AMC’s The Pitch: The Hive stung by its own pricks

This week’s episode of the AMC series, The Pitch, reminded me why many advertising agencies have become obsolete.   Now in the spirit of full disclosure, as a former FKM shareholder and alumni, my loyalties for the competing agencies were clearly with my former colleagues in Houston who were competing against The Hive in Toronto for the Clockwork account.  Clockwork, despite the name and the, yes, orange corporate color, is a home services company (AC, plumbing, electrical) that’s less Stanley Kubrick and more Middle America.

Maybe that’s what threw off the guys from The Hive.

Despite clear direction from the client to retain the three brand ID’s for the three service companies, the first thing Hive recommended was to change it all.  While that might be the ultimate right answer (which I think it is), coming out of the box to ignore a client parameter is a mistake.  The Hive hadn’t earned the right to challenge the client, and stood on its bravado rather than common courtesy, or maybe common sense.  Strike one.

Their two subsequent creative pitches were 1) illegal in many states; and 2) incredibly self-indulgent.   Their first concept featured a cash truck which would give away money to that month’s customers—the only problem being that’s considered a lottery and therefore illegal.   Strike two.

The other concept was even more bothersome, as it revealed a blatant misunderstanding of the target audience in favor of a self-indulgent creative execution featuring a homeowner destroying her own toilet bowl so she could get a service call from Clockwork's plumbing division. The creative team Bobsey twins with matching-hats-to-make-a-statement were clearly more tickled about their own creation than what made sense for the client’s business or the consumer’s needs.  I now officially amend my previous statements that I’ve never met a Canadian I didn’t like to I’ve never met a Western Canadian I’ve never liked.   And you’re out.

The FKM team, on the other hand, demonstrated solid, consumer-centric thinking.  A Clockwork service call is necessary evil and a response to an interruption to one’s normal life.  The creative execution wasn’t fancy, or overly “CLEVER”, but was true and believable and spoke to the consumer need, rather than an art director’s caprice or an agency's ego.

Until agencies train more grown ups and fewer prima donnas worried only with their book or THE WORK, they won’t be able to satisfy clients’ real need to help create customers that deliver margin dollars over a long period of time.    To paraphrase Tom Monroe,  the “M” in FKM, clients don’t want ads, they want results.   If they could buy results, they wouldn’t need to buy an ad.   Maybe you had to be there.