Big pitches are one of my favorite things.  For those of you, who have never been part of a big pitch, let me tell you it’s the most brutally draining and yet most rewarding part of this business. I love it. I thrive on it.

It’s also incredibly risky. Although you do definitely come out a smarter person after each sleepless two-week Red Bull induced creative deep dive bender, there are some big risks involved outside of the physical ones.

These things are risky financially, but most importantly they can be devastating emotionally.  We put ourselves, and our agency on the line every time we step into the competitive ring. There is nothing like a big win to create momentum and to elevate morale, but on the flip side a big loss can be a big deal too.

Looking back at my career. I can trace back every major shift in the business to two types of events, people and pitches.  Regardless of how big or small we were, -pushing the trigger on that one key hire could changed the trajectory of the whole business, while introducing just one bad hire can do the same. The exact same goes for competitive pitches one win can change the vibe of the agency, and one loss can stop you in your tracks.

I prescribe to the idea that in a “creative People” based business, team camaraderie and passion for the work translates directly into growth and profit.

For this reasons some agencies refuse to participate in competitive pitches. I could not imagine taking that stance. Perhaps it’s because of my competitive nature, or some other Freudian complex I need to tend to. I am noticeably shorter than the other creative hot shots you know. J

That said my advice for those who wish to fight is not to jump to put on the war paint every time you get your hands on an RFP. Make sure the business is worth fighting for before you mobilize your troops.

Assessing whether it is worth fighting for is actually quite simple.  You have to answer three questions.

1.    Do we like these guys?

You should always ask to sit down with the client before committing to investing a ton or time and talent into a big pitch.

2.    Is it a fair fight?

This one is harder to answer, and even if you ask (which does not hurt) they are unlikely to tell you. Detective work required.

I have many war stories related to question number two. The CMO’s Frat brother owns the other agency. The procurement guy plays golf with your competitor. It does not matter how good your team is some of these gigs simply can’t be won, so make sure you are not wasting your time. The most egregious example I have is one that involves finding out way too late that the CEO of the company has a lovechild with the owner of one of the competing agencies. Yes this really happened!! So word to the wise, do your homework.

Now for the most important, yet often overlooked question.

3.    Do these guys know what they want and why?

The fact they wrote a 50 page RFI does not mean they know what they are doing. – Here is the drill. You probably would have gotten a very prescriptive RFP, which typically goes a little something like this. “We are or want to be the premier blah, blah, provider of certain services or products, this is our target market, and we want you come up with a new campaign, design a website, and throw in some of that social and mobile media stuff. Please submit your ideas, and pricing by next Friday – if we like it, you will be asked to come in with your dog and pony”

Remember that meeting we insisted on? Well, in these meetings we always ask the same question – why? This is a powerful question. So incredibly important that you would be surprised how many of your people forget to ask it, and you would be even more surprised with how many clients choke on the answer.

I typically ask a question like “Why that target audience?”- If they choke, or give you some lame answer like “it has always been that way…” run. Ask a question like “Why do you want to redesign your site?” if the answer is something like “We are highly dependent on retail distributors, and are looking to diversify by going direct to consumers” or frankly any other intelligent answer, then strap a riffle to your back and fight to win that account. 

I don’t often plug books that I like on this blog, but perhaps I should start. I just read a little advertising book on the plane titled “Bang!” by Linda Kaplan Thayer and Robin Koval. Once you get past all of the self-promotion and incestuous name-dropping, you will find some great nuggets of advertising wisdom.

The chapter that prompted me to buy a hundred copies of this thing to hand to some any account person I happen to run into this week before I forget I wrote this was the bit surrounding the Aflac Duck.

Service marketing is challenging, much more challenging than selling products. A service is not something tangible. We are effectively selling a promise, and a promise cant sell itself like an iPhone or a Bentley. I have worked on a number of financial services accounts over the years, and frankly those are the toughest brands to produce breakthrough work. It’s hard to find something memorable to say about retirement planning, and even harder to find a risk taking client in this line of work.

So back to the Aflac story the author points out “What’s sexy about Cancer insurance? This is serious stuff. Imagine the reaction when the creative director walked into the account person’s office and said, “what if we used a duck?” – what do you think the account guy said – “we are not showing this to the client, it’s inappropriate, silly, irresponsible etc.”

In fact the concept never made it to the client. Fortunately a creative who pushed to sneak the duck ad into testing effectively ran the agency. The rest is history.

So ask yourself this question. How many ideas have been killed before they hit your desk, let alone made it to the client because of an overly controlling account person everyday?

The Aflac Duck ads have an unprecedented recall of 92%, in fact most Americans can’t say Aflac without quacking. I hope they fired that account guy.

OK this rant is bound to sound like I’m contradicting half of what I’ve said in the past. Let me be clear, I’m not one of those creative types who denounces all research and refuses to have their work tested or measured; in fact I’m usually the poster child for embracing it and informing my ideas through observing people. This post is about the value of a fresh perspective and intuition. It’s not about whether or not we should pay attention to client’s research, but rather when it should be introduced into the ideation process.

So I’ve always preached this simple process for developing big ideas.

Define the Intent, inform the idea, Develop the Concept, Verify it, Realize the idea, and Evolve it.

I swear to you guys, this works every time.  The formula works, but only if you follow the process to the letter. Very often teams choose to cut corners to save time and money, but that’s a mistake. Often we rationalize skipping a step, because the client seems to have already done all of the up-front work for you. Don’t get yourself get caught in that trap, specially if the client hands you a 400 page, 25 pound leather bound research brief that they call the Bible.

Remember why they hired your agency; the odds are they did not have all the right answers. They may have an idea of what they want to say, but you can be assured they don’t know how to say it. Remember David Ogilvy’s famous quote “why buy a dog, if you intend to do your own barking?”

So before you crack open that brief do your own thinking, only after you have developed a bunch of rough concepts should you read the clients research to help validate that one or more of your teams ideas align with the insights. Those initial uninformed ideas tend to provide the best foundation for the final campaign.

Our team gets in a room and starts to throw ideas around. We come up with a bunch of uninformed answers, and even more questions. We then go out to the world and observe consumer behavior, we talk to their customers and even their competitor’s customers, but most importantly we want to hear from the people who don’t even buy the stuff. This is the most important bit, all this happens before we have any pre-conceived biases that could be created by their research.

Take very good notes, then dive into every single page of their book. You are more likely to develop breakthrough ideas this way.

Ok so I try to never blatantly promote the agency on my blog. I rather stick to my rants than sell Sapient, but that said I couldn’t resist today. Check out our new site. http://www.sapient.com

There are basically three cool components to this thing.

Publishing Model – Our site will effectively change every week. One week we may feature a cool new technology we are playing with, another we may choose to feature a new project, or simply support one of our favorite charities.

Our Portfolio – We recognize regardless of whether you are looking to hire us, or looking to come work for us  - you want to see the work. We have just begun to scratch the surface on publishing our entire portfolio. This thing will go back as far as the 90’s and will feature great projects like the original Apple Store we designed, and many more. – Look for more work to be added every single week.

Our thinking – we will share insights from some of the worlds most talented marketers, and technologist – all of which happen to work on our teams.

Last but not least – this thing is far from being done or polished

Enjoy!