A pitch is the moment to reset and build your future team.
As we kick off 2025, it is the moment to reflect on the many media pitches we have conducted over the past year. Pitches are fundamental to our industry and over the last year much has been discussed regarding the positive and negative aspects of pitching. At the heart of the discussions is whether in today’s complex marketing landscape they are conducted in the best way to achieve the desired outcomes for advertisers.
The success of a pitch comes down to whether a long-term partnership between an advertiser and a media agency has been built that best fits their needs today and prepares them for the future. This requires a clear pitch strategy. A strategy that is rooted in the advertiser’s business vision, needs and specificities and then matching the people, processes and agency partner to meet those needs.
Based on our experience, here is some advice to advertisers who are looking to kick off an agency pitch:
1. To pitch or not to pitch?
Agency offerings and marketing needs are undergoing a significant and continued transformation. What was coined the “Great Reset” in 2023 has now become the “New Normal” so new agency relationships must be structured to mitigate and seize the opportunities of rapidly advancing technology and evolving consumer demands.
In this context, what advertisers required and built teams for a few years ago may not be what is required to succeed in the future. At Flock, we work with advertisers to assess their current model and decide if running a pitch is the best solution. To decide whether a pitch is needed or not, our first step is always to take stock and decide what the advertiser needs in their future-ready team and commercial model. Our Agency Appraisal Tool, with its benchmarks from a wide range of advertisers, helps give clarity on the best course of action.
Whether you need a pitch or not, we advise clients to seize the pitch opportunity to reset and prepare for the future. At Flock, we have run hundreds of successful pitches covering media, creative, production, PR, CRM. We have helped leading advertisers define their pitch strategy and cherry pick the best agencies & vendors to meet their current and future needs.
2. Take a holistic view of the marketing ecosystem
Forbes has predicted that in 2025, customer experience (CX) will increasingly be the key differentiator between competing providers of goods and services. As such, the era of marketing and media operating in silo is in the past – data, content, retail are now important elements of the marketing scope.
Media agency relationships are no longer focused on traditional media strategy, planning, and trading. Agencies are now platform integrators and product vendors with a strong backbone in AI enabled, data & tech proprietary platforms. Embracing and integrating this with your existing MarTech stack is key to building a sustainable relationship and winning in an increasingly complex media market.
This means marketing teams need to design ecosystems that enable them to make data-informed decisions, and then implement and learn fast.
3. Design the team for you
Teams are the catalysts that drive value and new behaviours — but not all are created equal. Activating value-creating agency teams that work seamlessly with marketing teams requires a clear mandate, clear outcomes and agreeing on how to execute, innovate and learn together.
Each client requires a unique team structure, seniority, deliverables, and operations. Clear expectations from the outset are crucial for selecting the right partner. Lack of clarity often leads to frustration and underperformance, with agencies delivering below expectations due to mismatched teams, skills, and seniority. As the industry evolves, it is imperative for agencies to adapt and deliver tailored solutions to meet their clients’ specific needs.
Our starting point with clients is therefore, what elements of your process do you require to be inhouse and what is the agency required to deliver and plug into? And then finding the agency team that shares the passion for your business and has the experience and skills to be your business partner.
4. Value tailored to you
When discussing rates and contracts with clients, we frequently emphasize the concept of holistic value. We collaborate with clients to discern the value being delivered by the agency and the additional benefits they provide to the business, encompassing marketing, media, procurement, legal, research, and data teams.
Modern agencies are more than just media trading partners; they possess the expertise, data, and insights to serve as your strategic business partner, particularly in these times of uncertainty and change. Modern media pitches and contracts should leverage the breadth of their offering to deliver the value needed to meet consumer needs.
A successful pitch is one where the advertiser can access and leverage the value provided by their agencies. At Flock, we help advertisers select the right agency, technology and data ecosystem and support clients in building the commercials to deliver their business needs. Using our Agency Scoping Tool, with over $2.1bn live negotiated fees, we are able to deliver advertisers on average 30% additional value.
The pitch outcome though is only the beginning, true success lies in establishing a way of working that works for all sides and enables seamless decisioning and agility. We support clients with the onboarding of their new agency and integrations with all other agencies and parts of their ecosystem.
We’d love to hear your views or share some cases of our recent projects. Use the form below to get in touch.
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