5 Tips for Pitching Ideas From Ad Experts Goodby & Silverstein

Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein started their San Francisco–based advertising agency, Goodby Silverstein & Partners, with Andy Berlin in 1983. Their work includes advertising campaigns like the Budweiser lizards, Hewlett-Packard’s “Invent,” the E*Trade chimpanzee, Polaroid’s “See what develops,” Doritos’ Super Bowl ads, SEGA’s “SEGA!” and “got milk?”

Goodby & Silverstein’s hard work paid off; in addition to earning the title “Agency of the Year” multiple times from several publications, GS&P has repeatedly received recognition for its ingenuity and innovation. Adweek also named Goodby & Silverstein the “Executives of the Decade.”

Goodby & Silverstein know how to appeal to their clients in both old and new business, and they’ve mastered the pitching process from the creative brief to the pitch deck and beyond.
If you want to improve your ad agency pitch skills, check out some of the following tips:

1. 1. Accept that the best idea isn’t always the right idea. Your agency’s content marketing strategy may be effective, but that doesn’t mean it’s right for the client. It’s important to understand the short- and long-term strategy for how to sell a client on the kinds of bold ideas that make brands famous. It’s also important to understand why the best idea isn’t always the right idea—know your target audience (the client), as well as their target market, to cater specifically to their needs. “Good ideas are great, but there’s no such thing if it doesn’t run,” Jeff says.
2. 2. Build an unconventional idea around a nugget of truth. If you feel you have a good but convoluted idea, clients may feel apprehensive about it. To circumvent this, prove that your sales pitch is a winning pitch by using the truth to make an idea compelling. For the “got milk?” pitch process, Goodby & Silverstein filmed the real reactions of people searching for milk. They turned what was an unconventional idea into an undiscovered nugget of truth. “A lot of people think that advertising is telling somebody something that isn’t true but getting them to believe it,” Jeff says. “That’s not what we do. We try to find the things that are true. I think that if you start with something that’s true, it really helps you along the way.” As Rich adds, if something comes from the truth, it becomes easier to sell ideas that seem out of the ordinary.
3. 3. Make your idea funny. When a brand can make fun of itself, it can make consumers feel that the company is more authentic and engaged with its audience. That’s not to say that serious ads do not work. However, funny or satirical spots are rewatchable. “Clients always say, ‘Why do you guys like funny commercials? You seem to really love funny commercials.’ And the answer is life is not that pleasant, and so having a funny commercial is really a relief,” Jeff says. “People appreciate it. . . . It pulls you in, and you want to see it again. You want to experience it again. You can’t get it out of your head.”
4. 4. Read the room during the pitching process. Sometimes pitches are won or lost based on nothing other than likability. Before, during, and after your pitch presentation, make sure you are sensitive to the client’s habits and behaviors. You want to be on the same page as the decision-makers in the room, so it’s important that self-awareness is part of your strategy. “I’m a big believer that the likeability of the people as they do it, and the clarity of the people as they present things is what they buy even more than the idea,” Jeff says. The duo pitched Porsche twice and was confused when their first effort wasn’t successful. “Afterwards, the guy who was running the pitch. . . he said, ‘You want to hear why you lost?’ So we went, ‘Sure.’ He came to the office, and he said, ‘First of all, these are Germans. You’ve got to think about that.’ You’ve got to think about what the room looks like and who they are.” The more you understand the subtle culture of the company you’re pitching and the city it calls home, the better chance you’ll have as a contender for their business. If you form a sincere relationship with the company, the odds are higher you’ll ultimately win the job.
5. 5. Use music. When pitching clients, you want to appeal to their senses to make your ideas come to life. “The positive side of digital is that you can make these amazing expressions now that move, and you have GIFs in them, and it feels alive,” Rich says. “It’s what a storyboard used to be. Now it’s a feeling, and you’ll read the script with music. And we’ll play music that we couldn’t even afford in a million years, but we’ll use it for the feeling. Music is really critical because it sets a tone.”

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