A new series now showing on Sky Atlantic  seemed a natural for pitch afficionadoes! This is how it was described on Wikipedia: “The Pitch is an unscripted series from AMC that goes behind the scenes on the pressure on America’s top creative ad agencies competing to pitch a new account. Each week the two agencies go head-to-head in a presentation known as The Pitch, with only seven days to prepare.”

It disappoints. It is not really about pitching at all. It is the latest in a longish line of programmes that tries to capture the ‘creative process in an ad agency’. Like most it fails.  Calling it The Pitch is little more than a dramatic  device to allow examination of the ‘process’ from two very different agencies.

One was the ‘nice guy’ agency- medium size, family, a touch of Southern gentility with a collegiate approach, a Sandra Locke look-a-like writer and a would-be, not look-alike, Don Draper. The other was the ‘tough guy’ agency from brash  LA where the tough guy boss  talked non-stop tough. Both agencies believed in awesome.

The ‘creative process’ got the usual brainstorming treatment, walls festooned with notes, lots of off-the-wall ideas and noisy group think. The reality is most campaign ideas are the product of the reflective time of individuals sitting quietly in an office. This  does not make entertaining television.  ( Susan Cain in Quiet ” The best ideas tend to come from individuals- often the introvert- working in solitude, a crucial ingredient of creativity.”  A quiet pitch…