What a Rejected Pitch Actually Sounds Like

Idris Calloway: On Last Call this week, something we have never aired before. Tomas Reyna has given us permission to talk through the room tone of a pitch that fell apart while he was leading it, including the silence. Tomas, thanks for coming back to it.

Tomas Reyna: Thank you, Idris. I have listened to that recording more times than is healthy.

Idris Calloway: Set the scene. Who was the client, and what was at stake?

Tomas Reyna: A regional bank, about forty branches, rebranding after a merger. We were one of three agencies on the shortlist. The account was worth roughly six hundred thousand over two years, which for a studio of twenty-two people is the year.

Idris Calloway: And the recording exists because?

Tomas Reyna: The bank recorded every pitch for its procurement file. Afterwards I asked for ours. Legal took four months to say yes.

Idris Calloway: So where does it go wrong?

Tomas Reyna: About eleven minutes in. Their head of retail asks, quite gently, who the work is really for. Customers, staff, or the board. And I realise our whole deck is written for the board. I open my mouth and nothing comes out.

Idris Calloway: How long is the silence?

Tomas Reyna: Thirty-one seconds. On the recording you can hear the air conditioning, somebody's pen clicking, and my colleague Inge shifting her chair because she is deciding whether to rescue me.

Inge Vasquez: I decided not to, which I still think about. It was his question to answer, and if I jumped in it would look like we did not agree with each other.

Idris Calloway: What did you eventually say, Tomas?

Tomas Reyna: Something about all three audiences being equally important. Which is the answer you give when you have no answer. You can hear the room cool on the tape.

Idris Calloway: The description says the recovery came two minutes too late.

Tomas Reyna: Yes. At minute fourteen I skipped to the staff section, which was the strongest thing we had, a set of branch uniforms and a counter redesign the tellers had helped us test. That part of the recording is good. People ask questions, someone laughs. But by then the head of retail had stopped writing.

Inge Vasquez: The feedback letter said our thinking was strong and our priorities were unclear. Which is a polite way of saying the silence.

Idris Calloway: What changed after?

Tomas Reyna: Two things. We now write a one-line answer to who the work is for and put it on the first slide, and we rehearse with someone whose only job is to ask the uncomfortable question. Usually Inge.

Inge Vasquez: I enjoy it far too much.

Idris Calloway: Tomas Reyna, Inge Vasquez, thank you. That is Last Call.