Pitchmaxxing: 'Best and cheapest' is impossible and helps no one

Publicis released their "Wrong Promises" video, just in time for June's Cannes Lions advertising festival, to shine a light on what they believe has gone very wrong with pitching. I'm sure you've seen it, but just in case you haven't, you can watch it here.

The video suggests agencies are making the wrong promises in pitches to win business, and that these promises actually fail marketers and the people left in the agencies trying to deliver them. Wrong promises outlined in the video include:

• Agencies promising to work for free for extended periods
• Agencies suggesting AI means they can deliver with drastically smaller teams

It's a significant statement that goes some way to the heart of what pretty much every agency leader knows is broken about pitching, but not quite all the way. I'd add in three more wrong promises routinely being made in pitches that undermine the value agencies deliver for marketers:

• Unsustainably low media pricing
• Free media inventory
• Discounted agency fees if you sign up for principal media programs

All these promises do a disservice to our industry, tempting marketers away from the fair and transparent models that are ultimately better for everyone: marketers, agencies, agency staff and media owners included.

The reality is that these promises are often built on a house of cards. Some agencies take a "win the spreadsheet and worry about it later" approach, saying and promising whatever is necessary to win or keep a piece of business, knowing that things get more difficult for the marketer once they've been appointed.

Marketers and marketing procurement leads should exercise extreme caution in the face of these promises.

Just like there are no free lunches in life, these wrong promises often come at a significant, if sometimes hidden, cost:

• Unsustainably low media pricing often means lower quality media and comes with significant caveats. Read the fine print, and get used to agreeing to commitment exceptions if there are specific premium placements you want to see on your media plan.
• Free media inventory might be remnant inventory that's been sitting on the shelf for a while, delivered at a time of the agency's choosing that might not work for you, or contrived to give you the impression of free inventory.
• Discounted agency fees if you sign up for principal media programs: just in case this is not really obvious, you're still paying, probably even more than if it was a transparent deal.
• Smaller team savings due to AI can also be a mirage, when many of them are renegotiated in the first 12 months after significant turnover at the agency, amid claims the advertiser didn't make the actual scope clear during the pitch.

The solution

What Publicis did get right in their Wrong Promises video was a call to arms for the industry to place more of an emphasis on how what agencies do contributes to growth and business results.

The same is true for marketers and their procurement partners. There needs to be more of a realisation that you can't have both the best and the cheapest. Marketers are not buying efficiency. The main prize, what they are really buying, is media effectiveness and the opportunity to grow their businesses.

When it comes to these tempting wrong promises, stronger due diligence is required on the part of the marketer, their procurement partner and the pitch consultant.

AI reduced team promises

No one is saying efficiencies aren't possible. AI should be driving efficiencies in agency services and this should be resulting in lower agency fees, but the claims need to be tested.

Test the claims by speaking to other agency clients who are already working with the smaller teams made possible by proprietary AI. Verify that it's real and that service levels haven't been impacted. Don't just speak to one, speak to a few.

Lower media price promises

Test the claims by actually speaking to the media vendors themselves. After all, it's their inventory and pricing that's being committed, often without their knowledge. Verify the promises are real and can be delivered with no reduction in quality.

Consider also how your media planning may be compromised by the new media price commitments, for example larger volume and share offered to media vendors in return for the lower rates, rather than the flexibility to plan your media based on effectiveness. A great example of the tail wagging the dog.

Discounted fees in return for principal media opt-in promises

Principal media is becoming increasingly complex, with some players now enhancing the standard programs with bundled media buys (video and influencers) as well as so-called guaranteed outcomes buys.

Ask yourself if you really know how they work.

Test your organisation's comfort with the inherent conflict of interest, loss of objectivity and loss of transparency. Transparency loss can include both not knowing the agency margin and not knowing exactly where the media ran.

Put simply, it's time to exercise a lot more scepticism towards these wrong promises.

The best client and agency partnerships are built on foundations of mutual respect, transparency and financial sustainability for both parties.

The agencies that should be rewarded in pitch processes are the ones that win on merit rather than financial engineering. These are the agencies best placed to deliver the transformation and growth you've been looking for. These are the agencies that have retained the best talent. These are the agencies that have a vision for how the marketing landscape is changing, and the proven capacity to take you there.

It's time to stop rewarding the agencies making the wrong promises, and start rewarding the agencies making the right ones.

This article is based on Chilon's 2026 white paper, The Hidden Cost of Weak Media Governance. Get your free copy.