Is Pitching Good For your Health ?

In advertising world, we called it pitching whereas the rest of the known world called them tender. What an irony for ad industry to have their own term ? Well, can't blame them, after-all we're supposed to be in the glamour world :)

The truth behind pitching has always been extremely taxing to a company. This is because people who are working on their current job would be pulled away to be involved in the pitch and normally the timing is so tight we can see our Friday and weekend crash and burn.

Nevertheless, we whine and complain but yet we still have that sense of satisfaction when we ever get the job presented to our expectation. Of course, that's when we wake up from our comatose after not sleeping for 6 days.

The process of pitching requires many different type of people from Strategist to Visualiser - all to help at different sections to ensure a great final delivery.

Then we have the group of presenters who donned themselves in hard wax, crisp suit and two duffel size eye bags getting ready for the big moment.

Some agencies, I recalled, prepared drivers to fetch this team to their destination for a solid one hour presentation of all the hard work we did in 2 weeks. While the rest in the office prayed we'll win the biz, there are some who will indulge in inter-office gossips to check up whether the other competitors presented well. Such is the small world where everyone knows everyone.

I remember having coffee with my competitor before he proceed to his presentation after I've done mine. Strange, huh ? There are actually a lot more strange things. We put people to get into the boardroom, check the wall material so we know whether the boards can hang on it ... Or buy like 2 dozen easels to put them on ... Four notebooks (though we end up using one), 2 projectors, 2 screens ... Only thing they didn't have a backup team which I believe is totally important.

I was in a pitch once where my CD (Creative Director) choked on me and can't present at all. Luckily her Art Director who did most of the work stand up to present them ... The little things that happen in our pitching life.

We live, we learn.