By Rick Stanton
I’m not sure the percentage of terror vs. confidence I experienced when it came to new-business pitches during my career, but overall, terror probably won.
There were legendary presenters back then, but if you ask around, there was no one quite like Mike Mogelgaard. I’ve heard stories from any number of people about how Mike would own the room once the pitch began. I envied his legendary understanding of the art of persuasion. Mike knew how to seemingly wrap needs and facts in magic.
And there was one critical issue I always grappled with: which to present first—the media plan or the creative?
My basic approach was no bullshit—as was most of my approach to business. I remember winning the Overlake Hospital account against Ron Elgin, another storied pitch man. The last thing I said to the review committee was “I don’t know what anyone else has promised you, but I know what we can promise: we’ll work like dogs for you if we’re fortunate enough to win your trust.”
Sandy Jaeghers, the President/CEO of Overlake, later told me that the committee said our sincerity came through loud and clear and that mattered to them. We presented the creative last that time, by the way.
Another time, when asking for feedback as to why we didn’t get the account, the input was that we came across as desperate. And we probably were. For the record, we presented media last that time.
My friends Sean Clark and Mark Scott and I have had some doozy discussions about this issue. Sean insisted that media is more interesting and, in the end, deals with where most of a client’s budget is going to be spent. Ergo, he contended, media is the more important half of the presentation.
Back in the Stanton Bondo days, we found ourselves in the finals for the Ben Bridge account. They were looking for a sustainable campaign that could work across their most important selling seasons, which were the Holidays, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, graduation and Valentine’s Day. But they also wanted the primary message to work every day. After all, there are birthdays, anniversaries and special events all year long, too.
But the assignment for the pitch was Mother’s Day. We came up with the big idea of using photographs of everyone in our agency, showing them with their moms from early childhood to adulthood. The approach would work with print, point of sale and even TV.
The other aspect of the creative was that Ben Bridge could ask customers to bring in photos of the above celebratory events, and those submitting pictures chosen for the campaign would receive gift certificates from the jeweler. This got everyone involved, made each campaign very personal and created an emotional tie that was real.
We did a spec TV spot for the presentation, as well as examples of how this worked across other media. Dan Dean did some original music and I wrote some very personal copy for the voiceover about moms. We even had a donut that showed how we could feature product.
The TV ended with a shot of me hugging my mom. It was pretty easy to see how important she was to me. After the spot ran, I looked over at the Ben Bridge folks and, honestly, they were on the verge of tears. We had ‘em. Then media lost ‘em.
Our media people bumbled and fumbled their way through their part of the presentation. They were ill-prepared for the Q&A and utterly confused everyone, including me. It sounded nothing like our practices.
About a week later, I got a call from Ed Bridge saying that we had the business—until the media folks showed up. He said he wished he could split the account and hire us to do the creative, but that wouldn’t work for what they wanted.
So the moral of the story is simple: make sure each aspect of your presentation is interesting, practiced and convincing, and don’t let the media folks put the client to sleep with numbers.
And it’s clear to me now, creative should go last—not first.
