The Pitch Process: Turning client briefs into great ideas, then selling them

Miami Ad School - July 2013

the pitch process

Leads a team of creatives, planners, analysts and generally smart people. Responsible for managing clients.

who the hell

are we?Let’s introduce ourselves !

Creative social planner who drives program development for Beyond’s global client base

Matt BasfordDirector, Beyond NY

Ben MartinHead of Planning

INSIGHT

TECHNOLOGY SOCIAL

LESS FINANCIAL RISK, MORE CREATIVE PRECISION, AWESOME RESULTS

a little bit about us

WE drive brand engagement through the

CREATIVEapplication of technology

createlet’s talk about how to

Great ideas don’t come cheap

What we are going to talk about today

selland them

A QUICK PRIMER

WHAT ARE CLIENTS

LIKE?REALLY

clients don’t know what they want

they have more customers than ever

more stakeholders than ever

so many channelsto cover

It used to be really...

20 years agoHR Consultants

finance

operations

strategy

marketing

learning

product development

Accountants

Management Consultants

Branding Agencies

Ad Agencies

Corporate Training Consultants

Sales Consultants

Product design & innovation agencies

and then the web came along

finance

operations

strategy

marketing

learning

product development

Brand websiteOnline ads

and got useful for more things

finance

operations

strategy

marketing

learning

product development

Social

E-commerceSEM

“Fun” apps

and a few more things

finance

operations

strategy

marketing

learning

product development

salesSocial analytics

Digital supply chains

Digital transformation / change management

E-Recruiting

E-Learning

Co-creation

Crowdsourcing

“Serious” apps

Digital product design & testing

Digital service design

Social

E-commerceSEM

“Fun” apps

everybody’s getting into each others’ businessJust a few examples...

branding

PRmanagement

consultancies

data analytics

Design

social

advertising

digital

Accenturebuying Fjord

W+Kaces social with Old Spice

WCGbuying predictive analytics firm

WPPbuying AKQA

PR + data analytics

digitalADVertising +

ADVertising+social

+managementconsultancies Design

SO WHAT’S THE NET?

briefs are getting more confusing

some stats...

found briefs complete but lacking focus

found briefs incomplete and inconsistent

found briefs complete and focused

Source: Joanne Davis Consulting

...in a 2013 survey of200 agency heads

some confusing things that we’ve seen in briefs...

...leading to direct roi via sales leads”

“the goal is conversation and brand awareness...

“we’re looking for acompletely immersive...

...but ultimately simpLE EXPERIENCE”

“we’re looking for a very focused campaign...

...the audience is anyone from ages 18 - 50”

DEFINITION OF A STRATEGY: KNOWING WHAT NOT TO DO(THERE ARE ALWAYS TOO MANY THINGS WE CAN DO)

some (more) stats...

45%49% clients have “limited”

strategic capabilitiesclients have “adequate”

strategic capabilities

clients have “excellent” strategic capabilities

Source: Joanne Davis Consulting

didn’t respond

we are (meant to be) the experts!

but we make it hard for ourselves

it’s time fora different view

THE REDUX PROCESS

Brand Briefing inputs

agency Understanding

Our know how...Their agenda...

REDUX process Starts Here:

VERSUS

STRATEGY AND PLANNING: IS A REDUX PROCESS.BOILING DOWN. REDUCING THE STOCK. GETTING FUNDAMENTAL.

step 1: boil it down

create a one sentence brief

step 2: assess the situation

do your research

turn unstructured data into insights & strategy

who influences

where Does the audience spend

their time?

What drives consideration?

What drives brand

Preference & emotional

connections?

are there White space

opportunities for content?

what do they search for?

what are they talking about?

what content will they

share?

turn unstructured data into insights & strategy

step 3: outline the strategy

in just a few simple statements

now it’s time tocommunicate your ideas

some things to remember...

BULLETS ARE FOR SUCKERS

MAXIMS ARE FOR CHAMPS

A PICTURE PAINTSA THOUSAND WORDS

AN ANALOGY PAINTSA THOUSAND PICTURES

SALES OPPORTUNITY CLIENT RFP DOC

BYND BRIEF DOC

BRAINSTORM REDUX RESEARCH STORYBOARDING CREATIVE THREAD

Three simple steps:

#1 - distilling the brief

#2 - stating the situation analysis

#3 - reducing our creative strategy to simple statements.

A copy written description of our creative treatment.

The Brief Distilled

Situation Analysis

Creative strategy

REDUX workflow:

THE IDEA ISN’T ENOUGH

sell it

CLIENTS ARE ALWAYS QUESTIONING HOW MUCH WORK YOU ARE CREATING FOR THEM

AND, YET, WHAT DO THEY WANT?

M.O.A.S

MOON.ON.A.STICK

SO WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

REMEMBER: THEY ARE

BUYING YOU AS MUCH AS THE

FOCUS ON RELATIONSHIPS

set the stage: Find common ground

GET YOUR FOOT IN THE DOOR

“Foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique is a compliance tactic that involves getting a person to agree to a large request by first having that person agree to a modest request. The foot-in-the-door technique succeeds owing to a basic human reality that social scientists call ‘successive approximations’. FITD works by first getting a small 'yes' and then getting an even bigger 'yes.'”

SELL OUTCOMES NOT TACTICS

MAKE THE CLIENT THE HERO

prepare to pitch your idea in 1 minute with no notes. answer: so what?

But... respect your own time. if the client is late (really late), reschedule.

STAND FOR SOMETHING

“Make your product so good, so addictive, so ‘can’t miss’ that giving customers a small, free taste makes them come back with cash in hand.”

THANK YOUtimefor your

The Pitch Process: Turning client briefs into great ideas, then selling them

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