Breaking Up With Traditional Pitches: It’s Not Me, It’s Definitely You.
Over the past few months, there has been a lively and important discussion around the most effective methods for selecting new marketing agencies. The emergence of various innovative approaches in the marketplace has sparked this dialogue, driven partly by advancements in AI technology that simplify the gathering and interpretation of vast amounts of information. Simultaneously, these new methods represent a reaction against the traditional, often cumbersome, prolonged, and expensive pitch processes. Increasingly, brands are expressing frustration with what feels like a standardized, cookie-cutter pitching model, recognizing that these traditional methods frequently serve interests other than their own. As a result, brands are exploring and embracing more tailored, efficient, and transparent alternatives that better align with their unique goals and requirements. Here is our take on the facts, trends and future.
From open market to oligopoly
In recent years, the pitch consultant industry has witnessed substantial changes. The landscape itself is undergoing significant transformation. This industry, traditionally populated by niche specialists capable of guiding highly complex, multi-market pitches, recently experienced waves of consolidation. One of the major happenings impacting this business was the change in leadership at MediaLink back in early 2024, when Kassan, the founder and industry icon left the firm he had so successfully built and led for many years. On top of the collective gasp of Kassan’s exit, private equity investment in the advertising industry has seen notable activity in recent years, with firms acquiring or investing in various agencies and marketing services companies. As a result, we have seen several unions between smaller and larger players. In May 2024 we saw the acquisition of PwC’s Marketing & Media advisory team by MediaSense. In November that same year, MediaSense acquired R3, creating an entity with capabilities across all regions and services beyond media operations into marketing operations, including content and creative.
Oligopoly reduces creativity while increasing prices and confidentiality risk
This evolution into a tightly controlled oligopoly presents challenges, including the reduced creativity around how the pitch is managed. From individual approaches to common methods to achieve higher returns for the brands have become common place.
There are also issues surrounding data confidentiality. In today’s world of “first party data is king”, many agencies feel that they are being asked to share data well beyond what is required to respond to a pitch. In trying to protect their own data around talent, costs, research and tools, they try to implement strict NDAs and restrict the use of the submitted data in other areas than the intended use. In the past, it was less frequent that one pitch consultant ran multiple major pitches in the same year, but now that the same few consultants run several high-profile pitches in the same year, the excessive data collection becomes a major issue for agencies. Finally, several incidents involving data breaches have occurred, often kept quietly under wraps, leading to further tensions and mistrust within the industry. These confidentiality breaches become much more serious when there is a small number of consultants running most pitches. This is more prevalent in the media pitch space, where media pricing is a key advantage to win in a pitch.
Rigorous process with high price tags
As a result of this consolidation, large consulting firms now dominate, leveraging their scale and data capabilities, yet often demanding exorbitant fees. The larger companies also have much higher overhead costs, which is passed on to clients who utilize consultants for their agency pitch management.
Traditional pitching processes — often consultant-driven, exhaustive, and resource-intensive — have been gradually giving way to alternative methods, reflecting broader shifts in how brands and agencies collaborate. Brands now face the significant challenge of determining the optimal approach to pitching, one that aligns with their specific needs and resources. This transformation has created an environment that demands thoughtful evaluation, strategic alignment, and often, innovative thinking — and this is even before a brand decide if, when and how to go to market in the search for a new marketing partner.
Historically, marketing pitches were elaborate productions orchestrated by consultants, involving meticulous RFI and RFP stages, extensive chemistry meetings, and costly final presentations. The rationale behind such comprehensive processes was to ensure precision, accountability, and competitive fairness. However, this approach has increasingly been critiqued as unsustainable. Reports suggest that these traditional pitch cycles, characterized by their rigorous demands, are economically burdensome, diverting critical resources away from actual marketing tasks toward perpetual cycles of new business pursuits. According to a recent Forrester report, agencies spend up to 17% of their annual revenue on pitch activities alone — an immense investment of both financial and human resources.
In 2023, the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) released research titled “The Cost of the Pitch,” examining the financial and relational impacts of agency reviews and pitches. The report found that when considering a typical pitch involving three agencies, the total cost can exceed $1 million, reaching approximately $1.2 million if the incumbent agency participates.
Moreover, despite significant investments in rigorous selection processes, satisfaction rates remain disappointingly low. Forrester’s 2024 Buyers’ Journey Survey revealed that 81% of global purchase influencers felt dissatisfied with their new relationship in some way. Clearly, the meticulous processes historically championed by brands and consultants aren’t necessarily translating into lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships.
Another key issue exacerbating this dissatisfaction has been the procurement-driven review model, which often inadvertently sidelines strategic and creative merit in favor of cost-based evaluations. The intense emphasis on data-driven selection criteria, while fair in principle, frequently minimizes qualitative aspects such as chemistry, innovative thinking, and cultural compatibility. This dynamic leads to agencies sometimes being selected primarily on financial competitiveness rather than genuine fit, often resulting in strained relationships and misaligned expectations from the outset.
New time. New Ideas.
As traditional methods falter, alternative models have begun gaining prominence, offering brands more flexibility and control. One such example is the growing trend of brands utilizing social platforms, like LinkedIn, to announce open calls for agency partners. This approach, as documented by AdAge’s Lindsay Rittenhouse, gained significant attention recently when prominent brands employed LinkedIn to conduct their agency searches openly, igniting widespread industry-wide discussions about the efficacy of such a method.
Critics argue that open “cattle-call” formats dilute the process, resulting in overwhelming, unfocused responses from agencies, many of whom may lack a clear understanding of the brand’s specific needs. Moreover, agencies might inadvertently commoditize their creativity, pitching broadly rather than tailoring their offerings meaningfully. This dilution, skeptics claim, risks lowering overall industry standards and diluting the brands’ evaluations. This process also requires the internal team, whether marketing, procurement or other functions to have strong capabilities to evaluate agencies against set KPIs and then come to a winner, accepted across all stakeholders.
However, proponents of this approach highlight its practicality, transparency, and economic sensibility. For smaller brands, or those with tight budgets, social media-driven pitches offer an accessible alternative to the costly, prolonged consultant-driven model. Moreover, platforms like LinkedIn effectively democratize the process, potentially broadening the range of agencies considered, including those previously overlooked due to traditional constraints.
The golden middle way — Cherry Pick your Support
The middle ground between these approaches involves blending the best elements of structured pitch management expertise with the nimbleness and cost-efficiency of alternative methods. Brands that successfully navigate the contemporary pitching landscape often do so by carefully defining their agency selection strategy upfront. Clear alignment between procurement and marketing teams ensures that financial prudence complements — not overshadows — strategic value and creative potential. An informed and collaborative internal review process, supported by strategic and well-placed external insights, can mitigate many risks inherent in other approaches.
Integrating specialized consultants in a targeted manner has shown notable success. Marketing procurement teams, for example, have increasingly recognized the value of expert support in some of the key areas of pitch management. For example, the project management of a pitch is very time consuming and sometimes it is a good investment to have a central and independent resource that drive objectives, goals, sets up key deliverables, meetings and decision points. By outsourcing these, mainly administrative tasks, the internal pitch team and stakeholders can focus on the areas such as chemistry, brand strategy and agency capabilities which are instrumental to a successful pitch.
While most brands have access to internal legal counsel, it is important to engage with a subject matter expert to ensure all the commercial contract clauses are best in class. Here, a combination of a consultant with strong experience in agency contracts from a commercial perspective is a great asset. Also, supporting the internal legal counsel with a few hours of insight from external counsel, with direct advertising experience is critical to cover the latest in agency contract management.
Some types of pitches require specific support. For example, it has become standard to drive high ROI of a media pitch by not only negotiating the fees for the staff and overhead, but also spend significant time on media pricing improvements.
Since this is a very complex process where external data and resources are required to perform the benchmarking, the value of engaging media auditors within pitches has become key to successfully identify and negotiate media pricing savings. Media pricing benchmarking ensures transparency, competitive media pricing, and substantial savings, often ranging from 10–25% of the brand’s media spend. Auditors facilitate a more rigorous, fair evaluation of media agency proposals, providing a critical layer of accountability and assurance. This specialized approach demonstrates how external support, strategically deployed, can significantly enhance the efficacy of internal pitching processes.
Another further benefit of utilizing an external media auditor to help benchmark your media pricing and find the best possible price for the right quality is that if you decide to hold your agency accountable to deliver the promised savings, the methodology is agreed and in place to be tracked over the length of the contract. Most savings are generated in the first year of the contract, but often both inflation mitigation and price stability is part of the negotiation during the pitch process. Here, brands also need the industry insight of media auditors to gain a fair advantage in the marketplace long term.
Some brands are increasingly exploring project-based collaborations as part of their selection process, converting the conventional pitch scenario into practical engagements. This method offers a realistic snapshot of agency capabilities, chemistry, and strategic alignment without burdening agencies with costly “spec work”. It shifts the selection from theoretical evaluations to pragmatic, outcome-based assessments, effectively establishing a precedent for the working relationship right from the start. It is important for brands to be open about the approach where small projects can lead to larger engagements. That way agencies can decide their level of engagement based on a longer-term relationship opportunity.
Brands Need to Own the Pitch
Ultimately, brands today must recognize that no single pitching method universally fits all situations. Each brand faces distinct challenges and has unique priorities, budgets, and operational structures. An effective pitching strategy, therefore, requires thoughtful customization. The most successful approaches are those that balance structured discipline with innovative flexibility, embedding transparency, clarity, and strategic rigor throughout the process.
The complexity and consolidation characterizing today’s marketing landscape compel brands to think more strategically about how they approach pitching. Rather than defaulting to traditional methodologies or hastily adopting untested alternatives, brands should undertake a thoughtful analysis of their specific needs, resources, and objectives. Whether adopting a streamlined, internal-driven approach, leveraging specialized external expertise, or employing innovative social media-driven platforms, the critical factor remains alignment.
The evolving landscape of marketing pitches necessitates strategic adaptability on all fronts. Brands must carefully weigh their resources, clearly articulate their strategic objectives, and thoughtfully select the most appropriate pitching approach. Only by doing so can they forge lasting, productive agency partnerships capable of –collaboratively navigating — and thriving within — the complex, rapidly evolving marketing environment.
