Launch
Because we were worth it.
Developing a winning consistent cross-agency, cross-market approach to pitching for the world’s third largest advertiser.
L’Oréal was a prestigious client for Maxus, GroupM and WPP - both in terms of retaining and winning new business. Although a massive global brand, they pitched market by market, which at scale meant there was always a L’Oréal media pitch happening somewhere in the world, and not always within the same GroupM OpCo.
There were clear efficiencies to be gained from local markets and agency networks sharing learnings and insights, but so far this hadn’t happened in terms of pitch production. Hours and hours of work and significant budgets were going into these individual pitches to bring them to life, but markets were starting from scratch each time.
Not only that, the benefits of selecting a local agency within a larger, established global network had the potential to become clearer with high quality and consistent localised pitch packaging - much like how L’Oréal adapts according to local perceptions of beauty through its advertising creative, yet still feels ‘L’Oréal’.
The challenge.
The solution.
An internal team name; ‘L’Équipe L’Oréal’, had formed out of an MEC Germany pitch, and there was a look and feel that had the potential to stand alone, but it needed crafting and building out into something that could be widely adopted across GroupM.
As the pitch production lead on the UK and Nordics wins, I was asked to develop L’Équipe L’Oréal into a mini brand, starting with visual guidelines and supporting assets that were circulated to all markets and agencies across GroupM that were already servicing the account.
I then took ideas from the pitches that I had led on, as well as ideas from other OpCos, and shared these with local markets as and when they entered their own tender process. This included an insights report packaged as a glossy magazine, a photoshoot briefing document to enable high quality assets throughout, a pitch deck template and pitch theatre suggestions for both on and offsite meetings.
I collated, wrote, designed and managed the print production and global distribution of a centralised ‘Lookbook’ case study book, which contained the best examples of L’Oréal work across GroupM. And I managed a global blog called The Beauty of Change, which all markets were invited to take part in. It provided a way for teams to gather street-smart beauty insights and trends, that could be fed into their pitch response. Both of these acted as simple collateral for markets with limited resource.
The results.
Local markets began adopting the L’Équipe L’Oréal approach to pitching across the Maxus network, and beyond that into GroupM.
It provided those which had low levels of business development resource with a quick way to deliver a professional response, and larger markets that had their own dedicated business development teams with a starting point from which to springboard, as was the case with the US.
Reaching consistency at a global scale, regardless of the market or OpCo, appealed to the senior L’Oréal clients, who attended all major pitches.
L’Oréal remains a key client for GroupM and WPP to this day.
