Dentsu’s CEO of media Danny Bass says the current pitch landscape is slowing, with agencies cautious of who they want to pitch for.
“I think the pitch madness of five years ago where it was a race to the bottom, thankfully, is going away," Bass said on stage at AdNews’ Adelaide L!VE.
Instead agencies are looking for an alignment of clients to their own business.
Nine’s total television director of sales Richard Hunwick agrees.
“The price asks from clients who win pitches today versus the five to ten years ago don’t exist in the same way,” Hunwick said.
“Media has gotten better at walking away and has stopped promising to win on price.”
“I get the sense that clients who are pitching this year have identified that the skill sets in their organisations or their current agencies may not be right for the next three years,” Bass said.
“So what we're seeing is a much different approach to putting a team together, the sort of experts you would want in a traditional media pitch.”
For example, Bass says he is seeing CX professionals become more important in the pitch process.
To address this demand, Bass leans on the support of Dentsu’s customer experience management (CXM) company Merkle for CX advice on pitches.
Bass also said he's employeed more people from consultancies.
“One of them is saying they weren't allowed to offer more than 5% discount without board approval - we can learn a lot from that.”
#L!VE Adelaide is powered by co-curators AADC, AMC. Supporting partners Boomtown, CARAT, NINE. Hospitality partner StackAdapt. And associate partners MiQ, Solstice Media.
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