Should focus groups rule?

An article by David Benady, in Marketing Week, titled ‘the lamp-post theory of pitch research’ looks at the use of focus groups to decide who wins. Strong views for and against were raised, the same views that would have prevailed ten, twenty or thirty years ago.

I happen to side with the no focus group view. This has not stopped me pitching when research is in play. The reason is obvious. In a competitive service industry, the first rule is that the client, potential or otherwise, is always right. For the second and third rules, go back to number one.

It is nevertheless reasonable that the client should let you know how they will assess. If they don’t, ask. You can then decide whether, or how, to pitch, but the problem remains. No decision process can be set in stone. Even with procurement attack dogs, objective evaluation criteria and impartial consultants, something will intervene. It’s called human nature.

It is both the fascination and the frustration of pitching. Whim and chance do play their part. This is why chances of success are greatest where insights into the nature of the decision makers are sharpest. Before and throughout the process.

One example from personal experience, this a 6-way pitch to major French company, Saint Gobain. A formal 2 hour presentation to 20 country managers for evaluation, then 30 minutes one-on-one with the CEO. Our insight was that he, and he alone, took the decisions. So pitch focussed solely on him and his concerns rather than the company at large. The managers scored us sixth out of six. The CEO awarded us the business.

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‘Beauty contests’ at the Olympics?

Another post in Olympic mode in a moment of respite between highlights and live coverage. This one is prompted by wondering how panels of judges manage to evaluate those, to my mind, lesser events where an assessment of ‘ artistic impression’ is involved.

For me, the real events are those where success is measured in absolute terms of ‘Citius, Altius, Fortis’. They include track, swimming, weightlifting and rowing. They do not include events, however compelling, where a panel of judges makes a subjective, ‘Pulchrior’, judgement on beauty and artistic impression.

I don’t particularly like it that pitches are often referred to as ‘beauty contests’, an expression more readily associated wih 80’s’ Miss World’ television programmes, high heels, bathing suits and ever-so polite interviews. However, the description does reflect the fact that, like the gymnasts, no matter how good our content, our technical merit score will be marked down if we ignore the artistic impression.

The champion Olympic gymnasts really work on this. The positive body language, the radiant smile, (even mid somersault), a sense of attack and confidence personified. When you think about it, the characteristics, apart from the somersaults, that separate the great from the average pitch.

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1908, the defining Olympic pitch?

The last post looked at Opening ceremonies. Since then Beijing’s has been somewhat tarnished. We now know the the beautiful little girl, who captivated with her singing, was miming to the voice of a less beautiful little girl. The magical firework footsteps were digital. (A clue here for London, save money, go digital!)

No matter, the spirit of astonishing competition is now centre stage.

So back to 1908. The BBC, with 450 0f their people occupied in Beijing, still found time to air a fascinating documentary on the real forerunner of today’s games. They were held in London, in the presence of the King and Queen, with some 2,000 competitors, 40 of whom were women.

Two major precedents were set, one good and one bad. Both as alive today as then.

The bad, the environment of controversy. Politics and sport did mix, with the Irish issue; cheating took place, in the tug of war; boycotts as Americans refused to re-run the 400 metres; feuding between superpowers, imperial Britain, rising USA. Doping was confined to ‘restoratives’, cognac during the marathon!

The good, as de Courbatin well understood, lay in the compelling nature and spirit of sporting competition. In 1908 one event in particular dramatised this. It was that marathon. The one where Dorando Pietri led all the way only to collapse 30 yards out. Concerned officials carried him across the line, to disqualification, to an award from Queen Mary and to hero status.

All business at heart is competitive. However, as a one time Olympic competitor, it is this ‘spirit of competition’ that I look for in any pitch team. In attitude, it should be what’s on our screens right now.

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The Opening Ceremony, the ultimate global pitch.

The ‘Olympics’ are now so gagantuan they defy logic. Every city that hosts does so knowing it risks disasters outside its control. Terrorism in Munich and Atlanta, boycotts in Los Angeles and Moscow, student massacre and the Black power salute in Mexico, run-away budgets for Montreal and London(?) and doping, Seoul, Sydney, Athens et al.

Already, Beijing has murder, doping and a war. Not bad for day one.

With all these factors outside their control, it is not too surprising that all host cities put so much energy and so much money into the one element that is in their control, the Opening Ceremony.

As Lois Jacobs, who was responsible for producing the magical opening ceremony at Athens, puts it “A ceremony is a huge opportunity for the host city to make a statement about itself to its own people and to the world at large. With an audience of 4.3 billion, it’s the biggest brand experience or excercise in brand communication that you can get”.

Television audiences bacame seriously global in 1964, with the first live cross-Pacific broadcasts. Tokyo took advantage with an opening ceremony drawing the same superlatives we are reading now for Beijing. Every city since then has garnished similar praise. (In London in 1948, with post-war austerity and only a radio audience to impress, a military band and the release of 2,500 pigeons were ceremony enough.)

It is too early to assess the value of this stunning opening ceremony to the ‘world at large’. However, to the most important audience, ‘its own people’, the people of China, the value will be incalculable. Pride replacing the ‘years of humiliation’, a concept unfamiliar to most of us until recent press reports.

A final thought. Perhaps the greatest ever opening ceremony pitch was Berlin. Masterminded by Goebbels, immortalised on fim by Leni Riefenstahl, it gave Nazi Germany respectability!

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The first Britain in space!

PITCHES AND TROUGHS. 100 BEST STORIES.

This story qualfies for the bizarre. It took place nearly twenty years ago when the advent of ‘glaznost’ signalled a thaw in relations with the Soviet Union. It started with a call from the President of the Moscow Narodny bank, based in London, one of the few commercial organisations then operating in the West.

Intrigued, I went along to a briefing where I met General Danyev, a grizzled veteran of the Soviet military. He was involved in running the Soviet Space agency, at that time probably leading the US in activity level. During the briefing, carried out through an interpreter, the general would rub forefinger and thumb together, the universal sign for ‘money’. He was not, as I first thought, seeking personal reward. He was signalling a commercial opportunity for western sponsors!

The first brief was to identify a sponsor, such as Coke, who could emblazon their brand all over the exterior of a space mission. When scientists pointed out that thousands of degrees heat at blast-off would obliterate any branding, the general came up with another idea. It was to run an ad campaign to recruit potential astronauts from the British public.

Before Saatchi’s creative work could be pitched to him there was a 9 month delay. Our London based client, the bank president, was ordered back to Moscow in one of the tit-for-tat spy scandals common at the time.

On his return, which surprised us, he was presented a campaign plan of full pages to appear once in all main newspapers, a name, Mission Juno, and a totally brilliant, long bodycopy, ad written by Simon Dicketts. The headline “ASTRONAUT WANTED. NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY”.

17,000 coupon responses came in. Some 3000 were then invited to complete a detailed questionnaire. 500 were screened in interviews before a final three were selected for training at the Space Agency. One of these, Helen Sharman, became the first British cosmonaut.

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