InspiRAYtion Five: The Tinder-isation Of Pitching

By Rayomand J Patell

“What’s love got to do with it?” sang an 80s diva. What indeed? Used to be that agencies and clients were wedded in holy bliss till death made them part.

It took a lot for clients to lose agencies in the past, it would have to be for something so cosmic that it could not be imagined; a marketing launch botched up beyond belief with a competitor’s number as a call to action in it perhaps.

Or, horror of horrors, the agency CEO winning at golf one time too many. Tsk!

Rolf Dobelli in his book ‘The Art Of Thinking Clearly’ touched upon the reason so many people check their phones during dates. The thinking being that while there was a value ascribed to the person currently in front of you, a notification signalling a potential even higher value partner matching with you, signified an opportunity to level up.

And so, contemporary dating behaviour seems to have entered the pitch process. With all the attendant dopamine rushes.

Single? Call for a pitch. Get every agency in town to shoot their shot. And then, ghost them all. Take it in-house because you’re a control freak.

Taken? But tired of waking up with the same agency every day? Get a side agency. Or, a few. Heck, keep some on the bench even. “Sure, we’ll do something fun together someday,” is all you need to say to keep them hanging on, like happy labradors salivating over an imaginary bone.

Dumped? Your tiny agency got a bigger brand than yours? Revenge hook up with some of those Big Agency Bad Boys. It won’t last the week, but the ad rags will cover it and your ex will know just how insignificant they were to you. Call it your Brat summer.

Just out of a long term relationship? Issue an RFP for potential suitors to line up for a tissues meeting to check for ‘alignment’ and ‘chemistry’. From lovebombing boutique agencies to emotionally unavailable Alpha-bet soup Network agencies, play the field and hope to find yourself out there, being demure and mindful while at it.

Bored on a Tuesday? Call for a pitch, say you’re looking for the best ideas out there, then when you get them, dismissively say “mazaa nahi aaya.” And go back to your beige agency that knows your comfort zones intimately.

Feeling particularly sadistic? Your incumbent agency has delivered a smashing body of work over the past 3 years that has broken sales records, won the hearts of consumers, been shared and gone viral organically, and even won awards at serious respected award shows. Call for a pitch anyway. Because, why not?

Need someone to blame? Foreign brand upon desi shores with catastrophically declining sales? Continue doing exactly what you want to do howsoever plain wrong and damaging it may be to your brand, but throw the incumbent agency under the bus and call for a pitch to get ‘more relevant ideas’. Newsflash. It’s not us honey, it’s you.

Midlife crisis? Wondering if that tiny talented bunch might set your brand on fire again? Call for a pitch, negotiate hard and then… go right back to the agency you were always with anyway because nobody else can deal with your shizz.

New CMO? Nothing your predecessor did could have been any good at all, cut to a frenetic round of pitching for new agencies across the board, some of which will actually be good for the brand, but most just get in on the anti-incumbency factor and damage it severely. Till, a new CMO comes in. And the process repeats. Ad nauseam.

I’d write more. But I’ve got to go work on a pitch. Even if I win it, I have a feeling we’re all losing.

Till we meet again. Stay inspired!

Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.

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