The pitching process in the media arena has evolved a lot. As Ankit Banga, chief business officer, FCB/SIX India, highlights: Today, a drastic shift has been witnessed where pitch briefings happen over email, over a call and over a virtual call as well.
When brands open up for pitching and invite agencies, according to Meenakshi Menon, former pitch consultant at Spatial Access, the process could last anywhere from one month to a year.
As per a report by COMvergence, an independent research and data consultancy, released in April, out of the total media pitches in India, local media pitches accounted for 91 percent in 2023. Whereas global pitches accounted for only nine percent.
From January 2023 to December 2023, Maruti, Pernod Ricard, Ferrero, Berger Paints, Jaguar Land Rover, Reckitt and Swiggy were some of the brands which retained or moved their accounts.
Media pitching takes place only after the finalisation of the creatives. Depending on the format and the creatives that are selected and approved, media planning is done. The finalisation of the creatives and brand reach objectives depend on the selection and spread of media.
As per FCB/SIX’s Banga, most of the time, clients are also thinking about integrated pitches where an agency will be briefed on the business problem and then they would be asked to bring their creative and media leg to it.
Be it opening up for a creative pitch or a media pitch, the difference in process isn’t much.
Chandrashekar Mantha, partner, Deloitte India, explains the process.
First, the brands would do high-level diligence by studying their credentials, historical trends, and technologies, followed by many other criteria to understand which are the agencies they believe are the best fit.
Every company defines a threshold. After the diligence process is completed, some companies call three or four agencies and some invite six to seven agencies.
Then, they will float an RFP (request for proposal) to the media agencies to read and respond. It will lay out all the expectations a brand has from an agency. They include: what are the deliverables, what are the terms and conditions that the agencies can expect or understand. Technical and financial parameters too are included.
Mantha explained, “At every stage of pitching, there is a panel and independents like us will be part of it, starting right from the diligence process.”
Post the RFP stage, agencies are given the time to respond. Once they respond, all of the pitches are consolidated and a comparative shortlisting is done. Once the agencies are shortlisted, they come and pitch their ideas.
These shortlisted agencies are then rated based on certain parameters that Deloitte India defines.
Now, these parameters are based on what the management is expecting out of them. It could be their brand objectives, marketing objectives, financial strength, team experience, etc.
“We will let the panel or the management score that. The pitch will also be ourselves giving our view in terms of who met some of these criteria. And, we will guide the brand to select the best-in-class agency,” Mantha said.
The process also follows discussions such as: What should be the contract? What will be the commission? What are the other KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)? What are the other clauses in the contract?
In the case of media buying, as per Mayank Pravinchandra Shah, vice president, Parle Products, a brand may want to give the agencies a shadow media plan, a plan that has been executed recently. Whichever agency comes back with the lowest rate, the brand gets an inkling that this agency would be able to buy efficiently.
Explaining the aspect of expectations, FCB/SIX’s Banga added, “For established brands, the pitch has to be more strategic, long term, and more brand centric. For new-age brands, pitch has to be more ROI centric, more short term and more innovative.”
Media buying and media planning
In the whole process, media planning and media buying are a crucial part of it. First, let us understand what these terms constitute.
Media planning is basically ‘Where will I buy the media from and which avenues will I spend on?’ This will be followed by ‘How will I spend it?’ ‘How many times will I show the ad?’ ‘What is the duration?’ etc.
“Media plan is keeping in mind all the information that an agency has about the said audience, programs, customer preferences, brand objectives, marketing objectives etc,” Deloitte’s Mantha said.
Media buying is the agency going and negotiating on behalf of the brand and getting those ad spots that they wanted as per the plan.
Mantha explains that there is always a trade off to meet the quality parameters of the plan in terms of positioning, in terms of break, duration, and number of spots, followed by the cost.
Since there is a budgeted cost also, there is a need to meet the cost and quality parameters too when an agency is planning as well as buying. So planners will think about what is the best plan that can be executed to achieve an impact. The buyer will execute that plan to the extent possible.
Split between creative and media
There was a time when one agency was in charge of handling the media as well as the creative mandate.
But with the launch of Carat, India’s first media independent agency in the country, in 1996, the split between media and creative started. Then, Madison split its media. WPP and Lintas Initiative Media followed suit. So did several other agencies.
After the media and creative businesses split up, people were pitching not only for creative but media too. Hence, the number of pitches increased.
After 2000, digital was beginning to come of age and 2010 onwards, the medium had become a significant platform. The number of pitches—which included creative as well as media agency pitches—that would happen on average increased quite significantly. And, that started a price war.
Menon explained, “Up to the year 2000, there was sanctity in terms of pricing. An agency worked on either 15 percent, if it was offering full service, which included media and creative. Or anywhere between seven-and-a-half to 10 percent if it was only creative. Two-and-a-half went to media planning, and two-and-a-half to media buying.”
Then in 2010, the fees started coming under pressure due to heightened competition. Creative agencies followed by media agencies were willing to undercut each other. Hence, the prices dropped.
“With the drop in prices, reduced investment in services, and fewer people working on an account, it became a vicious cycle because clients were not getting what they were promised. Hence, they put their businesses up for pitch again,” Menon added.
According to Pratik Mukherjee, business head, House of Masaba, in the last decade, the rise of digital has been unprecedented, and media buying and planning was about buying television media. Ninety percent would be allotted to television media, and 10 percent would be allotted to radio, print and miscellaneous, etc.
“In the last five years, it has become digital-first that we need to go for agencies who are digitally savvy. If a brand needed to be getting the best rates, they had to practically align with the WPP agencies, since there were hardly any options then,” he added.
Pitch process: Time duration
House of Masaba’s Mukherjee believes that the duration of a pitch is dependent on the decision maker of the brand. Citing examples where some CMOs take two months due to multiple rounds, RFP and involvement of global heads, House of Masaba avoids such processes. “My first and last question is, ‘When can you present it to me?’ Extra brownie points for an agency who says ‘I can come back in seven days’,” he added.
As per FCB/SIX’s Banga, in the creative pitch process, the decision largely is with the CMO. Whereas in the media pitch process, it rests with the CMO, the CEO and the CFO because of the good involvement of money.
Deloitte’s Mantha said, “With companies and the nature of organisations followed by the nature of the campaign and the level of spend, timelines vary. Sometimes, it can happen over a period of three to four weeks or can take a couple of months also. In two months, a brand must be able to decide on which agency is going to come on board.” According to Parle’s Shah, if a company has a separate media division, then it can be a 15 to 20 day process.
Ask for a pitch fee?
Citing pitch fee as a means of ‘commercial motivation’ on the part of the agencies, only agencies, who don’t ask for a pitch fee are invited to the pitching process at House of Masaba. Parle Products’ Mayank Shah concurs saying that they too do not subscribe to the idea of a pitch fee.
However, FCB/SIX have initiated a concept of ‘minimum billing’. Banga stated, “During the start of our (with the client) conversation, we discuss their outlook and their business plan. If we feel that we are not suitable for the client, we explain to them about our modus operandi and whether they would still want to continue with us.”
Pitch process: What are my expectations and learnings?
Spatial Access, which was the first pitch consultant in the market, made its very first media pitch for Hindustan Pencils in 2005 or 2006. And OMD won the pitch.
OMD stayed with Hindustan Pencils for almost a decade. Menon explained, “That is the beauty of a properly run pitch where expectations are managed on both sides. The role of the pitch consultant is not to only organise presentations, but get the client to understand what they should be asking for, followed by getting the agency to understand what the client expects.”
Vini Cosmetics, which was the first brand that FCB/SIX pitched for, what Banga understood was that ‘innovation’ and bringing beyond the regular to the table was a critical factor.
House of Masaba’s Mukherjee said the first thing that he considers is an agency’s culture, their turnaround time followed by agility. The most important, ‘Do they understand digital or not?’ “For many, digital marketing means social media. But people who understand the subject well will touch upon performance marketing and metrics like ROAS (Return on advertising spends). Hence, digital savviness is crucial,” he added.
The subtle difference between a startup and a multinational conglomerate is the duration of plans. “If we are in May, MNCs would have closed the planning for a period of three months or six months. But in a startup, I will be making a plan only for next month and then will be reviewing it. Hence, agencies need to adapt a mindset to be able to make changes to a plan very quickly. I may start the month with a plan, but due to certain reasons, I may have to change it within 15 days. Hence, they need to be very flexible and agile to make that change,” Mukherjee said.
Since profitability is the main concern of the startups, the third most important factor is cost efficiency.
Pain points of agency and clients
During the process of pitching, amidst Round 1 and Round 2, the concern of most agencies has been the change in briefs, which adds to heightened tension. “No brand derives joy in changing briefs. It is extra work for the brand as well,” clarifies Mukherjee.
He attributes the reason to a larger change in the business context and cites an example. “Today, I have Rs 100 crore for the media. But, if Covid-19 strikes or the company’s revenue is not growing fast, the brief will change and the budget will be cut.”
Though Mukherjee empathises with the concern of most agencies, the other problem that most brands including Mukherjee have noticed during creative and media pitching is that when a brand pitches, agencies come with their CEOs or the head. If the CEO comes for the presentation, execution will be by the intern. “Though, a lot of this happens across creative and media both, I want the real people who will work on my brand to be the one in the room.”
Agreeing with Mukherjee on this aspect, Banga also added that a pain here is the client already having in mind who to go ahead with, and the pitching process just being a formality.
At FCB/SIX, there is no pitch team. The agency works in a pod structure, where a pod is led by a pod head. A pod is a small group comprising individuals possessing complementary skills.
Hence, depending on the opportunity, the agency opens it up to the pod heads. Depending on their bandwidth or their interest in that particular category, they would proceed to work.
Parle’s Shah highlighted another pain point. He explained, “With most television networks, there is the presence of AVB, which is an agency volume bonus. They are incentives which are given to the agencies to get more business by channels. Hence, it’s called AVB pass back. Clients have started asking that if they are giving the agency business and if they are getting some kind of a pass back from it, the agency has to pass it back to them as well.”
The other pain point also is brands opening up for a pitch for every brief they roll out. One example is of an automobile company, where there is a regular campaign which happens every month followed by the branding campaign which is always on a pitch. Here, the brand pitches are not for strategy but for business. The agency which gives the best cost will bag the business.
Long standing agency-client relationships: Factors
Today’s long-term agency-client relationship is about two to three years, Deloitte’s Mantha said, “Over the last few years, it’s been so dynamic that the world has changed. The ability to market is different. The number of media and avenues that are available for any brand to advertise followed by customer behaviour is changing.”
Since these three factors make the environment very dynamic, it becomes crucial for a brand to reinvent every two to three years, and re-look at their marketing media strategies.
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He added, “What is happening is that there should be awareness around what is happening in the market. Are other agencies coming up with something new, is there a better skillset, better avenue, better budget, better impact available in other agencies. That market sensing needs to be done every three years at least so that one is not away from the market.”
ZenithOptimedia, which has been the agency for Parle Products for the last five to six years, Parle Product’s Shah agrees with Mantha, that to avoid the setting in of complacency, a brand opening up for a pitch after a few years should be considered.
As per Piruz Khambatta, chairman and managing director, Rasna, RK Swamy has been handling media buying and media planning since 2005 or 2006. The mandate of digital does not rest with them and the brand is depending on the services of two to three other smaller agencies.
Media buying business, which is the most crucial part of the pitch process, is all about rates. Whichever agency comes in, as Khambatta puts it, will follow the ‘Rasna’ rate, put down by the company. Khambatta explained, “RK Swamy—which looks into television media—has all the access. They study the TRPs and advise us which channels and which programs are doing better. Then they do the analysis, and OTS (Opportunity To See), etc. We are pretty happy with them.”
The creative duties of the brand rest with Rediffusion.
In-housing v/s agency model
German multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Bayer, which continues to manage digital media investments within its consumer health division, as put down by Marketing Brew, took the in-house agency route in 2018.
Michigan based bank holding company Ally Financial too began the preparation of establishing an in-house agency set up in 2019.
In the same year, as per a media report, Procter & Gamble had announced that 30 percent of its $7 billion global spend was in-house. And, going in-house helped it reduce its media spends by 10 percent, said Marc Pritchard, chief brand officer, P&G, at the Association of National Advertisers 2024 media conference.
House of Masaba too follows an in-house agency model. Mukherjee said. “To my understanding, most agencies are still not used to the dynamic nature of business. They would send a report towards the end of the month on the delivery of the impressions and other input metrics. The in-house agency model helps me understand the performance on a daily basis.”
However, he also points out the added benefits of working with agencies. If a brand’s media objective is to go into tier two and tier three regions, where there is a need to buy inventory from local channels like regional television, then it is better off done with big agencies due to them having the deals and contracts in place with the regional network channels followed by having economies of scale.
Khambatta concurs. Though Rasna does not intend on going the in-house agency route, he stated that since agencies have better access to software, they are still trusted at an international level. Parle’s Shah agrees with Khambatta.
Mantha concludes that in-housing and outsourcing will co-exist. He explained, “In-housing can happen, only when the brand has achieved a certain level of maturity and there is enough scale to do that and the skillsets are readily available. This is followed by understanding the brand, its trajectory and the target audience.”
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