Inside the Pitch: The Campbell Arnott’s account

Campbell Arnott’s, a company with a deep cupboard of iconic Australian brands, was sending out a good vibe, or chime, at the very first pitch session — the brief.

The Publicis Groupe team felt the, hopefully, client-to-be was clear about the objectives and had an open mind on how to get there. The presentation was short and to the point. They left the meeting feeling: “This is a company that talks about transformation in the same way we do.”

But it was still very early in the process. The art of pitching is often about building knowledge and a solution as you go. Propose something definitive too early in the process and you risk missing crucial information. Arrive at the answer too late, and you may have missed an important chance to connect with the client and build momentum internally.

Publicis Groupe had been invited to pitch alongside the two incumbents, WPP and Omnicom.

The requirements were broad, and the pitch covered multiple geographies, so other specialists were brought in including public relations. The Publicis team came in cold, without the inside relationships of the other two, both of whom had been working with Campbell Arnott’s for years.

But Matt Cooney, chief growth officer at Publicis Communications, felt an early connection.

“A lot of the conundrums that Campbell Arnott’s were wrestling with were challenges we’d been through as a business,” he says. “And a lot of the issues they faced in their industry were things that we were overcoming in