Ian Priest, the president of the IPA, has called for a rethink of the pitching process as he addressed advertisers and clients at the first ‘Adaptathon’ at Altitude London on Thursday.
Priest, who placed creativity at the heart of the debate on agency and client relationships said: “I’m not saying no to pitching, but I am saying we should pitch less and learn how to do it better.”
Current research states that the cost of pitching remains strikingly high, around £178,000 for a large agency, £90,000 for a medium sized outfit and £65,000 for a small agency.
Priest also noted that it takes around six to nine months for any agency to fully understand a client’s business.
With less pitching and instead a much stronger focus on building and maintaining quality relationships, the benefits for both agencies and clients would be huge, Priest said.
Research from the Bedford Group shows how a decline in client-agency relationships has set-in over the last 30 years, defined by contract terminations for those that under-perform.
In 1984, the average client-agency relationship tenure was 7.2 years. By 1997, that number declined by 25% to 5.3 years. Today, the average client-agency tenure is thought to be less than three years.
“We need to evolve,” Priest said. “We’ve used the same model for decades and our confidence is not as high as it used to be. But better client relationships – better alliances – will help ensure commercial creativity.”
Cilla Snowball, group chief executive of AMV BBDO, who spoke of her professional relationship with BT and its chief executive Gavin Patterson, agrees with Priest’s assessment and said a long term relationship is a “commercial imperative.”
“A good relationship drives commercial effectiveness and has a positive ripple effect throughout an agency that effects other clients,” she told the BBC’s economics editor Evan Davis, chairing the event.
The Adaptathon event is the first of five set to run over the next 18 months helping chart and influence the client agency relationship and put theory into practice.
Visit the IPA’s website for further details.
