Creative Shoot-Outs: Are We Shooting Ourselves in the Foot?
The Advertising Association has declared that investing in talent is at the heart of their three-year strategy. Research has shown that the number of people working in advertising and marketing fell by 14% between 2019 and 2022. There is a real skill shortage and the Advertising Association are calling for better attraction and recruitment of new talent, and increased development and retention of existing talent. It also discovered that annual salaries, after inflation, have decreased since 2011.
So, let’s get this straight. People are leaving the industry, we are failing to attract new talent, we are not developing existing talent and salaries are not keeping pace with inflation. From an independent agency perspective, we can also add that in 2022 88% of respondents to our Wellbeing Tracker Study, conducted by Opinium, stated that they had struggled with their mental health. Not a great picture then. And one can imagine that often it is the best people who are leaving the sector, weakening the output of the entire industry.
So, what prevents agencies from investing in talent? What stops them attracting new talent, having development plans in place, maintaining wellbeing and paying appropriately? Agency margins are being squeezed continually but there is another dynamic at play which blatantly wastes time and money, affects profitability and therefore the ability to invest. Creative pitching.
Recent research from JFDI indicates that small agencies (<50 people) spend an average of £67k per annum on pitching. We also know from this research that consistently over the last 6 years 33% of all pitches that are started are aborted before appointing an agency. That means every small agency is wasting £22k per annum on aborted pitches. Larger agencies are wasting considerably more. If we scale that up to calculate the total amount wasted by small agencies we get to unimaginable numbers. It is estimated that there are as many as 25,000 agencies in the UK, of which 15,000 are independent. Many will be very small, and the vast majority will have less than 50 people. Even if we take a modest number of 5,000 agencies with less than 50 people the £22k each gets us to £110,000,000 wasted in pitches that go nowhere (and £330m in pitches totally).
If we just put a stop to aborted pitches imagine how much better off agencies would be and how all aspects of their performance would be affected. Better wellbeing, more investment in training and development and better salaries, enabling agencies to keep the best talent. Surely that’s a benefit to clients as well?
But imagine the impact if we worked towards a better process of clients selecting agencies which did not involve creative shoot outs. The wasted time and money could be re-invested into achieving the goals that the Advertising Association have laid out.
And we believe this is entirely possible if we apply our creative minds to solving this. The successful agency client partnership is based on two key things. Chemistry and Capability, both can be established without creative shoot outs – the evidence is there in many other industries.
So, let’s solve the talent shortage together but let’s start by eliminating bad practice that contributes towards the problem.
If you are a client that has appointed an agency without resorting to a creative shoot out, we’d love to hear from you.
