Clients With Clipboards

I am an account director at a small integrated agency. We were pitching for some work for a supermarket and I caught sight at the presentation of some "Finding an Agency" guidelines which the junior client had with her? What were these – any idea?

These will have been the Finding an Agency guidelines originally created by CAF, DMA, IPA, ISBA, MCCA and PRCA. I think the DMA now has a different set and the others have teamed up with CIPS to produce theirs. They are all downloadable from the relevant trade body websites – found on the sidebar on this site under Useful Links. They are a set of very comprehensive best practice guidelines and if you are pitching you should know which boxes you need tick in the mind of the client. Cheekily I will say that you should check out Chapter 4 of Working with Agencies by a very promising author. I worked with the IPA and the AAR to build on those guidelines for writing the Selecting the Agency chapter . Also, if you are an agency person on new business I still maintain that everyone needs to read Jon Steel’s Perfect Pitch.