WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell speaking at the PRCA and CorpComms Conference in London today spotlighted the issue that all marketing agencies face: pitching for free.
“The RFP process is still a long process and it’s all for free. WPP has participated in a pitch for a piece of work recently invoicing four major groups all for [no cost to the prospect] and in one global pitch recently we delivered a 36,000 page document,” he said.
But Sorrell said the situation is unlikely to ever change due to over capacity in agency land.
“There will always be competitors that are prepared to [pitch] for free,” he said.
Nice to see an agency man correctly identify the problem: over-supply.
“36,000 page document”?!
Does he imagine that got read?
[...] 8, 2009 Posted by tmunroe12 in Uncategorized. trackback Interesting note from the head of WPP on RFPs (Requests for Proposals) in public relations. In the public relations industry, and in my own [...]
[...] Sorrell: Free pitching – fixture of the marketing industry | Wadds … [...]
More horseshit out of the horse’s ass. The cost of piches are built into the hourly rates of the staff just as the costs of rent, insurance, telephones and all other such costs are bulit into the rates charged the client.
The problem is that the big agencies are so bloated and expensive (Sorrell is paying himself 95mm euros over the next few years) that the cost of a pitch is astronomical.