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Posted by Creative Review, 1 November 2011, 10:22 Permalink Comments (16)
There's a wonderful story in the new Saul Bass book in which Bass, recovering from hip surgery, presents his idea for a beer ad from his hospital bed. So, we'd like to know, what's the strangest client presentation you've ever done?
Bass was famously great at presenting work, meticulously crafting presentations to take advantage of his talent for comic timing and persuasion. Lou Dorfsman said that Bass's best pitch presentations were "worthy of Oscar nominations – at the very least!"
In Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design (featured in the November issue of CR), Art Goodman recalls how, in the mid-60s, Saul Bass presented ideas for a beer commercial while recovering from an operation. "I'll never forget the sight of Saul, just out of hip surgery, meeting with the people from the Howard Gossage agency," he says. "We were all wearing masks and hospital gowns, but Saul acted exactly as if we were in the office. He introduced the main ideas and started flipping through images on black cards ... he even had a moviola [for editing] moved into his room."
There have been lots of tales of great pitch presentations down the years: our favourite is perhaps Robert Brownjohn attempting to convince Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the producers of From Russia With Love, to go ahead with is idea for the titles, a story recounted in Emily King's Sex and Typography biography of Brownjohn. "In a darkened room, he turned on a slide projector, lifted his shirt and danced in front of the beam of light, allowing projected text to glance off his already alcohol-extended belly. ‘It’ll be just like this’, he exclaimed, ‘except we’ll use a pretty girl!’"
We were wondering if readers had any presentation tales to top these. Have you ever had to pitch under similarly strange circumstances? Or have you deliberately staged a presentation in an unusual or dramatic way?
Let us know in the comments below
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16 Comments
Nothing can top the legendary pitch for the old British Rail/InterCity account by Abbott Mead Vickers.
The story is that the client team arrived at reception, where they were pointedly ignored for several minutes. Eventually the receptionist asked what they wanted. After explaining that they were there for a presentation, the clients were grudgingly told they could "wait in there". They entered a room which stank of old cigarette smoke, its floor littered with cardboard cups and old newspapers, where they sat on hard chairs for several minutes without any contact. Finally, when they were on the brink of storming out, the agency team entered the room. "We've just treated you the way the public believes you treat your customers," explained the agency. "Now we'll show you what we intend to do about that..."
They won the account.
2011-11-01 11:14:49
That is an amazing story about Saul Bass, think you'll find the stories of Howard Gossage's agency even more inspiring. We're off to finish production on a feature length documentary on the man in November/December. You can see a fascinating trailer here: http://www.howardluckgossage.com - and if you feel inclined help contribute to our indiegogo campaign to make it happen - http://www.indiegogo.com/hlg
Ashley
2011-11-01 12:00:57
Need more of these stories before I go watch Mad Men...
2011-11-01 12:33:39
Only a week ago some of my colleagues had to present in a black cab on the way to Heathrow Airport as the client had to fly off to Germany and their previous meeting had over run. The meeting went well, the client got a free ride to the airport... lets hope we get the account :)
2011-11-01 12:34:09
The Britiah Rail story reminded me of the occasion when I had to present ideas (for a sausage campaign) in the old Traveller's Fayre (or was it Whistle Stop Cafe) at King's Cross. Complete with homeless people at the adjacent tables. Afterwards, caught the first train back up North, and before Stevenage, the client's secretary rang to say we hadn't got the business.
2011-11-01 13:04:13
Loving the AVM approach to the British Rail/Intercity pitch.
If anyone is pitching to B&Q they should seriously a similar theme. A visit to their store this weekend saw my reserve and collect order not being picked and after 1/2 hr wait it wasn't correct, other people in the queue were returning paint mixed wrongly, damaged stock etc. The store was a tip, staff were chewing (with their mouths open) and some (even by my Graphic Designer standards) looked like they'd rolled into work after sleeping in a hedge the night before!
My classiest trick - at the end of a successful pitch , was to spill a nearly full cuppa all over the table - luckily I'd picked up my portfolio by this stage!!! I still got the work though, must have left an impression.
2011-11-01 13:21:56
I flew from Paris to New Zealand with my (female) boss to present a pitch. There were five international agencies involved.
The flight was 26 hours, the presentation was on a Sunday. Our clients were flying in from Australia. We arrived at their office on time. They arrived an hour and a half late.
Three men eventually unocked the office meeting room for us, to discover the presentation table covered with Friday's board room lunch dirty plates & glasses.
My boss & I rolled up our sleeves, cleared the dirty dishes & wiped down the table in front of our helpless clients before swinging into the presentation.
Hardly a blow for feminism, but we won the account!
2011-11-01 13:27:14
I've presented an annual report design to a Chief Executive at the foot of his hospital bed, with his leg all in plaster - of coarse he had to approve the design . . .
2011-11-01 13:33:37
Years ago, before my move to corporate, I was Creative Director for an agency that landed a job to develop branding for a new exclusive nightclub. We had met a couple of times with the client representative to take briefs and start the design work. During these discussions he kept mentioning his 'boss' was well connected and successful around town. When we were setting up the presentation meeting with the representative, he mentioned that he would like to pay the design fees at the completion of each phase. He also said that his 'boss' preferred to use cash when possible. I finally casually asked who his 'boss' was. When he mentioned his name I recognized a name that had recieved a lot of publicity over the years in being associated with white collar crime. I kept a straight face as if I didn't know who this person was - and we went on and finished the meeting. When I told my partners, we were panicked about how to deal with the situation. In the end, we decided to solve the delimna we would prepare a terrible presentation (think high school homework level). We did the presentation with photocopy sketches of designs, no color, masking taped to a wall. The representative was suitably unimpressed, left the meeting and didn't call back. Phew!
2011-11-01 13:39:00
The British Rail story happened, not at Abbott Mead Vickers, but at allen, Brady and Marsh.
2011-11-01 14:01:56
Ooops - apologies for confusing the agencies. (It was a long time ago...)
2011-11-01 14:07:46
Nice and funny article...
Reminds me of a big presentation I once dod for an international company.
We did it in my hometown while the full management board came for the presentation from Canada.
The table was covered with printed A3 sheets with various options for a new corporate identity for the company. The suggestions were also presented from a computer, for some managers from abroad.
15 mnts after the presentation started, one of my designers spilled his coffee mug all over the table The drafts got some... mm.. strange brown color.
Eventually we moved to present only from screen. We got the project at the end...
2011-11-02 06:46:09
2008: We did a discovery presentation for a web company we had partnered with often in the years prior. They knew our standard approach and had even adopted some of our techniques, so we knew we had to surprise them, to get them out of their preconceptions and to think in a more unusual fashion.
So we took them to a small cramped room in the back of the design dept of the local university. It was dark and boring. We all wore suits and ties (which we never do). We presented with a variety of handwritten, hand drawn and color copied images on transparencies — on an old overhead projector. Images referenced everything from SWOT assessments to Daft Punk, to Star Wars to naming concepts. All the while our designer played a soundtrack of sorts on a rinky-dink turntable with 45s of songs like Elton John's "Tiny Dancer."
For our final presentation:
We recorded a 45 minute movie of an instant message interaction — between our Creative Director and Art Director as they discussed (typed) the whole idea for the rebrand and shared images. We showed the movie at the university's art dept theater, so the three principals (the clients) sat in all by themselves in the theater with at least 50 seats. Music played all the while (including Daft Punk, Boris, the theme music from CBS After School Specials, and Elvis to name a few). Midway through the presentation, a man in a gorilla suit wearing a (t-shirt of one of the proposed logo solutions for the rebrand) came and sat next tot hem for 5 minutes. Without any word of explanation he then left.
While we mostly found it amusing to do this, the method to proved to help push our colleagues out of their comfort zone, and they ended up accepting a pretty unorthodox proposal for the identity.
2011-11-02 13:31:22
I went to pitch for some business with a company that we'd been told was looking for something offbeat and imaginative. We planned an energetic, mulitmedia presentation but when we arrived we realized that that was not even vaguely appropriate. We were lead into a formal room with four people sitting behind a table. They wanted a Q&A, with a lawyer present to confirm that each agency was asked the same questions. We left our slides unseen and tried to match their formal requirements on the spot. As we left the conference room, relieved that we hadn't shown the video that was so off the mark, we bumped into our competition who was in the waiting room, sitting with a colleague who was dressed in a rabbit suit. He'd obviously got the same whacky brief as us but would have more difficulty turning it around.
2011-11-02 14:33:02
Is having a lawyer present a common occurrence in client presentations? It's not one we've come across before.
2011-11-03 12:29:40
We took a job to design a logo, website and promo materials for a UK wrestler and his promotions company. The initial meeting was to be held at his home and we were picked up by his driver in a black Lexus with blacked out windows and taken to his home. On arrival we went through a 10 foot sliding gate and proceeded into the pebbled driveway.
Awaiting us was the man himself and a platter of nibbles and drinks and we were then taken into his office to discuss the project. The office was his conservatory that was decked out with photographs of the big man in action and a host of title belts and some of his ring attire on display. Looking on throughout the very positive meeting were a pair of 4 feet tall porcelain tigers!
The follow up meeting at which we presented concepts was held in our then Manchester City Centre apartment and he turned up with his manager in tow in a Range Rover Sport kitted out with full vinyl wrap graphic of himself – complete with title belts over each shoulder – on the back and his newly recorded theme tune banging out at maximum volume!
The meetings were pretty straightforward but the build up and surroundings were anything but!
2011-11-04 12:43:30
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