I have been running a creative agency since 2002. So has roughly every other agency owner I drink with at conferences. We all started around the same time. We all built our firms in roughly the same way. We've all watched the industry change three or four times. And we have all, at one point or another, walked out of a pitch meeting that we lost and said, "their deck sounded exactly like ours."
I want to confess something to you, because I think it will make the rest of this essay land.
I have given pitches that I am not proud of. Not because we lied, or oversold, or padded the numbers. We didn't. But because the pitch sounded like every other pitch in the market, and I knew it sounded like every other pitch, and I gave it anyway because that is the format the buying process rewards.
If you are an Operating Executive who has sat through three or four agency pitches in the last year and has a quiet feeling that the whole exercise was kind of a charade, I want to tell you something useful about why that is. From the inside.
The agency-pitch industrial complex
The reason every pitch you sit through sounds identical is not because agencies lack imagination. Many of them are run by genuinely creative people doing genuinely good work behind the scenes.
The reason is that the pitch format itself has been engineered, over twenty years, into a tightly optimized vehicle for not losing deals. And the way you do not lose a deal in the room is to sound exactly like the agency that won the last deal in your market segment.
So everybody copies. And the buyer, sitting on your side of the table, ends up watching three teams perform the same play with slightly different costumes.
Here are the conventions of the play, in order, so you can spot them next time.
The team intro. The senior person introduces the team. They mention years of experience. They mention impressive logos from past lives. They establish that the people in the room are credible. (This part is mostly fine. It's a job interview.)
The "we get you" page. They demonstrate they read your website. They mention something specific about your industry. They quote one of your executives back to you. (Cheap to produce, scores well in the room, tells you nothing about the work.)
The framework. They reveal their proprietary methodology, usually with a four-word capital-letter acronym. ENGAGE. EVOLVE. EMPOWER. EXCEL. Or some variant. The framework will be on a slide with a circle of arrows. (The framework is, in 95 percent of cases, marketing scaffolding around a totally normal project process.)
The case study. They show you a logo you've heard of. They describe the work in vague but impressive terms. They show you a metric in big bold type. (The metric was probably real. The implied causation was probably not. The senior people on this case study probably are not the senior people you'd get.)
The "we are different" slide. They list three things that every other agency listed. They will say "we are senior-led." (Every agency says this.) They will say "we don't outsource." (Most do, partially, when they need to.) They will say "we focus on outcomes, not deliverables." (Everyone does. This is a meaningless sentence.)
The investment slide. They show you a price range. The range is wide. The range is wide because they have not actually scoped your project yet. They are anchoring.
The questions slide. They ask you what you would need to see to move forward. (You give them homework. They go away. They come back with the homework. The homework is also a deck.)
I have given this pitch. My friends have given this pitch. My competitors have given this pitch. We have all gotten very good at it, because that is what the buying process rewards.
I am going to tell you why I think the buying process is wrong, and what to do instead.
What's actually different between agencies, and why you can't see it
The differences that matter between agencies are real, but they are almost completely invisible from a pitch deck. They are things like:
Whether the senior people who are pitching you will actually be in your weekly meetings six months from now, or whether you'll be handed off to a junior account manager.
Whether the agency has a real point of view on your industry, or whether they Google a few articles before each meeting.
Whether they will tell you "no" when you ask for something dumb, or whether they will execute whatever you say because they want to keep the invoice flowing.
Whether their actual production work is as good as their pitch deck, or whether their pitch deck is the best thing they've made in a year.
Whether they have shipped this kind of project five times before, or whether you are the practice case.
Whether they will fight for the right answer in a status meeting, or whether they will smile and update the slides to match your last comment.
None of this is on the deck. None of it can be on the deck. The deck is a sales tool, not a diagnostic.
How to actually evaluate
Here's what works, and what I'd do if I were you.
Stop watching the pitch. Start watching what happens when there isn't a pitch.
Send them a real problem from your business, not a hypothetical, two days before the meeting. Tell them you do not want a deck. You want them to walk you through their thinking. What did they make of the problem? Where did they get stuck? What would they do first?
Watch how the senior people in the room handle each other when they disagree. Watch whether anyone is willing to push back on you. Watch what they say when they don't know something, and whether they admit it cleanly or talk around it.
This is a one-hour test. It will tell you more than five pitch meetings.
Some agencies will fail this test instantly. They will show up with the same deck and try to use it. They will look annoyed that they did not get to control the meeting. Run.
Some agencies will surprise you. They will have engaged seriously with your problem. They will disagree with each other. They will tell you something you didn't already know. They will not have an immediate answer for everything, and the things they don't have an answer for will be the right things not to have an immediate answer for.
That second group is who you want.
The thing I want you to walk away with
I am writing this as somebody who has been on the agency side of this game for over two decades. The industry is full of genuinely talented people doing real work. It is also addicted to a buying process that selects for pitch theater rather than for actual capability.
You can fix this for yourself, on your next agency search, by changing what you ask agencies to do in the room. They cannot all be good at improvising on a real problem. The deck is where they hide. Take the deck away.
You will get a better answer in less time. And the agency that is actually right for you will appreciate it.
Same thesis, different doorway: pattern recognition · the deck decoder.
If you want to talk about a real project without a deck involved, book a call. Thirty minutes. Your problem. My thinking. No slides. We can also sketch whether a 90-day engagement fits.