Ad Age takes a closer look at AMC’s upcoming advertising agency reality show:
Production company Studio Lambert is currently shooting “The Pitch,” which is scheduled to premiere next spring, at a quartet of shops: The Ad Store in New York City, SK&G in Las Vegas, The Hive in Toronto and McKinney in Durham, N.C., Ad Age has learned.
The agencies signed on to “The Pitch” so far represent a wide geographic spread. That will probably breed a telegenic clash of cultures and ideas as staffers are filmed formulating creative pitches and facing off for marketers to win real pieces of business. It’s unclear which marketers are going to be starring in the show, but a sizzle reel earlier this year featured Yahoo and Kodak.
Anyone who reads up on reality shows knows that they’re heavily scripted and manipulated to produce drama and tension. Which is what’ll be needed, because for the most part, day-to-day life in an advertising agency is fairly mundane. You’re not going to see people wrangling over the contents of a PowerPoint deck, or traffic people distributing work orders, or art directors and developers photoshopping and coding.
You might see the craziness leading up to an actual pitch, or a creative review of sorts. But there will be an interesting divide: Some people in advertising are naturally hammy and can play to the cameras; other people are ridiculously shy. Talented people can be either.
Would you want your agency involved in this? Would you want to be featured on camera, knowing the producers of the show might alter it any way they see fit?
