FCB, Ogilvy, Y & R Advertising
The pitch: The sort of muddied pitch that is a nightmare for ad agencies. After holding the account for eight years,Y & R Advertising declined to take part when the client wanted to cut the fees. Ownership changes and management changes in the middle of the pitch created confusion and FCB withdrew, creating, it seemed, a two-way fight between Ogilvy and IdeaWorks. Y & R asked Noel Leeming if it would reconsider its approach.
The winner: Out of the blue Noel Leeming gave the account to FCB, which had been thought to be out of the running. FCB pulled out all stops and has agreed to set up a separate operation so Noel Leeming secrets are not shared with its other retail client Mitre 10.
