GRUEN WANTS AGENCIES TO PITCH
With The Gruen Transfer gearing up to return to our screens, producers of the show are calling for agencies to take part in The Pitch, the segment of the show in which competing agencies undertake an impossible brief.
“The Pitch became one of the most popular parts of last year’s show,” says Andrew Denton (pictured with AWARD chairman Richard Maddocks and his producer Jon Casimir last year), whose Zapruder’s Other Films company has started work on the second series for ABC-TV.
“The quality of work from the agencies happily exceeded our expectations from the very first episode. Even more importantly, most of the ads fulfilled the promise of the segment, taking the challenge of persuading us seriously.”
Denton says The Pitch is a chance for brilliant minds to shine: “We want to show the problem-solving nature of advertising. We want the television audience to realise that a good ad can change minds, even on an apparently unmovable idea.”
Agencies compete in each episode for the coveted Gruen trophy.
“Gruen scientists have calculated its relative value,” Denton says. “One Gruen trophy is worth 1.83 Cannes Lions, 2.6 Clios and 900 Logies.”
The Gruen team has already locked in more than half of the agencies for the second series, but there are still some opportunities for creatives who think they have what it takes.. If you’d like to nominate your agency for the challenge, contact Pitch producer Polly Connolly on 02 9217 2226 or pconnolly@zapruder.com.au
41 Comments
Sounds gay.
Like the show.
You want to access my creativity, you fucken pay me for it. Grow up industry. We are always so desperate to be noticed, we screw ourselves time and again. We are not here for your entertainment. We are skilled professionals offering a service very few can do. It’s valuable and should be paid for, handsomely. If you want people to prostitute themselves for the lure of nothing but a bit of tinsel kudos, get amateurs to do it. Not the industry’s so-called finest. Why are we providing content free of charge?
Grow up, 4.57. It’s a bit of fun, some time away from the serious work we do.
Got rejected, did we?
I’m not gay. I just like thongs.
If we’re not here for entertainment, why do we always try to write such funny ads?
Um, TV is free of charge.
An educated audience means a desire for better work. Can’t be a bad thing. Even if they just realise all work doesn’t have to be shit. Isn’t that what we want?
No one is forcing you to participate. It’s an open invitation. If you don’t want to be involved, decline politely like a civilised adult or go quietly about your business.
When someone invites you to their birthday, do you rant about how they should fucken pay you to be their friend, soliloquise your dismay at why people are so desperate to eat cake and protest that you’re not here to shill out for someone else’s gifts, providing presents free of charge?
No wonder you have no friends.
4:57 – you clearly had your angry pills this morning. Judging by your tirade, I’m not sure too many people would want to pay you for anything, let alone to take part in a television show.
And if you had clue about selling anything, you’d realise that national television exposure for an agency (or an individual) is invaluable. Clients/CDs/CEOs watch TV too…
The comments above are fair. Talk about quality versus quantity.
This Gruen mob along with their Chaser mates, Glass House, Spicks ‘n Specks etc churn out hours of TV “pulp” from blank paper to on air in less than a week. True TV creative artists know it takes months (sometimes even years) of crafting, contemplation, finessing, casting, editing and re-editing – not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars just to produce a quality 30 seconds.
The only benefit for advertising industry in engaging with these TV wannabes is that the ad industry might just discover one or two wannabes who show some faint potential for elevation into the world of advertising. It’s a cliche of course, but we all know these TV screenwriters, EPs and other so called TV creative people are secretly writing 30 second scripts and dreaming of the day they’ll be rescued by some famous advertising Creative Director. Just look at the way those characters are hanging off AWARD Chairman Richard Maddocks in the picture above!
4:57, you ARE here for our entertainment, idiot. It’s for a television show. Why are you providing content free of charge? Because in turn, you’re getting your agency promoted. Grow up.
It’s a downward spiral.
Silly ass agencies call in ‘favours’ from post houses/directors etc to do a spot that would cost a whole bunch of money for a paying client.
After all that the agency, let alone the poor production guys who have dropped their strides for the ‘kudos’ of appearing on The Gruen Transfer , get sweet F.A.
Now here’s the fun part, then your client rings up and asks how you can get SFX of jets flying over New Zealand for the ABC, but they have to pay 80k.
Oh, and then when you enter it in the PADC, it gets punted for not being a ‘real’ ad…….still no kudos.
Broken, you walk into the ABC shop and see your campaign idea on a T-shirt for sale for $39.99. Just in time for Christmas.
Good deal appearing on The Pitch.
4.57.
Well said. It’s about time those smart-arse TV types with their autocues and smug scripted ad libs understood what it is to pay through the nose like the rest of our clients
I thought I’d save you the search.
http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=478480&SearchID=711539&SearchRefineID=1422334
Only, small Whale Meat T-shirts left.. The N.Z invasion shirts have sold out..
What about an entire episode dedicated to the girls club so we can listen to caro some more
So you’ve got something better to do than comment viciously on the blog? Just a thought…
agencies get paid in PR value.
You spend your life trying to get on pitch lists and then a show comes along that will deliver your pitch to a few million people. there is a good chance a few of them are CEOs or Marketing chiefs of large brands. And there is a good chance they are not happy with their current agency and would love to tell their friends that they are now working with the agency on the TV.
Andrew is a very smart cookie he knows ad people all want their 2 seconds of fame.
He’s the one who makes the money while the ad guys who think their smart work for free.
Boy are we dumb.
Hang on, 6:38PM makes a good, though quite possibly accidental, point.
What’s the scoop with the IP on the ideas presented on “The Pitch”? Does the ABC, or more likely Zapruder’s, own it? It would seem from T-shirt sales that they probably do.
It’s all very well asking us for free content for their show. But if they can then sell off our ideas for $$, surely we should be getting a cut? Fuck me, even clients pay us when our pitch is successful.
Worth an investigative peek, Lynchie?
6:17 pm you are utterly delusional. i’m sure half the hacks in advertising would rather be making tv shows than writing the latest ad for colgate.
Intellectual Property? Free content? You’re kidding right? Or maybe making a public display of masturbation.
Well done 10.21pm. I think 6.17 was employing sarcasm. But you have proven there is a lower form of wit.
Wow, flogging the agency ideas on t-shirts is going a bit far. At $39 a pop too.
That seems a bit stinky doesn’t it….?
Wouldn’t it be fascinating to get contestants from outside advertising to pitch on Gruen against adland creatives/strategists.
There’s some very sharp minds in finance, medicine, law etc who have the mental agility, humour and lateral ability to make it a proper contest – I reckon some might even win.
Imagine the look on the face of a big name CD who’s just lost a pitch to an auditor or vet on primetime TV – that would make great viewing.
Gruen is too chummy, bring on the conflict…
4:57 here.
I just think this preparedness to give our ideas away for free has been extremely damaging to our industry. Yes, it’s for a fun TV show. Yes, there is possibly a PR benefit.
But if we truly valued what we do and believed it had significant commercial value, we would never just be putting it out there in such a flippant fashion.
Each to their own. Everyone can make their own positive-negative calculation. I’m just saying that if I ran my own agency, I wouldn’t be party to it.
9:22 that’s a fucking grrrrrrrreat idea!
*kachink!* Thanks!
9.22am that sounds fine as long as creatives are allowed to go on RPA and have a crack at doing a heart transplant or brain surgery.
Imagine the look on a patient’s loved-ones faces when a belligerent Art Director comes out of surgery and tells them he’s decided to sew the heart back in right in the middle as it looked unbalanced sitting there slightly to the left.
Dear 8.13 and 6.38, unfortunately I fear it’s a bit like Valentines Day. You can whinge all you like about it, but you dare not miss out…
x
so many schmucks in this industry… 4:57, you are the king.
people, we are not curing cancer, we are making ads! that’s it. Only a fine few can do it. Hilarious, mate.
Why are advertising people such pompous rags?
I had a suspicion the industry over here was full of rejects from the mother country, some of which have gone on to do extremely well where they might not have in ‘ol blighty. No need to mention names and I’m sure none of them are commenting on this.
But for christs sake, quit the whinging.
Put up or shut up.
9:22 I’m with you. I’d like to see how well consumers would sell to themselves. I’m certain some of them would give adland a good run for their money. It’s about time the ad industry in Australia got a good shake up.
Memo to Andrew Denton: adopt 9:22’s idea as a THIRD approach against two agencies. Three approaches is also closer to a real pitch situation, and would make the Pitch segment at least 33% more interesting.
The average punter would never waste their valuable money or be able to pull big favours from production companies. I’ve worked on one, and was astounded at the money thrown at it.
A big idea DOESN’T HAVE TO equal big production spend.
Message to punters: pick up your video cams and take on adland! I’ll put 10 bucks on you.
A digital agency should pitch, too. Now that would be interesting.
Andrew Denton is one smart cookie. He knows that advertising people are like labrador pups: give them a little tummy-rub, throw them some scraps, and they’ll practically do anything for you in return.
And to 3.24 – when you get paid exactly nothing to produce a 30sec TVC, any production budget is a big one. I struggle to see how Zap can justify not paying the agency for their content in ‘the pitch’ segment, given the obvious profitability of Gruen. Unless agencies are flush with cash, which in 2009 they’re clearly not.
There’s PR, and there’s taking the piss. I know agencies have made collective stupidity an art-form over the years, but devoting a week to an idea, leaning on production companies to produce it, then handing the idea and all associated intellectual property associated with the idea over to a third-party for zero compensation (unless you think 2 minutes on TV, during which you stand a 50% chance of being shown up as a loser is adequate compensation)…
well that’s just dumb. But as I said, Andrew is one seriously smart guy. Evidently a lot smarter than anyone in the advertising industry.
6.17 I’m with you. I’m quite positive that there are more creatives who want to write TV shows than TV writers who want to write ads.
Well, we’re on there and don’t mind putting a bit of money into it.
The rest of you whinging should try out as well – you might get lucky!?
So how come Denton is photographed with Richard Maddocks, but both he and Clemenger were conspicuous by their complete absence from Gruen series 1? Will he be involved in series 2, after all he is the chairman of Award.
They’re desperate for people, such the press release. Lucky hardly seems the word.