TrinityP3 has unveiled its inaugural annual report, 'The State of the Pitch', which surveys agencies across 77 pitches and 28 industry categories over six months, representing an estimated 50% of the pitches run across Australia and New Zealand during the period.

The State of Pitch report highlights many marketers and their procurement teams are asking too much of their agencies in pitches or casting too wide a net in terms of the pitch lists and process requirements. Agencies reported pitch lists of between three and up to 45 agencies. The average score from agencies to the 77 pitches included in the survey was 3.13 out of a possible score of five.

“The key thing that stood out to us in doing this inaugural 'State of the Pitch' survey is that many marketers are boiling the ocean in their search for the right agency,” said Darren Woolley, CEO of TrinityP3.

Lydia Feely, General Manager of TrinityP3, added: “A score of 3.13 out of 5 isn’t completely damning, but it also highlights that our industry has significant room for improvement when it comes to pitching.”

State of the Pitch also highlighted how pitch remits are also rapidly evolving, with a growing number of clients demanding capabilities beyond strategy, creative/content and paid media, including programmatic.

“The survey highlights what TrinityP3 has been seeing in the market - which is the rise of multi-discipline pitching,” said Woolley. “The creative pitch or media pitch still exists but increasingly they are trying to find ways to consolidate rosters and overheads to have a less fragmented agency team. While you expect to see creative, paid media or production high on the client needs, it's worth noting the rise in demand for technology, data/CRM and even social and influencer capabilities to win at pitching agencies today. They need to have more than one string to their bow.”

The list of client compliance measures, especially in the data privacy space has also increased significantly as part of the pitch process. TrinityP3’s report highlights how it’s not only legislative data compliance or modern slavery requirements which marketers are asking agencies for but also policies on Net Zero, Diversity Equity and Inclusion and Gender Equality.

“It’s no surprise that data privacy compliance is a client expectation in 2024,” said Feely. “What is interesting is that marketers are increasingly demanding supplier policies in areas like Zero Net Emissions, DE&I and Gender Equality. Much of this is being driven by procurement, but we see this is a real positive for the industry, and increasingly, we expect all of these areas will be seen as a ‘hygiene factor’ that agencies just need to have sorted if they want to be involved.”

More broadly, the report quoted agencies who said the pitch process was still heavily burdened by long and substantial written components, financial, media rate exercises as well as strategic responses. "Clients often still ask for more than one brief response and often asked for full annual strategy solutions. In some cases, asking for our approach to corporate technology transformation and broader business strategies portfolio strategies... aspects that are more aligned to high level consultancy services then making their final decision on financials that do not marry with their briefed assessment or long term scoped requirements," said one agency exec quoted in the report.

The report notes that consultant-run pitches account for less than 15 percent of the pitches surveyed in the Australian market. It recommends the need for stronger industry-wide guidelines with greater optionality that assist marketers and brands when considering how to select an agency. "The issue is too many marketers are applying a one-size-fits-all approach. How you select an agency for a $50,000 project brief should look a lot different to a $10m retainer account,” Feely said.

The report also looked at which industries were pitching with the categories of Banking, Financial and Insurance the most represented followed by Education, Tourism then Retail and Food and Beverage. Local pitches represented more than 60% of those surveyed with regional representing 32% and global pitches were just 3.9%. "It is great to see local pitches dominating the Australian market,” Woolley said.