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We were pitching Carvana. The agency bought a car and documented the entire process. Lost the pitch.
We did! But it didn’t last long because the car company did some global realignment and had to move to another network lol.
Dave Trott tells the story of a pitch for a bank account. One agency turned up late to the pitch meeting. Not five minutes late—an hour late.
Everyone was tense. The bank execs were annoyed. But when the agency finally walked in, they said:
“Sorry we’re late. That’s how your customers feel every day.”
Then they sat down and delivered their pitch.
I believe they won.
The agency paid improvisers to come sit at empty desks during the presentation so it looked like more people worked there.
An agency I had worked for lost many people for several reasons. Low pay, poor work conditions, remote work, and an abusive new hire that they insisted on keeping for too long.
They want to go back to being a decent-sized shop, but are having a hard time winning pitches, and they blame the empty office. So they offered space for freelancers and people who needed an office for free. The only catch is that they needed to be there whenever they had a prospective client over.
I freelanced at an agency once that gave the client a 170 page leave behind 🤦♂️
In it was were insights about the gaming company’s target…
That was 8 years old…
That the agency found and pulled for free online…
That the gaming company had conducted THEMSELVES 2 years prior to being posted online 🤣🤣🤣
Don’t do that.
We had Cuba Gooding Jr come in for a pitch once. Really
I worked with an Account Planner who was on the pitch team for Jenny Craig many years ago (maybe 15) and she said the entire pitch team followed the diet and tracked their progress. Some people wore clothes that were too big to the client.
Butterflies were released to symbolize a new beginning
This is my favorite one so far. So simple. So stupid.
Is presenting in all Sesame Street characters crazy enough to qualify here?
Pretending that the company had satellite offices in Japan and New York. Even faked a photoshoot.
When I worked at MRM in the early 2000s, they were big into starting the pitch from the street and would paper the building elevator banks and the hallway leading to the conference room.
Don’t do this
PowerPoint
Bank pitch. Agency repainted the walls and brought in a lion. A real one.
Had an agency bring there team of 15 on a bus to sidewalk chalk the pitch they did the day before. They chalked completely around the clients building. The ae came to tell the client to look out the window so they could see everyone waiving at them.
What the agency didn’t know is the client called us the night before and awarded us the business.
Was on a beer pitch. The agency made custom welcome mats, elevator door wraps, and lots more. We lost and they straight up told us “you came on way too strong”.