Almost one year ago to the day, we got the opportunity to pitch one of the most exciting brands in the world for an incredibly cool project.
Red Bull Studios is a network of recording studios around the world that allows up-and-coming musicians to record using state-of-the-art equipment. This was not only a project we believed in, but one that would get us a new level of attention. It felt like a must-win.
But, we didn’t win.
And now that we’ve had some time to digest and process the experience, we’ve come up with three key ways we would handle the pitch differently, if given the opportunity today.
1. Present in person
Since Red Bull’s office is located overseas, we agreed to present via video conference. But even with modern technological advances, there’s nothing that can replicate shaking hands and talking face-to-face.
2. Simplify the idea
We had a strong idea and felt pretty good about how it was presented at the time. Looking back, the idea would have been much stronger if we could have distilled it down to a single sentence instead of, admittedly, going a bit overboard.
3. Explain it better
Some people are natural presenters. To be honest, we’re not those people. We have, though, worked hard and practiced a lot over the past year to improve. I think it’s safe to say our presentation would be much stronger if given today.
While we may have struck out on this pitch, we lost to a great agency, Momkai, and we’ve done a ton of work over the past year that we’re truly proud of. We also have used what we learned from this Red Bull pitch to win a number of other projects. As hard as it was to lose out on a great project for a client of this caliber, sometimes you do learn more in defeat.
Here’s to the next pitch.
Curious to see more? Here’s some of our thinking and screens that show the concept:
