Why we don’t pitch
August 20, 2025
Author
CROWN
CROWN
There’s a folder on our server full of work no one has seen. Decks for brands we never partnered with. Systems and campaigns built only to answer a question: “What would you do if we hired you?”
Once, we spent more than a month inside a single RFP, pitted against twenty-nine other agencies. Ten people pressed pause on everything else while we reimagined a global brand’s social and marketing from the ground up. We made the final 3, but when it was over, we were told our ideas were “by far the most compelling, but another agency checked more boxes.” That was the day we decided the format was wrong, not the work.
Since then we have been invited into other RFPs. Some of them were attached to causes and names we respect. One was about getting information to communities affected by wildfires. The brief talked at length about minority communities and resources, but not about actually providing those resources. It asked agencies to compete, for free, to help a large institution tell that story.
There is a pattern here that we can no longer pretend is neutral.
Pitches are a way to “get to know each other.” Clients are not buying finished solutions at this stage. They want to see how we think, how we communicate, and whether there is a fit. Those are fair questions. We just do not believe speculative work is a useful way to answer them. This process encourages fast ideas, presentation theater, and decisions based on thin assumptions. It does not help clients make informed choices, and we have rarely seen it work out the way anyone hoped.
So we do not make speculative work for people who have not hired us. Our time is spent doing our best work for brands who have skin in the game with us.
If you are curious about working together, we are happy to share case studies and past work, talk openly about our process, capabilities, and budgets, and join a conversation to understand your needs and see if we are a good fit.
When we sit down to solve a problem, it has our full attention, a real brief, real research, and real stakes on both sides.
If that sounds like the kind of partnership you are looking for, we would love to hear from you.
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