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The Pitch - new tv show about creative marketing agencies

AMC has a new series called The Pitch.

It's a show about two creative marketing agencies which follows them as they pitch for a client's business.

You can watch the first episode at AMC (see above link) or below via YouTube:


Overall I'd say the first episode was interesting and I'll tune in next week for the next.

What I found funny was how for the viewer you do get to experience what it's like working with creative concepts.

I found myself listening to some of the agency folks' ideas and thinking 'Are you F'n serious? That's the dumbest idea ever.' Which is what real life is like, getting to good ideas usually means having to wade through a truck load of bad ideas first.

The series also does a decent job of showing how stressful working in an ad agency is. Everything you think or do is being judged by everyone. You've got to have a hell of a tough skin to pitch ideas and for them to be rejected.

From a PR perspective it reminds me of that moment when I realized that criticism of a news release draft didn't mean the draft was bad. If that draft led to better ideas and messages then the first draft was a success! 

You know you have a bad news release draft when people read it and don't like it and have no additional thoughts to share with you. That's when you've got a bad news release.

If your draft however sparks their imagination or gets them thinking about what they really want to say, then you've got a pretty good draft.

If they sign off on it right away (which happens after you work with executives for a while) then you are spinning gold.

Either way, PR got a lot easier for me when I realized that criticism was good. In fact, if they were happy with the first draft with no additional comments, I'd often force them to make some (assuming that perhaps they were getting a little slack in their role of making the final product as good as it could be). You come to want the criticism because you associate it with a better final product.

When I reached the point where I didn't see input as a negative, but rather as a positive, that's when it became enjoyable.

In watching The Pitch it was clear that some of those folks are not at that stage yet in their career. They still take the creative process very personally, which creates undo stress on them if you ask me. Life is too short to take feedback personally, and all feedback, no matter how negative, is nothing more than an opportunity to make a better final product.

Anyway, check The Pitch out if you have an interest in the creative marketing process.

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