The guide to crafting the perfect pitch

As agencies strive to secure coveted clients, the quest for crafting an irresistible pitch becomes an indispensable pursuit. 

At the fourth edition of AgencyCon, which featured various discussions and valuable insights, drawing interest from those involved in advertising, media, and marketing, a host of panellists unveiled The Guide to crafting the Perfect Pitch — a roadmap essential for every agency navigating the competitive terrain of client acquisition. Here’s the excerpt from that panel. 

On the panel, we had:

• Eshwari Pandit: Senior Creative Director, Interactive Avenues
• Mehul Gupta, Co Founder & CEO, SoCheers
• Prachi Bali, EVP & Business Head, Saatchi & Saatchi Propagate
• Shikha Davessar, Executive Vice President & Head- Client Business 22feet Tribal Worldwide
• Mrinil Mathur Rajwani, Managing Partner, Social Samosa Network, Founder and Editor, Social Ketchup chaired the session. 

Is there a perfect pitch?

"The perfect pitch doesn't exist. We can come closer to perfect but we can never be perfect," said Mehul Gupta. Because, behind making a pitch, there are multiple moving elements, multiple people with subjective beliefs of how creativity looks like, the way a brief is decoded is different and more. 

He added, “The moment you feel like a pitch is ‘perfect’, you should know that you’re missing out on something.”

Shikha Davessar added, “It's not about being perfect or imperfect, it's about putting your best foot forward.” 

The journey of a pitch starts from the initial days when you’re warming up with your client. Because, in multi-agency pitches, they receive multiple similar pitches, but at the end of the day, they remember the people that they connected with. 

Prachi Bali contributed her thoughts on this and said, “A pitch between a client and an agency is about the agency having a POV. You are not expected to have the perfect pitch, because you’re not supposed to know the correct answer.” “A pitch without a POV is an imperfect pitch. "

Eshwari Pandit mentioned, “There is no correct answer. A pitch is completely reaction-dependent. A pitch is about what you believe in.”

Taking the conversation ahead, Mathur Rajwani imposes an often thought-about question in the industry. She mentions that a lot of times when creative folks have a great idea, it might not transfer into the paper correctly. 

Why aren’t great ideas making the final cut?

Gupta said, “The problem is when you get the pitch you think of ideas and that is the first mistake. There's a journey you map to get to those ideas. Until you do the groundwork, you can't get to the idea."

He explains that agencies go through a journey to arrive at a certain pitch. The problem areas, goals, objectives, future plans, and the TG’s behaviour – their likes, dislikes, and their preferred platforms are scanned. Learning from their mistakes, Gupta believes that without doing these hygiene checks and arriving at an idea, is where agencies miss out. 

Davessar said, "The challenge starts when you think if the idea is feasible or not. There are reasons why certain ideas don't get into execution. "

To avoid these foreseeable problems, 22feet Tribal Worldwide practices the following: 

Pitch Doctor: Someone from the agency who is a client advocate, behaving like a client, pinpointing the minute details. This helps in later understanding which pitch can be actually executed or not. 

Agreeing with this thought, Bali said, “One thing that we lack is the linearity of thought. Communication does not need to be linear but there has to be a line of thought you need to stick to.”

Bali further states that in an agency where there's a chance of encountering 100+ ideas, not sticking to a linear thought is a mistake the industry often makes. 

Pandit mentioned that for creative folks oftentimes it's tempting to fall in love with every idea they come up with. To avoid getting your ideas rejected, it's important to look at it from the client’s lens. She adds, “But when a creative gets to its final stages, it's very important to approach it clinically. 

Moving ahead, Mathur Rajwani queried the panellists if they could effectively discern a winning pitch after evaluating hundreds of them.

Bali mentioned that to have a 7/10 judgement of whether the pitch will float or sink, there needs to be a rapport between the client and the agency. She added, “Verbal and non-verbal queues are at the tip of our fingers.”

Pandit agreed and said the pre-work that the agency puts in helps in administrating what the client had previously worked on and accordingly can then structure the ideas that need to be presented. 

What needs to be brought back? 

• Pandit: Part deck and part room, hence bring back the razzle-dazzle. 
• Gupta: A pitch is not what’s on the slide, but what you’ve got in the room. 
• Davessar: Bring back the fundamentals. 
• Bali: Be transparent and bring ‘pitch-fees’ in India. 
  

Is AI helping or disrupting the pitch process? 

Gupta said sternly, “AI is definitely helping the pitch process.” He further stated that AI can help in identifying key takeaways, and observations and can save the agency three to four days worth of time. 

Davessar said, “We need to stop looking at AI as a threat. It is not, it simply is a platform to make our lives simpler.” She added that the ad industry needs to start looking at AI as an ally to achieve its goals faster and more efficiently. 

What the client want v/s what they need?

Mathur Rajwani stated that oftentimes agencies get into the pickle of understanding what the client demands versus what they need and how can the agency find the sweet spot in between. 

Bali stated that to find that, agencies need to ask the difficult questions. She added, “You will be remembered if you are the one who asks them questions that matter.”

Davessar stated that the balance that needs to be struck is the short-term and long-term impacts of brand building. She added, “Today, when we are going in for pitching, we need to come across as someone willing to give the client a short-term impact and at the same time help them with the long-term brand building.”

Pandit mentioned that clients are, just like agencies, people. They also have their internal goals and ambitions. She said, “If we dig into that and figure out how we can help amplify that, certainly helps a lot.” 

How to make the perfect pitch? 

To end the panel and conversations, the panellists shared one tip for advertisers to nail their “perfect pitch”. 

Pandit pondered at the beginning of the panel when they discussed that there isn't a perfect pitch. But she thinks that some fundamentals need to be followed –Ethos, Pathos and logos - the fundamentals of persuasion. 

• Ethos: Speaks to establishing your credibility. 
• Pathos: The deliverability of your ideas. 
• Logos: The logic, rationality. 

Davessar talked about SPV:

• S - Getting your story right. 
• P - How you package it. 
• V - Getting the vibe right. 
  

Gupta concluded his thoughts and said, “Don’t treat a pitch as a deck, treat it like a storybook.”

Bali said, “First – Never stop tracking [a brand]. Second – Explain the idea to your mom. If she gets it, it's simple enough and it will get the point across.”

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