Friday, April 27, 2012

Peeking Behind the Ad Agency Curtain


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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