CONVERSATION ONE
Chloe Hooper and Darren chat about the good, the bad and the ugly of media agency pitches
When we had this conversation, Chloe Hooper1 was the National New Business and Marketing Director at media agency PHD. In March 2020, at the start of the global pandemic, she was promoted to Head of Growth and Marketing for the APAC (Asia-Pacific) region. I was first drawn to wanting to talk with Chloe after reading her article inAdNews titled ‘RIP to the Pitch Process?’2, in which she challenged some of the conventional pitch practices in the marketplace. She agreed to appear on the podcast and we found ourselves having a wide-ranging and engaging conversation based on her deeply considered agency perspective on best-practice pitching, worst-practice pitching, and how pitching can be improved to deliver better outcomes for marketers and advertisers.
The conversation
Darren:
Welcome to Managing Marketing. Today I’m chatting with Chloe Hooper, who’s the National New Business and Marketing Director of PHD. Welcome Chloe.
Chloe:
Hello, how are you?
Darren:
I’m very well. The reason you are sitting here is because of that opinion piece you wrote inAdNews. I don’t think you quite said you were bitching about pitching, but you certainly had some very clear thoughts on pitching.
Chloe:
Yeah, I’ve been doing this for a few years now and I’ve experienced a lot of different pitches, some good, some bad, and I just felt the need to put my opinion out there and say what I currently think the state of play is.
Darren:
Look, I think that is really refreshing. And I would encourage it because often as pitch consultants, we hear that agencies will give feedback but they don’t want to be quoted on it and things like that. But pitching is a two-party process. You need to understand the impact it is having on agencies as well as the impact on marketers.
Chloe:
Yeah, I think there has been a massive call from all agencies actually, maybe not publicly and as you say putting your name to it, but I do think there is massive fatigue within the whole agency realm. There’s a call to change the way that pitches are currently being run, and so we might be the one who puts their name to it, but I do think it’s a global thing.
Darren:
And do we have to have a disclaimer now that this is Chloe Hooper’s personal opinion?
Chloe:
Absolutely. I think we should definitely put that out there. It is one of those things that everyone has a different opinion on how things should be run and what works and what doesn’t. I’ve had a few conversations leading up to this