Does pitch running order matter?

In a competitive pitch process, do you want to go first, last, or in the middle?

In most cases, the answer is last (and in some cases, the answer is first…and in no case is the answer “in the middle”).

The case for going first

• By the end of an intense pitch process, the client’s buying team feels pretty drained: it might be 2 or even 3 days of solid meetings, taking them away from doing their actual jobs. Research from outside the sector suggests that, as time goes on, people experience decision fatigue, resulting in fewer questions or criticisms and a greater likelihood of getting waved through. I’ve seen articles claiming that this is a positive thing for the agencies pitching last but, in my experience, no questions usually means no win and I’d rather have an enthusiastic and engaged client team in front of me.
• The “primacy effect” suggests that the agency who first introduced the concepts will get credit for them so, if 3 more agencies ultimately make similar recommendations, the agency that started the thought process will usually be remembered most favourably with regards to that particular thought. There’s also the idea of “setting the bar”, so perhaps you back yourself and your ideas enough to think “I’d like to see someone follow this”.
• If you do go first, you can poison the well for everyone else: when Rise at Seven was at its most combative, we’d start a creative pitch (yes, sometimes we pitched spec creative, although there’s a whole article on this at some point) with a slide that listed all the ideas we thought the other agencies were going to pitch (“you’ll get this map; that dream job; someone will want to float this other thing down the Thames” and so on); then we’d follow up with something like: “you said that you’d be finished seeing agencies by the end of last week…how many of those ideas did they pitch?”

When pitching last is a good idea

• I’ve been involved in a few agency selection processes on the brand side - sometimes as an employee (sometimes as “the buyer”), sometimes as a consultant - and it’s become more and more clear that most agency pitches sound largely the same.A lot of my work with marketing agencies as a consultant (and some of my writing) is about differentiating the agency from the others it’s likely to be pitching against. If you’re confident that your agency is meaningfully and valuably different from its competitor set, you probably want to pitch last because the client will have already seen the same thing 2-3 times and your different thing will be a breath of fresh air.
• Clients are, believe it or not, human beings: so when they’re seeing multiple agencies, they (consciously or unconsciously) discount all but the front runner. If your agency is the last of four, then you’re actually only pitching against one, since the person on the other side of the table has already made peace with the fact that two of the agencies probably aren’t going to get the work.(This is why, by the way, it doesn’t matter that much how many agencies you’re pitching against, as long as the client is showing signs that you’re a serious contender - more on that shortly).
• The “recency effect” - in contrast to the primacy effect - means that the most recent pitch will be recalled more easily, so when the client’s buying team (because the days of a single decision maker are long gone) meet to deliberate, they will remember more of the final pitch than the earlier ones.

Practically, what should you do?

• If the RFP in front of you states a couple of days, or a week, where the brand will be seeing agencies, don’t choose anything other than the first slot or the last one.
• Consider calling the client and telling them you can’t make any of their stated dates (even if you can) and ask for a date the following week: if they’re willing to accommodate, that’s a good sign that they actually want you there and you’re not making up the numbers (because, in most cases, clients know who they’re likely to appoint before the first pitch anyway). If they tell you there’s no movement - and they can’t give you a good reason why, like one of the decision makers is flying in especially - then think twice.(Most agencies who use a qualifying framework don’t actually use any metrics that decide whether or not they’re going to win…it’s all about the size of the client; the sector; and so on…and not even a mention of whether it’s a long shot. If you have a framework, look at it and ask yourself: if Apple called us, would they automatically get qualified in, regardless of the need and the brief? If the answer is yes, call me instead).
• Tell the client you don’t pitch. I know (and have worked with) agencies who refuse to participate in competitive pitch processes. There are massive trade offs if you choose to follow this principle…but one of several major positives is that you don’t have to worry about pitch running order!