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We’ve just co-authored some ground-breaking research in partnership with British Design Innovation (www.britishdesign.co.uk). We approached them a few months ago with a view to gaining a better understanding of the design agency pitching environment. Why it happens and what current attitudes to it are from both an agency and client’s perspective. It makes for very interesting reading and it’s causing quite a stir in the industry!
We’ve just released the results and they constitute two research reports with analysis and commentary.
View the brief overview here Download the client appointment report here Download the pitch versus productivity (agency) report here
We’ve received massive interest from the UK and global industry.
Read about it in the press here:
Icograda
Brand Republic
So what’s your yarn?
Stef says: 
Richard Midgley says: Staggering! It is apparent that the competition between agencies is fierce. This kind of figure can only be a result of an aggressively competitive environment, good for creativity but potentially disastrous for small agencies. Financial pressure of this kind could be the demise of small agencies, many of which are responsible for the cutting edge work that makes London one of the creative capitals of the world. Who’s going to foot the bill?
And that’s precisely why a group of agencies in SA got together and took the following stance:
Johannesburg, Monday 25 July 2005: According to the Code of Ethical Conduct of the South African Graphic Design Council, think
Eoin says: Why are we all surprised?
Clients, particularly in the public sector, as commoditising design with procurement processes largely designed around ‘value’, without understanding what value is. Additionally, many of them want unbriefed, speculative creative work supplied as if it’s a sample you can take off a shelf.
Industry response – stop free pitching. Stand up for your work. Become more professional in your dealings with clients.
We co-authored the research with Firedog Design to move the ‘pitch’ debate forward from anecdotal to factual. Previous arguements regards the pitch process have predominently been centered on the de-valuing of an agency’s strategic contribution to a business – arguements that have been viewed by both private and public sector as emotional. It is fair to say that agencies equally need to reconsider their business models and indeed the way they present their value. Leading first and foremost with ‘creative’ results will not enable clients to judge agencies by any other criteria. Lead with the strategic business case and the interpretation techniques (thinking) that resulted in the creative solution may start to get the message across.
The majority of the private sector doesn’t actually care how much free pitching is costing the design sector. However those that claim to have a corporate social responsibility policy and public sector organisations who are wasting tax payers money via inappropriate procurement procedures – do have a duty to start taking notice. There are an estimated 4500 commercial design agencies in the UK – 56% of which employ less than 5. The research results demonstrate that an average
fraser black says: Thanks for the feedback on what is happening in South Africa Simon. It’s useful to know how other countries are dealing with the pitching issue!
After reading this research, I have got excellent confirmation that participation in free piches (tenders) is lost of time and money. I thought it intuitively so we do not take part in free pitches that require creative work and now I see that we are right.
Thanks for great work, Firedogs 
Kenneth Gilliam says: The free pitch debate has been around a long time and will continue unless we stop doing the pitches. But! When I came to New Zealand I tried to do as I had always done in London and use a credentials pitch only. In London it limited my success but I still had enough good quality work to be happy. In NZ the credentials pitch counted for nothing, after a long time trying I switched tactic and tried a free creative pitch, it worked. According to designers here that I have met, it is the only way to get serious work, especially from the public sector. Hard but needs addressing.
On another point -
These documents make brilliant reading and provide a number of answers or at least clues as to the best way to make contact and keep clients. But for me they raise a couple of questions.
The
Thanks for the input Kenneth! I do agree it is quite difficult to accurately gauge what the best way to get those lucrative pieces of work. It goes without saying that research quite often has to be taken with a pinch of salt. What you are doing is tapping into what the clients
Note to readers, I’ve adjusted the date stamp on this article as it’s receiving more interest over the past few days… Keep those opinions coming!
[...] Creative pitches cost the industry an average of
[...] to Publicis are all firmly putting their foot down. Multiple agency pitching is pants, (also the cost is something we can vouch for) in fact I recall Paul from Preloaded saying to me that they were once invited to pitch for a [...]
