In this new series, AdNews asks marketers to recall memorable pitch moments. Here, Uber Eats ANZ head of marketing David Griffiths flips the switch and remembers his agency pitch of a lifetime.
Having started agency side I’ve been involved in countless pitches. I love the hustle, energy and teamwork they bring. The most significant pitch in my career was when I first moved to Australia in 2016.
I transferred with my agency (a respected powerhouse in London, less known here) to lead the prospect of working with Samsung. After months hustling we were asked to pitch on their new brand partnership with The Australian Diamonds.
The pitch was against some of the biggest and most respected local agencies, real David v’s Goliath stuff. So much so we even had the 9am Monday morning graveyard slot to present.
From the outset we knew we’d need a wow factor to convince the pitch panel to go with us. Over the five weeks we fully immersed ourselves in netball; interviewing people associated with the sport, hosted workshops with recreational players, chatting to current and ex-professional players and attending the NSW Swifts family open day.
This gave us amazing insight and a springboard to build our response but this wouldn’t be enough, we had to create some memorable theatre.
So we flew in our Global CEO to chair the session, hired a room overlooking The Diamonds training court to host the pitch and on the Friday before sent a video message from The Diamonds coach to the Samsung CMO getting him excited about what we’d been working on.
Suffice to say the pitch went brilliantly and we blew the CMO and his team away. Our response brought together Samsung’s brand line (Do What You Can’t) and the untold stories of the Diamonds players. The campaign ‘Rethink Role Models’ (here) was a huge success authentically launching Samsung’s partnership in netball and galvanizing anyone associated with women’s sport.
To this day, I still receive messages and comments from parents, teachers and coaches who show it to the next generation of Aussies sports stars.
Now, as a client I always look out for the agency team who have done their homework, lived the brief, go that extra mile and show a passion and desire to want it more, because that’s where the magic is!
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