Agency review horror stories and how to give up the ghost

RFPs have long been far from perfect. Throw COVID-19 into the mix, necessitating that reviews be conducted virtually, and you get a perfect storm. Ad Age spoke with 15 agency executives about recent review trends and unearthed some true horror stories—along with some good advice for how to spot a bad review. To protect the agencies interviewed, most of the following people were granted anonymity. Ghosting Nearly all the agencies we spoke to experienced some form of “ghosting”— when a prospective client disappears in the middle of a review. One large agency we spoke to was ghosted six times over the past six months. “We were approached by a client last April,” a CEO and founder of a Southeastern agency told Ad Age. “They said they were talking to three agencies. We were very excited about the opportunity and dug into it. We made a presentation in early May and heard nothing. We kept emailing and calling and got no response. I finally wrote to the CEO and the CMO in July saying, ‘You may remember me. We spent a lot of time on your business back in March and April. We haven't heard anything back.’ The CMO writes back saying, ‘We've been fine-tuning and asking questions. We'll get back to you.’ We heard nothing until I read in a trade publication that they'd hired an agency.” Beyond a lack of feedback after spending countless hours, finances, and resources on a pitch, having work stolen after being ghosted might be the worst-case scenario for any agency. That’s what happened to a small New York City-based shop after pitching for a big food company’s business for two months. “We were one of the final two to bid, and then all of a sudden there was just radio silence,” the agency’s founder says. “It was just after months and weeks of a lot of communication, virtual high-fiving and handshaking. We thought we definitely had this and then no matter how many times we followed up there was no response. Then we started to see our ideas being used online, which is not fun.” The founder was able to find a silver lining and has taken those recent experiences as lessons learned. “Now I know where to invest time and where not to invest time, at least semi-abstractly,” this person says. “There are things that I can do that I know will take less time, such as pitching more strategy versus tangible creative concepts. We don't need to try to reinvent the wheel every single time we're pitching, they're buying into our belief system and our people.” The agency, in fact, is now working on launching a subscription-based content platform where clients can order curated content on a subscription basis. One way to limit ghosting is to be more wary of reviews that are client-led rather than consultant-led. Not one agency we spoke to was ghosted during a consultant-led review. Ghosting “is like showing up to eat at a Michelin Star restaurant and throwing your napkin at the chefs as you walk out,” says Lindsey Slaby, founder of consultancy Sunday Dinner, who works with clients on reviews. “When I have to decline an agency, I call them, write them, and offer feedback. That feedback is not—‘Ah we just went in another direction.’ It’s detailed and often it can be brutal. And you know what, the best leaders thank you profusely.” The 4A’s recommend setting the ground rules ahead of time. “The occasional ghosting that’s happening to agencies—especially at the end of the process—needs to be addressed,” Marla Kaplowitz, president and CEO of the 4A’s says. “One potential solution we’re exploring is creating an Agency Review Participation Agreement of some type for agencies to use with marketers directly. " The agreement would apply to searches not led by consultants and incorporate key areas including communication, defined budget, expectations, process and timing, timely notification, and speculative work, Kaplowitz says. “The goal is to have it be a document shared with a prospective client following an initial reach out or RFP,” she says. “It could be something that is signed by the client (almost like a code of conduct to participate in the pitch process given the time, resources and cost for the agency)." Pitching into the void Agencies and clients alike had to quickly adapt to a Zoom-filled world. In some instances, video meetings brought some positives to the review process. Companies saved money and time that would have been spent on traveling, there were quicker turnaround times for new business, and since there aren’t limits to how many people can join conference calls, clients and agencies had the potential to meet more members of each other’s teams than was previously possible. A second agency CEO says during the beginning of the pandemic clients were more decisive, efficient and faster during the pitch process. But eventually, things got decidedly darker. “We started to see more and more pitches where clients would show up with their cameras off or driving in a car while you were in your final presentation,” the agency CEO says. “We had one pitch that we were in and there were 26 clients on the Zoom call and 25 of them had their cameras off.” This CEO says his agency has done at least 10 reviews while pitching into black squares throughout the pandemic. The CEO would at times ask for the prospective clients to turn their cameras on to no avail. “They would say something like ‘I don't look great today,’ or sometimes they just don't say anything.” Another CEO of a west coast-based agency experienced a similar screens-off experience just last month. “We just did a pitch for a large national brand,” the CEO says. “It was consultant-led. They set up the meeting and said, ‘Hey, in advance of the meeting we want this to be like a brainstorm. It's more of a chemistry check. We want us to get an understanding of what it's like to interact with you and everything else.’ We go to the meeting and everybody's camera was off. And we're like ‘How are you brainstorming? How are you interacting?’” And of course, a chemistry check goes both ways: If the pitching agency can’t see the client, it’s harder for it to judge just how high-maintenance the account might be. “We don’t allow clients to be on any other device, or to go off-camera—they’re all in or all out,” says Simon Francis, CEO of Flock Associates, which has worked with many major marketers on reviews, including McDonald’s. “We’ve broken our pitches down into different modules that are shorter, denser, and actually seem to give a better test of agency capability—rather than a war of Powerpoint, video, and demos.” There’s no hard and fast solution to a cameras-off review, but it’s worth a try to ask people to turn their cameras on. And after you go through one round of pitching into the void, you may want to pass on round two or at least be forewarned that the client may not be taking you seriously. The seeming disinterest in the pitch could also be a warning sign that the client won’t take you seriously in person either. Reviews that never stop—or end too fast When pitching, it’s important to try and determine just who is the final decision-maker on the agency selection, in order to sidestep the never-ending review. The rise of virtual reviews has led to an increase in prolonged or unreasonably short timelines and brands changing their mind last minute. The ease of being able to quickly hop on video calls has led to agencies pulling the trigger on RFPs before fully considering all aspects of what the client is looking for, or failing to consider whether the agency is actually the right fit for the company from a budget and relationship standpoint. “We were in one pitch where there were three agencies and we won the first round only to find out, they said, ‘You guys are the best of the three agencies, but now there's another agency,’” another agency CEO recalls. “So we had to pitch against that agency and we won that. Then they were like, ‘Oh, but our CEO just recommended a global agency. So now we have to meet with them.’ So we now had to pitch against that one. There were literally five times where they added new people after we kept winning. Ultimately we won the business, but when you're in a pitch and you know your competition and you go up against it and you beat them, you should win it as opposed to constantly having new people brought in.” While this example ended in an eventual win, other agencies weren’t always so lucky. One chief marketing officer of an agency’s North American division spoke about a time where the shop was pitching for a financial services brand. “It was a fairly well-funded startup brand,” the executive says. “They issued an RFP, we responded. They then had four meetings with us—each time asking for a refinement of the RFP and proposal. Then they went radio silent for three months. After that, we got an email that said they actually got another round of funding and had decided to invest that money elsewhere.” Dan Eisenberg, senior VP, marketing and business development at agency Blue Chip Marketing Worldwide partnered with another agency on a very large and extensive RFP for a food brand a few months ago. The client hired a consultant, was looking for an agency of record, and the RFP had all the indications of a strong opportunity, Eisenberg says. “We were told, and we felt, that our thinking really resonated with the client team and we were in a strong position to win the assignment,” Eisenberg says. “But at decision time, we were told that the client would be keeping the business with their incumbent agency. The senior client did not feel that his internal team was ready to begin work with a new agency. While this is a valid consideration, it’s one that should have been considered well before a search consultant was engaged, an RFP was developed and several agencies spent hundreds of hours on a detailed and thoughtful RFP effort.” A good rule of thumb for shops is to do your homework, not just on the client’s business but its agency history. Endeavor to get as much information as possible upfront to help you judge whether the account is worth a cattle call. During the pandemic, many agencies jumped into pitches thinking they had less to lose because they didn’t incur the cost of travel—but that also upped the number of contenders who were also lured in for the same reasons. “If you typically would bring in, let's say somewhere between four and eight agencies to talk to, that's a lot of time commitment for the client, '' says the president of a Chicago agency. “But if it’s just ‘Hey, let's schedule a 45 minute Zoom call,’ they can do 30 of those. So your odds just went from maybe one in five to one in 30, that's bad. It tends to commoditize agencies.” The pandemic may have increased the frequency of some of these bad practices but they have certainly existed before the pandemic. Some executives claim that agencies desperate for new business have unintentionally fueled bad actors by deliberately underbidding or pursuing accounts against their better judgment. Just say no Of course, the best defense is a good offense when it comes to reviews. When in doubt, pull out, especially when red flags appear around process or compensation—such as the client one agency CEO recalls who had his agency go through a review only to offer barter as payment. “The absolute worst experience I’ve ever had during a pursuit is being notified we were in the final two, that the client loved us and wanted to work with us, but there was one final step, a live auction,” says another agency exec. “We were asked to join a meeting with the other agency and bid in real-time for the business.” An agency founder says his shop once passed on a plum review that had some odd parameters. “They asked for, in less than four weeks, a complete media plan, along with a creative and strategic assessment of their current work that they really didn't want to change, and creative execution. No meetings, you could email one time, email questions, and then you submit your work, and no oral presentations,” he says. Then it got even weirder. “A committee would decide who the winner was, the first runner up, and the second one. They'd pick three agencies and start negotiating compensation with the first agency. If they couldn't reach a compensation agreement with the first agency, they would drop them, go to the second agency. They could end up, by the way, using the third-best agency. The strangest thing is, you could get a call saying, ‘Hi, I'm your new client,’ without ever having met the people.” Though it can take courage, an agency can save itself headaches, employees, and costs in the long run by walking away from a review that shows troublesome signs. “We just have to say, ‘no’ more often,” says a CEO and founder of an agency. “We have to carefully vet these opportunities and see, is this a fear-based RFP, or is this a real opportunity? Are they fishing for a couple of ideas that their existing agency will execute, or are they really looking for a marketing partner?” This person advises asking yourself some hard questions before agreeing to participate in a review. “‘Do I have a chance of getting this business? Do I want this? Do I want to work with these people?’” Contributing: I-Hsien Sherwood Want to learn more about agencies and the challenges and opportunities they face? Buy your ticket for the Ad Age virtual Small Agency Conference & Awards Aug. 2-4, the only conference of its kind. A list of speakers and the agenda can be found at AdAge.com/saca2021.

Agency review horror stories and how to give up the ghost

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