What you need to know:

• Dan Johns joins Tumbleturn Media to manage agency pitches - most of which end up being a "pricing process, not about innovation".
• In-housing is facing significant headwinds after deployment, says Managing Partner Jen Davidson, although some hybrid models between agencies and brands are working.
• One of the biggest challenges with pitches is that marketers are grappling with operating models and ballooning workloads – marketers often don't have a clear view on what they want in the pitch process but Davidson argues there is a fix – more upfront work before a pitch is called.

Change the pitch up

Havas Media Managing Partner Dan Johns has joined pitch consultancy Tumbleturn Media as a partner. The former Mediabrands COO and Ikon CEO will take on the bulk of media pitches while founder Jen Davidson concentrates on brand consultancy as marketers grapple with operating structures amid ballooning workloads and static headcounts.

“Pitch work has picked up and I think that’s because we are doing a lot more upfront work on the operating model,” said Davidson. She says defining structures and outcomes before selecting agencies is now “potentially 40-50 per cent” of the entire pitch process.

For marketers grappling with increasing workloads and stakeholder management, getting to that point can be tricky.

“One of the big challenges is that marketing teams are largely the same size as they were five years ago. But their work remits have exploded,” per Davidson. Hence requiring guidance.

In-housing, CX-performance fails

Davidson sees increasing evidence that brands that have in-housed media and content in recent years are rethinking their approach, leading to more work for consultants.

“There’s a big question on output,” she says, with some in-house studios “over producing” content volumes for media at the expense of quality and cut-through and struggling to benchmark efficiencies versus outsourced approaches.

"Anyone who in-houses is questioning it. There's a lot of saving face," though she said some hybrid models were paying off.

Davidson said there is also growing recognition by brands that performance marketing must more closely align with CX (a shift that some end-to-end consultancies such as Accenture Song appear to have recognised by launching performance media units).

The likes of Commbank take that view. In late 2021, the bank rewired its stacks to plug in its decisioning engine and first party data via API into Google to enable ‘next best messaging’ in customer acquisition. At the time Vanessa Sanford, GM, Media, Marketing Operations and Technology, told Mi3 the bank will use it for targeting, cross-selling and suppression and suggested brands would likely need to take a similar approach in order to grow.

Davidson agrees. “Too many brands are spraying out generic retargeting messages, bringing in poor quality audiences as a result,” she said. “Their CX has improved at the customer journey level, but there is a disconnect between performance and CX.”

Templates, tick boxes

While marketing has become more complex, Davidson said common requirements remain in demand and underserved. Hence launching ‘marketing services on demand’, essentially an “off-the-shelf template version of the most asked for projects”. If successful, Davidson may build the templates into a platform.

Tumbleturn is also potentially taking on the likes of Navigare and Aprais with a qualitative approach to agency appraisals via one-to-one interviews with both marketer and agency, versus questionnaire-led methods and “tick boxes” which Davidson suggested were less optimal.

She thinks consultant-led interviews better highlight problem areas between brand and agency, enabling relationships to be genuinely improved – ultimately reducing the likelihood of an unnecessary pitch.

“We don’t use set questions. It is values-driven.”

Serious callers only

Johns worked with Davidson previously on a contract basis prior to joining Havas Media. He aims to use 25 years of media agency experience to better align brands and agencies – and stop wasting people’s time.

He thinks Tumbleturn’s upfront work with brands has eased the pain of pitching.

“The grumbles around pitching stems back to the amount of time, effort and resource agencies have to put into it. That’s all very well if you win. If you don’t it’s a challenge to manage,” said Johns.

For agencies, “from the RFP process, the pitch often feels like an information gathering process. You’re bombarded with questions because the client is trying to work out what they want when the pitch is already underway.”

Which ends up with six month pitches “and at the end you realise it is a pricing process, not about innovation”, Johns added. “Jen has brought that up front. She has refined the RFP to six questions. So it’s pointy before we get to making an assessment on an agency.” Plus, the contract value is stated up front, “so agencies can make an assessment on that [before pitching]”.

He said that means pitches are now “six to eight weeks on average”.

The lack of feedback from pitches is another agency gripe: “Usually it is silence. You get nothing back. What’s required is feedback after every session and at the end, a full debrief – what clients liked and where to improve.”

Meanwhile, questions from agencies to brands – and their answers – have often been shared with all of those pitching, something Johns feels is counterproductive. “Those questions are your IP,” he said, while sharing those thoughts with rivals risks vanilla pitches through uniformity of approach. “That process is better managed individually.”

Johns said an overhaul of pitch mechanics is long overdue.

“Generally the process we have to go through hasn’t ever really changed. The basis has been the same for the last 20-30 years. If we contemporize it, we’ll all get a better result,” he said. “Not just for the pitch, but the life of the relationship.”