What makes a great media pitch? Earlier this year, GroupM’s OpenMind Solution won the coveted Nestle media account following a competitive review. B&T spoke to Nestlé Oceania director of marketing and communications, Anneliese Douglass, and GroupM ANZ CEO, Aimee Buchanan, to find out more about the process and why GroupM won the account.
Nestlé is not only one of the tastiest agency accounts, it’s also one of the largest FMCGs – with a global advertising and marketing budget of $11.9 billion – and most sought after with brands including KitKat, Nescafe, Allen’s, Milo, Maggie and more.
In April, Nestlé concluded a global media review that had been led from its EMEA operations but with an eye on how local agency teams could work on Nestle’s media transformation program.
GroupM’s agency-scaling OpenMind solution won the account from the incumbent UM and Publicis.
Douglass, who leads marcomms for Nestlé across the Oceania region, told B&T that GroupM displayed a deep understanding of the RFP.
“They really understood what we were looking for and created the digital and tech spine that we needed, which is quite an amazing custom built piece of tech, which is AI enabled. I think it’s going to be a game changer for us,” she said.
“What we need at a marketing level is to drive efficiency to make sure that our marketers have more time to spend on what’s important, like product innovation and creating great comms, and doing less on things like admin and communications.
“The other part that is intangible in any pitch is the energy and the enthusiasm for the business, and GroupM had that in spades from the moment we walked into the presentation…you could really feel the energy, the positivity and the desire to work on our brands.”
Nestlé works with WPP creative sister shops Ogilvy and VML, which was also helped because it allowed GroupM to present a joined up approach across all of agency partners – or as Douglass puts it “the icing on the cake”.
“From a digital perspective, it certainly helps with the speed that’s needed to deliver creative content,” she explained. “And if you think of the need to surface our brands more in culture, particularly driven by social platforms, you need to think about retail, digital media and you need your media and you need your creative agencies to work really closely together more than any other areas.”
What Makes A Good Pitch?
GroupM carefully assembled a pitch team of 20 from across the business and led by Mindshare’s Maria Grivas.
GroupM’s ANZ leader Aimee Buchanan said that 95 per cent of the presentation team would work on the day-to-day account, and included executives with different levels of experience, including some who had only been with the business for less than a year.
“It’s a better experience having the depth and breadth of the account team in a room, I think it creates a better dynamic and chemistry,” said Buchanan, who confessed a weakness for Allen’s Party Mix during the call. “About 60 per cent of our team came from internal moves. And the other 40 per cent we’ve bought in externally to complement and supplement.
“There were people in the room presenting with under a year experience and it was such a positive career moment. They were high-fiving each other for days just on the experience.”
Douglass has experience in senior marketing roles at Nestle and Unilever, but also agency-side with Mindshare, Initiative and UM, said that having the day to day account team involved in the pitch was fundamentally important.
“There’s nothing worse than seeing people presenting and then when you start working with them day-to-day those people disappear,” said Douglass, who wouldn’t be drawn on her favourite brand, but leans into KitKats “by nature”.
The review, which took the best part of a year, has received plaudits from industry insiders about how well it was run.
For Douglass there are several important ingredients to a well-run pitch: be clear about the brief, what you are looking for and what you perceive as value.
“So showing the agencies the respect they deserve. We made sure that everyone had clear roles and responsibilities from global teams to local, we communicated well with the agencies and managed a very clear process. They knew what the steps were going to happen next,” she said.
“Sometimes brands don’t realise that it’s their reputation at stake. So manage a good pitch process, because it’s your reputation as a brand in the market as well. The wonderful thing about Nestlé is although it’s a massive global organisation, it is very much focused on what the local market needs from a business perspective.
“You shouldn’t just move media agencies in my view, it’s a massive move and can be quite disruptive. You need to have a really good reason to do it.”
For GroupM’s Buchanan, what sets the Nestlé review apart is the thought and consideration that went into designing the review process; the clarity of the brief and the role that the media agency needs to play; and the respect shown to the agencies throughout.
“The commitment and time that everybody puts in, including into the meetings and check-ins, is unusual. From my point of view, I haven’t seen that kind of time committed before. The global CMO and the global head of media came and spent eight hours with us,” she said.
“The number of pitches I’ve sat in and the senior client leaves half an hour to take a phone call or doesn’t show up to the meeting. This was just such a respectful way of giving us their time and they were totally engaged and present.
She added: “There was a very clear intent, from the start on what the outcomes and needs were for Nestlé. They were clear on their ambition and the role that media would play in delivering that ambition. And they were clear on what they needed in an agency.”
