The AAR published its annual new business league table today, looking at which UK agencies were most successful at winning new business in 2007. Nice (for us) to see that Wieden + Kennedy had a pitch conversion ration of around 80% for the third year running. But we’ve slipped from the number one spot we held for the last two years; the unfeasibly successful Fallon had a perfect conversion score of 100%. Meanwhile, AMV did an astonishing 17 pitches last year and even more amazingly managed to win 14 of them. All I can say, apart from ‘congratulations’, is that they must be absolutely knackered! A pitch every 3 weeks sounds like an insane workload. Hats off to them for somehow making it work. Next question: can an agency absorb 14 new clients within 12 months without it affecting quality control?
The scary thing is that the average number of pitches done by agencies with a conversion rate of below 50% is 10.7. Five unsuccessful pitches a year must be incredibly debilitating for any agency, emotionally and financially. No wonder agency senior staff seem to be dropping like flies round London at the moment.