Have you ever seen or watched an advertisement for something and wondered, “how’d they come up with that?” Well, there’s a Sunday night reality TV show on AMC that airs right after our beloved Mad Men and it answers that very question. It’s called The Pitch and it’s our new favorite.

Each episode is a standalone competition between ad agencies. Over a ten-day period, two agencies each travel to a large, well-known brand’s headquarters for a briefing. The show then documents each agency as they formulate their creative pitch. By the end of the ten days, the ad agencies go back to the client and present their ideas. The client then chooses the winner and the agency is rewarded with the account. The show follows the creative teams as they brainstorm, write, design, and develop their pitch.

Oh! The PRESSURE, GLAD WORKS friends!

It’s delicious (mostly because we enjoy watching them suffer like we do sometimes)!

We watch The Pitch at our Lunch n’ Learn sessions and have a group discussion afterward. We dissect what happened on the episode—what we liked or didn’t like about the campaigns, and what we would have done differently if we were one of the competing agencies.

Even though the show is a bit dramatized through editing, we still find value in it because it sparks conversation about our own creative processes and team dynamics. Some things we find we do in a similar way to other agencies, and some things are very different.

For example, we’re surprised by how casually some of the agencies are dressed when they go into a briefing. We believe in putting our best foot forward, and while we are at times more casual around the office, we certainly wouldn’t go into a meeting with a client dressed in casual wear.

We have fancy shoes we like to trot out every once in a while, you know.

We have also been surprised to see how some teams are actually discouraged when sharing their ideas by overbearing bosses while other teams put all the creative pressure on one “idea man.” In a couple of episodes there was a lot of pressure on the copywriters, and they of course pulled it off beautifully (Holla!).

At GLAD WORKS, we have group brainstorming meetings in which every member of the team is encouraged to participate. It’s a judgment free zone where no idea is silly or unrealistic. We just blurt out whatever comes to mind, no matter how crazy because you never know when genius will just spill out on the conference table, or if something seemingly silly will inspire someone else on the team. Unlike in some other agencies, we don’t have competition and ego at GLAD WORKS. We are all pulling together for the common good and it’s an amazing feeling to be part of a something like that.

It’s how the magic happens, people.

From what we’ve been reading about the show, some larger agencies were not interested in participating in reality TV for fear that clients would be turned off, or that they’d be giving away too much of their secret sauce, but we would be excited to participate! We’re proud of our process and our team and we think we bring something special to the table that few can beat.

Call us, Eli Holzman! We’re ready for our close ups!