In the bustle of “biz” hunting season, I remember the tale of Thủy Tinh seeking a bride. Waves begin to rise in my heart, and I want to “expose” King Hùng, “take Sơn Tinh down a peg,” and “set the record straight” for Thủy Tinh, who lost an unfair contest.
Pitching is a tender for a communication strategy, plan or creative idea that a brand opens to agencies, all tackling the same brief, accessing the same information and having roughly the same time to respond.
Heroes from all directions: agencies that qualify through the preliminary round (a general capability assessment—Agency credential) are invited to receive the brief for the contest. After receiving it, any hero who feels they do not want to travel the same road, share the Brand’s desired destination, or have the strengths required should “come to their senses” and withdraw (in reality, very few heroes “come to their senses”). Those who enter the battle assemble their forces, devise strategies and battle plans, and resolve to earn the medal for winning the pitch at the end of the road.
Pitching requires a “formation” with a decisive leader carrying a fighting spirit and a team of elite troops full of curiosity and provoked into action. There is no room in pitching for people exhausted by overwhelming workloads or leaders who lack a competitive spirit and do not understand the nature of the contest. A pitch leader needs mettle rather than recklessly charging into battle. That mettle is shown in the criteria used to decide whether to send the team into a tender.
1. The Courage to Choose Your Playing Field
A tender is like a fragrant, enticing cake that everyone recognizes as desirable. Precisely because the cake is so delicious, the Brand feels that giving it to anyone would be “favoritism,” and simply handing it over would be unfair. The Client therefore needs to open a tender and award this slice to the Agency that truly deserves it through its competitive capabilities.
There are 1001 ‘ingredients’ that make the pitching cake delicious: a difficult brief, a huge budget, a prestigious client… provided the leader sees them not only as rewards to enjoy but also as things that illuminate the agency's purpose and dignity. Pitching battles therefore often aim to win market share, territory, and money; honor the teams—Planning, Creative, and Account Management; enhance reputation and strengthen agency credentials; or make a mark in one or more categories the agency wants to dominate… rather than send troops out to be battered for a modest 0++ figure, for a brand challenging agencies on things they may not even want, and a project whose budget is frankly just crumbs, hardly worth craving.
A warrior must fight once a military order is issued. A leader’s mettle, however, lies in choosing their own battles. Fighting wherever you go is indiscriminate combat; fighting on someone else’s orders without control is mercenary work. Agencies entering pitches without a just cause of their own are… very wrong!
The tasty slice of the pie will certainly not be found in formalistic pitches, “bait” pitches, “suicide squad” pitches or pitches that merely fill the lineup on the execution platform…
A warrior must fight once a military order is issued. A leader’s mettle, however, lies in choosing their own battles.
2. The courage to choose challenges and take them on
For a pitching session to work, a challenging brief is indispensable. The betrothal gifts to ask for Mị Nương’s hand without ‘an elephant with nine tusks, a chicken with nine spurs, and a horse with nine crimson manes’ then what about that bride-price challenge is worth passing down?
Pitching goes like this: My daughter Mị Nương is ready to marry. Men from everywhere, come seek her hand. Then a line of “dream men” displays a few talents, like “Mị Nương Got Talent.” After some adventurous “drama,” the result is announced; the winner does not know why he won, and the losers treat the moment as chance.
Agencies large and small rush to sign up whenever a pitch brief beckons, competing to solve assignments such as bidding for an annual calendar, a brochure (or leaflet), or the design layout of a key communication visual… They scramble for absolutely everything, regardless of whether the tender suits them, whether winning would be a worthy honor, or whether it offers only a modest fee, penny-pinching for returns hardly worth the effort?
A leader's mettle shows in the problem they choose to solve. There are so many challenges out there; who would lead an army to seize a territory where flowers bloom for only one season and a tree yields only one fruit?
If an agency goes all out and disregards the brief like that Water God, even earnest enthusiasm is too much!
3. The courage to blaze a trail to victory
People say pitching is a glorious experience that brings ‘happiness at every step of the journey,’ and participants should not focus on the final outcome of winning or losing.
But actually… Winning is better than losing. A good agency must win.
An agency that wins must be good. Being good at “lobbying” is a skill; being good at pleasing clients and reading their minds is also a skill. If you think, “Pfft… what's so good about that damn agency?”, then you deserve to lose: you lost because… you did not know the way to win.
There is no need to debate what Sơn Tinh did better than Thủy Tinh; after all, the Mountain God was already the celebrated victor.
Once both sides have entered the bidding process, they should avoid excuses such as: You are excellent, but I am sorry.
A pitch should say: Once you see how good I am, be wise and snap me up immediately.
In that marriage proposal contest, Thủy Tinh entered the battle with a “hunting” mindset: craving the target and firing away, which merely wastes the hunter's ammunition. Pitching like Sơn Tinh, by contrast, shows clear planning, with a target, a process, the ability to hit the key pressure points and the real capability to solve the problem precisely.
Conclusion
Pitching has gradually invaded work routines. Agencies, do not pitch like Thủy Tinh seeking a wife. Pitch intelligently and wholeheartedly, and when necessary… withdraw the waters instead of belligerently raising them, stubbornly making Sơn Tinh unbeatable for generations.
* Source: Zennie Trang Nguyen
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