TrinityP3: Incumbent agency has the ‘strongest hand in the pack’ during pitch
Hodges, Saitzyk and Cole onstage at CommsCon
An incumbent agency in a pitch process is the “strongest hand in the pack” and often don’t recognise how “powerful” incumbency can be, Nathan Hodges, the general manager of TrinityP3 has told an audience in Sydney.
Speaking on a panel with a number of senior clients, at today’s CommsCon conference, Hodges, who works for one of Australia’s major pitch consultancies, said “pitches are a symptom rather than a cause”.
“And the cause of any of these things are around the pace of channel proliferation, the pace around the requirement of specialisms within rosters and within marketing departments and the fact that structures, job titles and people’s skill sets aren’t keeping up with that pace.
“What that means is marketing departments will throw an agency to the wolves or decide an agency relationship isn’t working when the cause is much further up the line than that,” he added.
However, when it does come to a pitch Hodges is of a firm belief that the incumbent advantage is one that agencies need to focus more on rather then becoming caught up in a fear of losing the business.
“From a client’s perspective most agencies are all the same,” he said.
“That’s not just PR agencies – that’s creative agencies, media agencies, digital agencies. It’s a commodity market.
“It’s much easier for you as incumbent to play on things that are not commoditised: relationships, depth of knowledge, history. Then change all the things that need changing.”
Hodges was joined on the panel by Johnson & Johnson’s corporate and public affairs manager Mitzi Saitzyk who was in agreement saying: “The incumbent advantage should in theory be very strong with an agency.
“You [the incumbent] have an established relationship, you know how each other likes to treat work, you have relationships with clients key stakeholders and you have a knowledge of clients systems and processes.
“All of those are really strong advantages in the incumbent’s favour,” she said.
Lend Lease communications manager Larissa Webster said incumbents have an advantage on getting on the agency “long list” before the formal pitch process starts.
“Past work, the incumbent has a real advantage if they’ve done a good job on past work,” she said.
But the incumbents seem to struggle at the final hurdle.
“The incumbent agency doesn’t seem to front up with the same enthusiasm and passion for the business as someone who doesn’t have the business,” Saitzyk said.
“Somewhere deep inside you, you need to bring that up to the surface and bring it to the pitch process.”
Goodman Fielder’s director of corporate affairs Martin Cole said it was important for incumbent agencies to not be complacent.
“I think it’s important that the agency doesn’t lose perspective or become complacent with the relationship,” he said.
“It’s important that they’re coming to us to say have you thought about doing it this way, it could be off-brief or beyond the remit they have. To be competitive you have to constantly come up with new ideas for the client.”
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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This is rubbish.
Look up ‘loss aversion’.
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I would be interested to know the ratio of incumbents retaining following an account pitch.
Both with and without ‘pitch doctors’ being involved would be a nice filter.
Anyone?
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You want beyond the remit….start by paying fairly
Also, and very seriously, i’d be really interested to know about all the ways your company goes beyond for you customers…..
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What a croc.
Being the incumbent is like being the husband/wife when your partner decides they want to see other people. any agency with dignity would say, ‘well, you know what I can do, but if you want to see others, then goodbye’.
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When the last time a Director of Corporate Affairs dealt directly with creative or media agencies anyway…
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Utter garbage, I’ve been involved in over 20 pitches and only once did we go with the incumbent and that ended badly 6 months later.
Pitches are the opportunity for agencies to sell their expertise and capability providing all new potential agencies the licence to expand on the truth. Whereas the incumbent is stuck with telling the truth and overcoming issues that have arisen over the period of their previous work.
If you are at pitch its beyond repair and the right thing for both the agency and client is to agree to move on. Agency/client life cycle is very similar to a failed marriage – Meet, blissfully together, get married, honeymoon period, daily grind then divorce. When you get to divorce stage its time for both parties to walk away
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Crikey. Did the panel hit a nerve or something? We were simply saying that the incumbent hand is usually underplayed, but when it’s done well can be powerful. Almost no-one does it well. Some of the defeatist comments on here illustrate why. Brad and Fraser (whoever you are) – incumbents seem so rarely to have the guts to walk away from a pitch. I wish they did it more, because instead they often just hang around being needy and half-arsed until they guarantee getting the boot. And Bear – loss aversion is not how you have to behave. There’s always a choice for the brave and smart.
@Nathan
“There’s always a choice for the brave and smart.” That’s meaningless rhetoric, and you know it.
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Bullshit.
Anyone who has ever been involved with a pitch as an incumbent would tell you that you have roughly a 1:10 chance of retaining the business. If you want to throw time, effort and money at the situation with these odds then good luck to you. Having the incumbent involved is just to stop the client feeling guilty about the whole thing and allowing the incumbent to hold out hope so they don’t drop the ball during what can be an extensive pitch process.
My advice to an incumbent when a pitch is called put your efforts into new business not the piece that is about to walk out the door.
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I have always questioned what value pitch consultancies provide. This article and the ‘brave and smart’ response have provided the answer – thanks Nathan.
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