Anything to get the account

Wooing clients is what it's all about ... even if that means cleaning their toilets for a day, or getting your staff to strip naked for a promotional pitch.

It's hard to imagine any business that would choose to rely on the talents of comedian Les Dennis to close that crucial new business pitch. But in advertising, nothing is surprising.

A top 30-ranked agency recently forked out "a few thousand pounds" to have Dennis burst in at the end of a pitch presentation and deliver its proposed new slogan. And perhaps it would have been mildly amusing if the client had known who Les Dennis was.

The beauty parade that is the new business pitch can be a highly theatrical affair. If you are a client in the holiday sector you can expect your pitching agencies to have their staff out in Hawaiian shirts and sombreros. A beer client on the other hand may walk into the agency boardroom to find it has been transformed into a pub.

Above all, clients should never assume that anything happens by accident. If the agency looks particularly thriving on the day of your visit, that's probably because it has hired a few extras to create that impression. And if you bump into a really nice chap in the agency café, don't be fooled, he will have been deliberately placed there and he's probably a trained actor.

The day Saatchi & Saatchi pitched for the Toyota account they transformed the agency reception into a mock Toyota showroom. This involved removing all the windows at the front of the building so that a crane could lift the car into position. The pitch went well and Toyota joined Saatchi's client list. Grey Direct (now Joshua) had their entire staff photographed naked to promote the agency to clients.

"We hardly ever give clients a straight presentation in a boardroom," says Marcus Brown, Saatchi & Saatchi's director of new business. "Clients are looking for a business partner that is prepared to invest time and money in their brand - pitch theatre can portray that, but it's not the only way."

The Capital's advertising industry is fiercely competitive. There are more than 200 ad agencies in 10 square miles of London - new business is their lifeblood. "We might be the third agency a client sees that day and we've got an hour and a half to impress, so you've got to do something that rings the changes," says Michael Wall, a partner at Fallon McElligott, the agency behind Radio 1's "one love" campaign.

Fallon recently won the Nandos account after the partners worked in one of the chicken restaurants for the day. Mr Wall washed dishes while the other partners all took turns cleaning the toilets, serving food and doing the cooking. They sent a poster of the stunt with copy that read "Fallon McElligott is the agency that doesn't mind doing all the other stuff" to the Nandos client who dumped its incumbent agency for them.

"Pitching is one of the best parts of the job but often a script and a press ad is very cold. We have all had to become more savvy about our clients' businesses because advertising is no longer about your old muckers," says Mr Wall.

Sky Channel's advertising agency, St Lukes, doesn't share Mr Wall's enthusiasm for high jinx. It sees pitching as a waste of time for the client and the agency. "Pitching works against both parties really finding out if they like each other and whether long-term potential exists," says Juliette Soskice, the marketing director at St Lukes. "As agencies try to outdo each other with showy expensive gestures we think the actual work gets obscured.

When the call came from British Airways five years ago, M&C Saatchi was just launching and didn't even have an office to pitch out of. "We had looked at one potential building but it was just a shell," explains Tim Duffy, M&C's managing director. "So we hired a team of set designers and got them to create a reception area and conference room. It was all cardboard, completely fake." M&C won the account but had to come clean when they eventually moved into a different office.

But not all clients appreciate the amateur dramatics. Last year Andrew Marsden, the marketing director at Britvic - whose stable comprises some of Britain's most famous soft drink brands, including Tango and Pepsi - put £2m worth of business up for pitch. A few days later an 18-inch ceramic foot arrived gift-wrapped at his office - one agency's literal attempt to get a foot in the door.

"Some agencies are really rather stupid," says Andrew Marsden at Britvic. "If agencies want to impress me they should make me think. I want to see that they understand my business and I'd rather that was presented badly than with a lot of hype. Execution should never win over content."