The daily interactions between people that occur in
any workplace shape that organization’s culture, and make it a desirable place
to work – or not. The daily struggle to create and maintain quality products
and/or services is always a push-pull between people with different viewpoints,
and sometimes opposing senses of what will work and what won’t.
This is especially true in an
advertising agency, where the sum total of the firm’s worth lies in its ability
to operate as a team to deliver strategically targeted, consistently high quality creative work, which
in turn must effectively sell its clients’ goods and services.
“The Pitch,” a new weekly TV series
on AMC, attempts to give us an inside view of this world of advertising
agencies. My initial impression is that it did an okay job of it within the
confines of a one-hour time slot.
Filmed like most other reality TV
shows with ever-present cameras hovering over participants’ shoulders, two ad
agencies are pitted against one another in pursuit of a new piece of business.
There is much truth in the broadcast:
the tension, the petty jealousies, the short fuses, the preening egos, and the prickliness.
But there’s also the whirlwind excitement of throwing crazy ideas against the
wall in the hope that one will stick and ultimately become the killer idea that
wins the account. And then there's the jubilation and profound sense of relief that
comes with winning the account.
The Human
Element
The larger message of the show lies in that human
interaction, the quest for the right chemistry, both between the agency and its prospective client, as well as internally within the agency among
the people who work long hours under a tight deadline to deliver winning work.
“The Pitch” does a great job of
capturing that tension, the sleepless nights and long days, and the death
spiral feeling during the final days and hours leading up to
“the pitch.” We’re reminded with on-screen chyrons how many days or hours are
left as the creative teams scramble to put the finishing touches on the
idea they hope will win.
The “sneak preview” of “The Pitch,”
which ran (appropriately) last Sunday night as a lead-in to “Mad Men,” pits
WDCW of Los Angeles against McKinney of Durham, NC, for the Subway breakfast
account. (The show’s regular slot will be Mondays at 9:00.)
The prospective client is headquartered
in Milford, CT, so both agencies had to fly considerable distances to meet
(jointly, simultaneously and awkwardly) their prospective client who outlines the
assignment. They return a week later with hoped-for knock-their-socks-off ideas
to close the deal.
As the story unfolds, Subway has
already started serving breakfast, but is unsatisfied with sales. So this
assignment targets a younger demographic – 18-to 24-year-olds – which they
believe holds the most promise for growth.
The Chief Marketing Officer at
Subway is the guy who will ultimately judge the winner. I don’t envy the
competitors because he seems like a tough customer able to maintain a good
poker face.
The sense of panic sets in immediately
back in their home shops. McKinney ropes in its younger staff because they’re
members of the target demographic. These kids look like they’ve been out of
college for a couple of years, at most. Their ideas are rough, but intriguing.
What’s
Missing?
A key element of the process that’s missing, probably
because it’s not as sexy as the creative process, is the strategizing that always
occurs before any creative work can begin.
- Who’s the target audience – specifically and generally?
- What do we know about them and their breakfast preferences?
- What are their media preferences?
- There’s an implicit assumption from the get-go that the creative product will be TV advertising, which assumes the target watches TV. If so, how do they watch: with finger poised over mute buttons at commercial breaks? When do they watch?
- What kinds of peer pressures determine their buying habits?
- What excites them, and what turns them off?
Answering these and related questions guide the media planning and strategy that help center the
creative effort and avoid the problem of ineffective advertising down the road.
But these agencies apparently just skipped ahead, riding on their assumptions.
McKinney’s chief creative officer is
an unsmiling killjoy who seems to like none of his team’s ideas. While bullying
them, he delights in knocking down a lot of plausible approaches while offering
no guidance or suggestions. Perhaps that’s his style, but for a business that thrives
on good relationships among team members, his method strikes me as cold and counter-productive.
“The Pitch” spends more time on
McKinney – probably because they are the ultimate winners. We get a good flavor
of the creative back-and-forth that is the heart of the ad business: the kicking
around of crazy ideas in a conference room and the excitement when something
feels just right.
The winning idea involves a rapper,
Mac Lethal, who writes a clever rap lyric that the McKinney team videotapes in
a local Subway shop. McKinney goes one step further bringing the rapper to the
pitch. As they close their presentation, he enters the room, surprises the
client, and raps praises for Subway. The client grins for the first time.
The closing scenes accurately
portray the results back at their home offices – the McKinney offices exploding
into cheers at the news, while the WDCW team plays basketball and talks philosophically,
though not credibly, about not playing to win.
It’s an entertaining reality TV
show, but not the full story. It glamorizes the business, as seems to be its
intent, with none of the downside of working in an ad agency: the slow-paying
clients and subsequent cash flow problems, the lost accounts, and the
impossible-to-please clients. Take “The Pitch” with a big grain of salt and
enjoy it.
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