There’s a big wooden hoarding on the outside of our offices. It’s going to be there for a few months, while builders work on our rooftop extension. So, we thought it would be nice to use this as an art space on which to exhibit specially commissioned work. Above you can see the first of these, created by Anthony Burrill. It’s a play on the safety graphics usually found on construction site hoardings.

Anthony studied Graphic Design at Leeds Polytechnic before completing his MA at the Royal College of Art, London. He works as a freelance designer producing print, moving image and interactive design based on direct communication in which humour often plays a central role. His projects have included poster campaigns for London Underground, DIESEL, Playstation, Nike and interactive web based projects for Kraftwerk and Air. Anthony lives and works on the Isle of Oxney, Kent.

His website is http://www.anthonyburrill.com/

The AAR recently published their annual new business league tables for the UK. Martin Jones of the AAR commented that an agency should aim to pitch 10 times a year. An article in Campaign this week follows this up with some more numbers: agencies should expect to convert one in four pitches and an average pitch will cost an agency around £50K in out-of-pocket costs. (i.e. external costs, not in-house costs like people’s time).
Given that most pitches these days seem to last four to six months, that would mean that by half the way through the year, an agency should "ideally" be aiming to have four or five live pitches underway simultaneously, have racked up £300K in costs, have expected to win nothing and presumably to have all their staff working nights and weekends in order to make this possible. Ah, the heady thrill of new business!
This all sounds like madness to me. If this is what’s seen to be a good way to run a company, then no wonder this business is screwed. Surely it’s better to pitch less and convert more often?

Or maybe the best thing to do would be just to book a regular table at The Ivy and try not to worry about it.