Have you been involved in a 'fixed' pitch?

By 'fixed' I mean the result clearly having being decided before all or some of the participants had presented. Unsurprisingly you will never hear anyone admitting to this, either on the agency or the client side. But I bet most of you recognise at least one of the following situations:

1. A pitch process is created to give the incumbent agency a 'kick up the arse', to get them to reduce costs without any intention of replacing them. 2.  The client has chosen his favourite agency but is obliged to invite presentations from others to satisfy colleagues and 'due process'. 3. The client just wants to see some ideas without seeking to make an appointment.

Do these things ever happen? Well, I'll leave you to make your own minds up. Of course, there is nothing wrong in either wanting to shake up an incumbent or wanting to appoint an agency without seeing any others. It's just not ethical to put others through the considerable cost, time and effort when they have no realistic chance of success. Although nicking ideas from a 'beauty parade' without paying for them is unforgivable.

So what's the best way to avoid any unfortunate misunderstanding?

When I was much younger, ignorant and impetuous I used to believe that intermediaries who manage the pitch process, such as the AAR, were a bad thing. That they got in the way of a relationship developing between client and potential agency. I now acknowledge I was wrong. We've been involved in a number of pitches managed by the AAR, and they have been meticulously fair - whether we have won or lost. Rather than get in the way, they've helped ensure the client is clear about the brief and realistic in their expectations. They've prevented the farce of "short lists of 17 agencies with 9 invited to present..." And with the AAR involved I feel comforted that the process is being run with unimpeachable integrity. I know they would run a million miles from anything that smacked of 'fix'.

That is not to say that any pitch run without an intermediary carries a risk. Far from it. But I would urge any client reading this to talk to someone like the AAR before setting out. It may cost a bit of money but it's far more expensive to make the wrong decision.

Why did the NSPCC fall foul of the ASA?

This week the NSPCC fell foul of the ASA for claiming that "1 in 6 children are sexually abused". But it would appear this terrifying stat does not represent the number sexually abused in the physical sense as you or I might understand it. It might include seeing a parent naked coming out of the shower. The data was gathered 10 years ago anyway which questions the use of the present tense.

Besides, why do NSPCC use a statistic that clearly stretches most people's credibility when they must have a library of stats and stories that are genuinely appalling? When the cold truth is shocking, why exaggerate? Sexual abuse of children is patently the most appalling thing. By claiming it is almost commonplace you risk diminishing its impact and damaging your credibility as a witness. I cannot understand that.

For some advertisers these days, the advert itself is not that important. It is a small piece in a bigger jigsaw.  Most ads only have a short shelf life so if they never run again, it doesn't really matter. The ads role is to provide a headline figure that once it hits the news rooms, the PR machine takes off. The Daily Mail is outraged. The Chief Exec is interviewed by Newsnight.The bloggers and online chatters go beserk. That's what happened with the 'MMR link to Autism' research in 1998 that has subsequently been utterly discredited, yet continues to make its tragic mark. It is the premise upon which all those one-off political party posters are based.

I would prefer to believe that the number of upheld complaints is part of a healthy tension between advertisers pushing legitimate claims and regulators protecting the consumer. Occasionally it goes too far one way or the other. Sometimes the nit picking nature of the complaints makes you despair ("the hotel is 160 yards from the sea, not 150 yards as claimed"). But we should be grateful that in the ASA we have an independent arbiter of statistics, otherwise we'd never know the difference between them and all those damned lies.