Account reviews are decided before the pitch

A review is not a contest among strangers. The shortlist is drawn from relationships that already existed before it opened.

A brand puts a nine-figure account into review. Five or six shops spend four months on it. Most of them were never going to win, and a few of them knew that walking in.

A review is not a contest among strangers. It is a formalization of relationships that already exist, run partly to satisfy procurement and partly to reprice the incumbent. The shortlist gets drawn from people the decision maker has already worked with, or already been introduced to by someone whose judgment they trust.

The pitch decides the ranking. The introduction decided who got to pitch.

Which makes a new marketing lead a louder signal than a review posting. When the seat changes, the roster gets re-examined by someone with no attachment to the previous set of choices and every incentive to bring in their own. The window for an unfamiliar name to become a familiar one is open for roughly a quarter, and then it shuts for years.

The shops that keep growing through cycles are not better at pitching. They are better at being known by the person who will run the next review, before there is a review to run.

Harsh Shah routes qualified demand to agencies and production partners selling to brand-side buyers.