Globally, 86% of agency respondents find the agency pitch process excessively time and cost exhaustive and 64% of agency respondents find pitching damaging to agency culture.

Funny how things haven’t changed – a post I wrote about a year ago with same exact issues.

Not a great way to start off an agency-client relationship – with a damaged agency culture.

Read the results of a recent survey featured in AdAge.

According to the agencies interviewed for this survey, many feel the pitch process needs to be simplified, selection criteria need to be recalibrated, talent needs to be prioritized and transparency and communication need to be the center of advertisers’ focus for pitching to have a place in the future of advertising.

Looking at agency thinking as it relates to strategy, planning, analytics is more important than looking at pretty pictures.

Being direct and honest and transparent in what you’re looking for, as the marketer, what your needs are, and where you’d like your business to go is critical to any successful agency search.

Transparency from clients about their needs is a key factor in partnership success because agencies need clearer guidelines to better tailor their pitches. Respondents only gave the current level of transparency about selection criteria from advertisers a 4 out of 10, saying clients need to be better at articulating the reason they are pitching their business and what they truly need from agency partners.

In searches we run at RSW/AgencySearch we are highly transparent in first, defining what the marketer is in need of, what their expectations are, where their current agency has fallen down, and where they see their business looking 3-5 years out.  Getting this all out in the open, upfront allows us to give agencies participating in searches a much clearer view of how they can potentially benefit their future client.

We also make certain that it’s crystal clear that agencies only need to share work if they want to share work.  What we are more interested in, is their thinking – and that’s why we take more of a case study approach to determining the degree to which the agencies involved in the search have solved problems similar to the market’s problems, or moved a business in a positive forward direction in a manner similar to what the marketing client wants to achieve.

This is particularly important today given all the pressures being placed on both marketers and agencies from a revenue growth and a talent acquisition standpoint.  No one has time to “guess” what everyone is thinking or wants.  Being direct and honest has been, and always will be, the best approach.

Maybe this time next year, we can write a story about how marketers have listened and changed the game relative to how they manage a pitch process.

If you’re looking for a new agency, or just thinking about looking for one, give us a call (513-293-6785) or drop us a line (mark@rswas.com).  Always happy to talk.