Mastering Your Advertising Agency Pitch Presentation: Tips from Industry Leaders

An agency can live and die by the pitch. For as much as they demand time, energy, and money, they remain by far the primary method by which agencies win new business and grow. And as a result, they’re an essential part of what makes the industry tick.

At their worst, pitches can stretch an agency thin and cause frustration along crossed communication wires. But at its best, a pitch process can energise clients and agencies alike to begin a relationship on the best possible terms, one which lasts well into the future. 

To find out how the best in the business make sure their agency’s pitches are more of the latter than the former, LBB asked industry leaders for their best pitching practices. Along the way, we learned why high standards, imagination, fun, and a dash of theatre are regular ingredients for a perfect pitch. But at the same time, clutter, inauthenticity, assumptions and misaligned values are regular enemies which need to be avoided. 

Read on to learn more about how industry leaders ensure their teams are pitch-perfect… 

Ellie Olliff, new business director at BBH London

Pitching is all about cutting through. Imagine being a client sitting though hours of pitches, thousands of pitch slides, and eating more personalised cookies than their waistlines will thank them for. What can you do that will make your agency be the one they remember? How can you give your agency the advantage?

Stand out from the sea of sameness. It’s what we tell clients to do and we should listen to our own advice. We start every pitch with ‘The Zig Index’, BBH's AI tool that measures similarities between brands and sectors, highlighting sameness across branding, language and visuals. This is the enemy that we collectively agree to fight against.

Partnership. The relationship between clients and agencies is a partnership, pitching should be like this too. Take the client on the journey with you from the start. Work together to get to the answer. Try to get as much face (or virtual) time with them as possible. Clients should feel like they’re already working with you by the time the final pitch presentation happens. 

Interaction. Find ways to interact in the pitch. Get away from the screen, use minimal slides (no client ever said there weren’t enough slides), get clients up and participating. And be smart about pitch theatre – when it’s done effectively, it can transform a pitch from a presentation into a 360 experience.

Ultimately, pitching should be fun. It’s an opportunity to take off the creative guardrails, explore new possibilities and make amazing work. Everyone involved should feel the excitement.

Guy Howland, executive creative director at Dentsu Creative Performance

My top three tips are:

Keep it concise and impactful. In our fast-paced world, no one has time for lengthy tales. Use strong visuals, the strongest mic-drop stats, and key phrases to make your work shine. Make it quick and easy to digest.

Showcase real-world examples. Skip the polished mock-ups and show your work in its actual environment. It’s more authentic and leaves a stronger impression.

And tailor to the client. Focus on what the client wants to see, rather than what you want to show off. Highlight relevant case studies and align your work with their industry and ambitions. Think about whether they want to be wowed, inspired, educated, convinced, or moved.

We have such great stories to tell a lot of the time on our best work, and want others to appreciate the amount of work, time and effort has gone into something. But often you need to put your client hat on and think about what will blow them away. Is it something that challenges their thinking, or that challenges their industry? So these days, we look at our strongest work to back up key points we want to persuade or challenge a client on. But at the end of the day we ultimately want to make what’s next, whilst still being proud of what we’ve done.

JJ Schmuckler, global chief growth officer at VML

Pitch preparation has been surrounded by agency folklore since the dawn of mad men. Late nights, high intensity, and chaotic creativity. When in fact, the best ways to prepare for a big pitch are often the antithesis of the preconceived notions. Here are three rules to prepare for a successful pitch:

The RFP is a guide, not a commandment. First and foremost, go back to the original client and make sure you’ve properly interpreted it. What’s the ask between ask? How are you showing the client that you can answer their brief, but also show them that you have enough knowledge of them to answer a larger business challenge.

Always be a meeting ahead. Make sure you’re going into the final pitch meeting with momentum. The final pitch is merely one point along a months-long journey. Don’t save everything for the end. Make the clients feel that you’re ahead, and the final meetings merely reiterate that fact. 

Prepare over rehearse. Anyone in a pitch should be a great presenter. It’s more important to allow time for individual presenters to review, refine and make the content their own. Late-night rehearsals don’t help anyone.

Kaitlin Doherty, co-founder and president of The Local Collective

For us, the best way to start the pitch process is to take a hard look in the mirror and decide if we are the right fit for the client or ask. Just because we are approached doesn't mean we are the right fit, and we want to know going into it that if we win we can exceed expectations. 

Pitching is expensive, so it's important for us that we are going in knowing we are the right agency for the job. And regardless of what it can feel like sometimes, we are all not perfect for every pitch. It sounds silly, but it'll save you a lot of time retrofitting case studies that just sort of make sense, the actual pitch narrative will come more seamlessly, and your chances of winning become much higher. 

The second best piece of advice we can give is to keep it authentic. If you win, you are going to work with these people every day. So in the room, be yourself and let your team be themselves. It's important to try and get a real fit and vibe check. It'll make the process so much smoother down the line, and you'll be able to understand how you'd work together. No one wants to work with fakers.

Kelsey Murray, head of global growth at Grey

Every pitch is different, so it’s hard to say there’s any consistent ‘best practice’, but there are certainly ways to set up your team for success. The first step to any successful pitch is understanding the brief beyond the brief. What is the business challenge?

Not just the marketing challenge, but the business challenge. What isn’t being said? What’s keeping the clients up at night? 

From there, we cast with small, dedicated teams who have the expertise and bandwidth to stay on the pitch (and hopefully business, if successful), from start to finish. From the onset, we tap into our borderless network around the world to ensure cultural relevance and best-in-class talent from all disciplines and backgrounds. We call this ‘collisions of difference’.  

Everything is rooted in data and AI. Meaning, the work is born from unique and powerful insights, not just a creative hunch. Tying everything together with beautiful, well-crafted design is the icing on the cake. And of course, building chemistry and trust with the clients every step of the way. The more contact you can have with them, either on or off the books, the more they start to see you as a partner, not a vendor.  

Lastly, a well thought-out transition and onboarding plan makes the whole thing feel real. A ‘we’re ready when you are’ mentally is often what gets you over the finish line for a win.

Ben Myers, chief marketing officer at TBWA\North America 

Assuming the strategy is insightful and inspirational, the creative work is breakthrough and on-brief, and all the pitch deliverables are met, there are three extra ingredients included in every pitch presentation.

We will always look to reduce. Often less is more when it comes to a pitch. We are constantly asking ourselves whether a slide, an execution, or even a single bullet point is truly contributing to us earning the business. If the answer is anything less than yes, we remove it.

When thinking through pitch theatre, we like to focus on meaningful ways that we can demonstrate our love for the brand, product, and consumer. Whether it be taking a team on a cruise to get the real consumer experience, or road tripping to a pitch meeting and stopping at a client’s restaurant locations along the way, sharing our authentic passion for the business goes a long way in underscoring the type of partner we’ll be once we’ve earned the account.

Lastly, my final reminder to the team in every rehearsal is that people hire people. In the throes of preparing for a pitch presentation chemistry, both with the client and within the internal team, can be a forgotten priority. We always build in a moment of levity to ensure we’re showing up as great marketers and great humans.

Lucy Sparks, business development director at FCB Aotearoa, New Zealand

Work on your pitch performance outside the pressures of the pitch. Build a core pitch team committed to being a well-oiled pitch engine for the business. Take post-pitch feedback from every process and cherish the gift of honest external perspectives.

Always run post-pitch reviews with the pitch team and adopt the learnings.

Share your pitches with your people, so everyone is connected to how you sell and has the chance to ask questions or share their thoughts.

Look for up-and-coming talent who show interest and curiosity in pitching, and bring them in, focusing on building pitch teams with diverse experience, perspectives, and lots of enthusiasm for the opportunity.

Interrogate the ask. Pitching is a significant investment of your team’s time and energy, best saved for the right opportunities.

Before you commit to any pitch process, take stock: What do you know about the team? Where are they as a business? What’s their ambition? Is the pitch ask and process fair and reasonable? Who else are they talking to? Are they clear on what they’re looking for?

This exercise sets the foundation for determining the pitch strategy and helps get the team rallied around the opportunity and invested in giving it their all.

We have no qualms about turning down a pitch that doesn’t align with our values as a business. We recently declined to participate in a pitch process that didn’t include any opportunity to meet the client. Building a genuine connection between the agency and client team is a top priority for us. Trust, connection, and collaboration lead to the best thinking, so if we can’t test the chemistry, that’s a dealbreaker for us.

When it comes to pitch performance, we focus on two key things: clarity and chemistry. Prioritise connection. Don’t be afraid to push past the confines of the process; create moments for genuine engagement and interaction within your presentations. We have a couple of fun exercises we like to use to get the clients talking about what really matters to them.

Get creative with casting. Don’t just select members based on skills and experience; consider their personalities and their connection to the client’s category, business, or target audience. We always try to include a memorable performance from a bright young talent.

Rehearse extensively and invite diverse perspectives from within your agency to give it the fresh ears test and unbiased feedback.

Edit, edit, edit again. We always say a client will remember a fraction of what we say. Make it easy to remember the important bits and don’t bog them down with too much detail.

The test? Everyone in the room should be able to communicate the pitch, not just their section. If they can’t, the story isn’t clear enough.