Pit(ch)fall 7. “Being as dull as Darling”

A new expression to replace ‘as dull as ditchwater’? Alistair Darling’s platform speech to the TUC on Tuesday was received in silence and apathy, with possibly four or, as much as four and a half seconds, of applause.

Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail described him as “standing as limp as a sweet pea in the rain”!

Clearly, Darling was on a hiding to nothing, with little of substance he could offer, but surely he could have put up at least token resistance by injecting some fizz, some attack and personality into the way he spoke?

There will always be pitches that don’t go as planned. The scintillating solution that wasn’t, the audience that was unreceptive, the brief misread and so on. None of these are reason to be dull. You may not win but pitching with energy, wit and enthusiasm can lead to a next opportunity. And you’ll feel better for it, darling.

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Voting for people, not policies?

Not surprisingly, journalists and reporters are having a field day with “Palin’s meteoric appearance on the political scene”. Their opinions, as among voters in the USA, are divided. A.A Gill, in the Sunday Times, wrote “I think she looks hard and caculating and a bit of a bitch”. In the Observer, Paul Harris, “one of the most remarkable speeches of recent political history”.

Harris also reported on the views of the Republicans. ‘They believe stirring personal narratives will decide the election. They are betting that voters are looking for people to vote for, not policies.’

We may not like to admit it but this is often the case in business pitches. The decision makers are looking for people to vote for, not proposals.

Casting can make the winning difference. A brilliant solution indifferently presented, more often than not, loses out to an average one brillantly presented.

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Sarah Palin, the body language counts

The Presidential election in the USA is boiling up nicely to be one of the political pitches of all time, certainly as a media spectator sport. Obama versus Clinton was a cliffhanger, with style, just, winning out over substance. The, seemingly last minute, addition of Palin to the McCain ticket is already overshadowing that earlier battle.

Until quite recently it seemed the Obama style and charisma would carry the day. He, seemingly without effort, puts into practice the concepts illustrated here. But so does Sarah Palin!

As this ”baked Alaska“ (!) pie chart shows, the way we respond to communication is such that only 8% is purely down to the verbal content. The rest of our response is formed by the non-verbal, tone and visual. It’s not what you say, it’s the way you say it.

For this argument’s sake, let’s ignore the political content, and think of the contest only in the terms of this chart. Then, it seems to me that the combined ‘body language count’ of McCain, calmly heroic and Palin, feisty, fearless plus female, outscores that of Obama, the orator and Biden, recycling Kinnock.

Until, of course , the next dramatic revelation.

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PITCH WARS IN PROVENCE!

On holiday in Provence, where one of the many delights is browsing the village markets, I came across a local bilingual promotional magazine. The front cover, not surprisingly, caught my interest. Dominating, in brutal type , were the words PITCH WARS.

This was not, as I first thought, an article on pitching but, as the French title “La Guerre des places” indicated, one on the bitter jostling, back-stabbing and bribery that goes on to secure the best sited pitch, an original meaning of the word.

Interestingly, as soon as this war is over peace breaks out and all the traders unite behind the common goal of creating a great market. As the writer of the article, Jamie Ivey, himself a market newcomer banished to the less favoured pitches, descrbes it:

“Every market was a show and every trader had a role to play to ensure its success…luring the tourists in the heat of the day was a team effort. Every week we were successful in creating a critical mass of bustling people, a magical environment in which money somehow ceased to matter and shoppers left with a smile on their face, a camera full of beautiful photos and no money in their pockets”.

Sounds to me like the description of a great pitch. It was Paul Arden, in his marvellous book, ‘It’s not how good you are, it’s how good you want to be’, who tolds us not to present but to “Put on a show!”

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Beijing, a deserved gold for branding.

Hundreds of thousands watched live. The rest of us, some 4.3 billion, that’s about 99.99% of the audience, watched on television. This is the audience that really mattered to Beijing. How well did they do?

Most commentators were in agreement. They awarded ‘gold’ for the opening and closing ceremonies, gold for the stadia (and platinum for the Bird’s Nest), gold for the competition (a fast track and a fast pool), their athletes won most golds and to cap it all our, unfortunately named, Team GB won record gold haul, setting London up fantasically for 2012.

In my view Beijing deserved a further gold, for branding.

The full identity has three elements, a figurative icon, beneath this Beijing 2008 in a chinese script style, with the Olympic symbol at the base. In practice, the dominant element by far, frequently used in isolation, was the Beijing 2008. Reversed white out of deep blue or red, the Beijing identity dominated our screens as if every camera had been positioned to do just this.

A reminder of the Beijing omnipresence. On perimeter boards everywhere. For diving, the bottom of the pool, edges of the boards, behind the poised divers and in the apparently mandatory shower area. For boxing on the canvas, on headgear and on the gloves. It was on the sides of yachts, gym ‘horses’, on hurdles and show jump fences, on finishing tapes and, of course, on the medal ribbons.

Sponsors try to asess exposure value with a formula that values the on screen visibility, presence and duration, against audience. My guess would be that Beijing, as the dominant brand identity had an exposure value in excess of £1,000,000.

It will be interesting to see how London handles it’s branding. The 2012 logo, in its familiar form, contains all the elments, London being the least significant. When the Games hit world screens in August,2012, will London be the dominant brand?

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