The Pitch

No part of advertising has been as romanticized as the pitch. From Don Draper’s meandering, bordering-on-incomprehensible emotional journeys during pitches on Mad Men, to the horrible reality show The Pitchy to every book ever written on advertising, the pitch seems to exude an aura of romance, gladiatorial battle, and excitement. Witness John Hegarty’s florid prose when talking about the pitch: “We love pitching—it brings out our competitive spirit like nothing else. We snort the energy of battle.…When a ‘big pitch’ is on you can feel the adrenaline running through an agency. There are endless ideas, positionings, strategies and flow charts pasted on to walls, late-night meetings and discarded boxes of half-eaten pizza scattered around the building. There are cancelled social lives and late-night taxis home and then a quick shower and a clean shirt before a rapid return to the frontline. We thrive on this kind of energy. Failure is not an option.”1