CMOs In Pitches: Rock Stars Required!

Modern media is too important to be treated as a spreadsheet exercise. When CMOs sit on the sidelines of media agency reviews, pitches slide into cost-cutting contests that fail to attract top talent or create long-term value.

This episode of #MediaSnack unpacks why marketing leaders must be visibly in the driving seat of every media pitch.

For CMOs, Procurement Directors, and Global Heads of Media, the stakes are clear. Media now sits higher on the corporate agenda than ever, yet many advertisers still run reviews that tell agencies the most important function is procurement, not marketing. In a congested MediaPalooza environment, that is a fast way to become a low-priority pitch.

This article distills our conversation into practical guidance: what is really going on in the market, the implications when CMOs go missing, and what senior marketers should be doing now to turn their next pitch into a growth engine, not a race to the bottom.

Why CMOs Must Lead Your Next Media Pitch

A CMO-led media pitch keeps the focus on business growth and value, not just cost. When marketing leaders set the vision, articulate how media supports the growth agenda, and show up visibly in key pitch moments, they attract better agency talent, secure more strategic proposals, and avoid reviews collapsing into procurement-only price negotiations.

Across the industry, agency-of-record reviews are increasingly influenced by procurement, finance and legal rather than marketing. Commentators have highlighted how many AOR decisions have effectively "left the CMO’s office" in recent years, with evaluation dominated by rate cards and scorecards instead of growth potential, as explored in outlets like HispanicAd and Ad Age. The same pattern is visible in media, particularly in large multi-market reviews.

We have seen both sides of this. In the first wave of MediaPalooza a decade ago, reviews were often run almost entirely by procurement, with a single-minded objective to drive down cost through consolidation. Procurement did an important job tidying contracts and imposing commercial discipline, but pitches were rarely structured as engines of growth.

MediaPalooza 2027 looks different. Media budgets are larger, media’s role in competitive advantage is clearer, and the best marketing procurement teams now see themselves as architects of value, not just savings. Yet a familiar risk remains. When CMOs abdicate leadership in a pitch, a vacuum opens up. The process naturally defaults to what is easiest to measure: CPMs, fee levels and short-term savings.

From an agency point of view, that is not where the magic lives. Senior agency leaders do not wake up on Monday morning excited to respond to another spreadsheet-led RFP. They and their best people want to work with ambitious marketers who have a clear vision for media and are prepared to champion it internally. When CMOs are visible, vocal and inspiring, pitches suddenly feel like opportunities to build something special, not just win a cheaper contract.

That is why the CMO’s presence is not a nice-to-have. It is the signal to the market that media is a strategic growth lever and that the advertiser is serious about value, outcomes and long-term partnership.

The ID Comms Breakdown

In #MediaSnack, every episode follows a simple structure: what is going on, what are the implications, and how should marketers be thinking. Here is how that breakdown applies to the CMO’s role in media pitches.

What's going on?

We are in the middle of what we call MediaPalooza for 2027. Many large advertisers are reviewing, renegotiating or resetting media agency relationships at the same time as existing contracts roll toward 2027. Some of these reviews are visible in the trade press, many more are happening under the radar.

In the previous MediaPalooza in 2016, most large reviews were orchestrated by procurement, often with consolidation as the main lever. That phase cleaned up messy contract landscapes and extracted savings. Today, however, media’s role is far more strategic. Agencies are also more selective. Senior leaders now weigh which pitches they will even enter, because they know they cannot chase every RFP.

At the same time, the media agency business has shifted from transactional buying to outcome-focused partnership, a trend noted by senior leaders in forums like Storyboard18. That makes the quality of client leadership inside a pitch even more critical.

What are the implications?

When the CMO or senior marketer is largely absent, three problems appear quickly.

First, a leadership vacuum forms. Without marketing setting the strategic agenda, the implicit message to agencies is that procurement is the most important function in media. That encourages cost-focused behaviours and sidelines conversations about growth, value and innovation.

Second, stakeholder alignment starts to fray. Media pitches involve marketing, procurement, finance, legal and often multiple regions or business units. If the senior marketer is not championing a clear vision, different stakeholders pull in different directions and the brief becomes confused. Agencies are left asking a simple question: 'Who is the real client here?'

Third, agencies deprioritize the pitch. Agency CEOs are now deciding several times a week which RFPs to pursue. Faced with a congested pitch calendar, they will lean into brands whose CMOs show up with energy, ambition and clarity. A review that feels like a purchasing exercise is easy to decline or staff with more junior teams.

How should marketers be thinking?

We suggest a useful metaphor from one client: 'Marketing are the rock stars and procurement are the roadies.' In the best pitches, that is exactly how it feels. Marketing stands on stage to articulate the vision for media, the growth agenda and the role the agency will play. Procurement works in lockstep, handling the commercial architecture and contractual rigour that make that vision sustainable.

For CMOs, the takeaway is simple.

You do not need to run every line of the RFP. But you do need to:

• Be visibly committed to the review as a strategic priority.
• Own the articulation of the media vision and what value means to your business.
• Show up at the critical moments: top-to-top briefings, all-agency kick-offs, and final presentations.

When you do, your pitch stops looking like a cost-cutting exercise and starts to feel like an inspiring opportunity for the best agency talent to help you win.

How CMOs Turn Media Pitches Into Growth Engines

If you believe media can drive competitive advantage, your pitch needs to be designed around value creation, not just lower fees. In the episode, David Indo outlines three things marketing leaders must own in any serious media review.

1. Set a clear vision for media.

Surprisingly few organizations can crisply explain the role media plays in their growth agenda. As CMO or Head of Media, your first job is to define and communicate that vision. What business outcomes should media influence? How will you use media to create an edge over competitors? What kind of partner do you need to get there?

A powerful vision does two things. Internally, it gives your own stakeholders a reason to invest time and political capital in the review. Externally, it signals to agencies that working on your business will be exciting, challenging and meaningful. When a CMO delivers this vision live to agency leaders, you can feel the energy in the room change.

2. Define what 'value' really means to you.

Value is more than savings. Before the RFP goes out, marketing and procurement should align on a value framework that balances cost, capabilities, performance and partnership. That framework will weave through your brief, your evaluation criteria and your commercial model.

For example, a global advertiser might decide that value includes access to top strategy talent, robust data and tech capabilities, and the ability to deliver consistent execution across markets, alongside competitive pricing. Making these dimensions explicit helps agencies understand what to optimize for and reduces the risk of everything being reduced to a rate card comparison at the end.

3. Inspire agencies to prioritize your pitch.

In a congested MediaPalooza, CMOs must work hard to seduce agencies into wanting to compete. ID Comms often helps clients stage top-to-top meetings where senior marketers and procurement leaders meet with agency CEOs under Chatham House Rule. The most effective sessions feature a CMO who, unscripted, shares a compelling story about their brand, their ambition for media and the kind of partnership they are seeking.

In one such series of meetings, multiple agency CEOs later called ID Comms with the same message: if their agency was not invited onto the RFP, there would be a 'black mark' against the consultancy. The difference was not the category or the size of the budget. It was the CMO’s ability to articulate an inspiring, credible and demanding brief for media.

When you combine a sharp media vision, a clear value definition and genuine inspiration, your media pitch becomes a growth engine: a catalyst that galvanizes your organization around the power of media and attracts the very best agency talent to your business.

Building a Rock-Star Partnership With Marketing Procurement

None of this works if marketing and procurement are misaligned. The episode makes it clear that the best reviews are those where both functions are in lockstep: marketing sets the vision, procurement builds the commercial and contractual engine underneath it.

Marketing as the visible leader.

Marketing should be front and centre in all agency-facing moments. That does not mean writing every clause, but it does mean owning the narrative. When you brief agencies, they should hear directly from the CMO or senior marketer about brand ambitions, the role of media and what success will look like over three to five years.

This is particularly important in early 'all-agency' briefings. We often help prep marketing leaders for these sessions so they feel more like town halls than procurement updates. A strong performance here can energise agencies for months.

Procurement as the expert roadie.

Great marketing procurement teams are not cost-cutting police. They are stage managers who make the show possible: applying diligence to scopes, clarifying performance commitments, structuring incentives and ensuring contracts are robust. When procurement leads on these aspects, marketers can stay focused on strategy, capability and culture fit.

In MediaPalooza One, procurement often had to fix chaotic legacy agreements. In MediaPalooza Two, their value is in designing commercial models that reward long-term value creation, including fair compensation for top agency talent and meaningful performance metrics. That shift mirrors wider trends where agencies are increasingly asked to share business KPIs with clients rather than just media metrics.

Practical steps to get in lockstep.

• Align early on the role of media in the corporate growth plan.
• Co-create a written value framework that goes beyond cost.
• Agree who will show up where: which meetings marketing leads, which procurement leads, and where you present as a unified team.
• Debrief together after top-to-tops and key presentations so your feedback to agencies is consistent and constructive.

When marketing and procurement play their roles in harmony, the CMO can truly behave like a rock star, confident that the road crew has the stage, sound and lights perfectly set for a standout performance.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What is MediaPalooza Two?
It is the current wave of overlapping media agency reviews, renegotiations and resets as many major contracts approach renewal around 2027.

Q2. Why is CMO leadership in a pitch so important?
Because agencies prioritise pitches where senior marketers clearly articulate a growth vision and value agenda, not just a savings target.

Q3. What happens when procurement runs the review alone?
Pitches tend to become price-focused purchasing exercises, which can undermine long-term value and discourage top agency talent from engaging.

Q4. How should marketing and procurement work together?
Marketing should set the media vision and value definition, while procurement designs the commercial, contractual and performance framework that supports it.

Q5. When should the CMO be in the room?
At minimum, for top-to-top meetings, the all-agency brief, and the key presentation stages where the agency needs to hear and feel the client’s ambition.

Q6. How can CMOs make their pitch more attractive to agencies?
By sharing a clear, inspiring media vision, being honest about challenges, and demonstrating that media is central to the brand’s growth agenda.

Q7. What does 'value' mean in a media pitch?
Value is a balance of cost, capabilities, performance and partnership. It includes savings, but also access to top talent, strong tools and long-term outcomes.

Q8. How early should CMOs get involved in a review?
Right from the start, when the scope, value framework and pitch narrative are being defined, not just at the final decision meeting.

Q9. What is the risk if agencies do not see the CMO?
They may conclude the review is low priority, staff it lightly or decline to participate, leaving you with a weaker field of contenders.

Q10. How can ID Comms support a CMO-led pitch?
By helping define the media vision, align marketing and procurement, structure the process, and choreograph the critical moments where leadership really shows.

Before you enter MediaPalooza, get in touch with ID Comms to confidentially discuss your 'gameplan' and your options to protect your competitive advantage in media.

Episode Transcript

Tom Denford: Marketing needs to be in the driving seat of any pitch. And so when marketing leaders, you know, abdicate leadership in a pitch, then, in our experience, agency reviews become races to the bottom instead of these amazing engines for growth. And so today we are going to unpack why CMOs must drive a pitch ambition, how they inspire top agency talent, and how, in a pitch, the CMO really is the measure of value over cost.

Live from New York and live from London, it is MediaSnack Live.

Tom Denford: Hello, I am Tom Denford in New York.

David Indo: And I am David Indo from London. Welcome to MediaSnack Live.

Tom Denford: It is our weekly roundup of all the important news and stories and trends you need to know about the global media and marketing industry. In every show we ask, what is going on, what are the implications for advertisers, and what should marketers be thinking about next? Thanks for joining us. Let us get into this week’s show.

Right, mate. We are continuing our MediaPalooza series. Just to remind everybody, MediaPalooza is this phenomenon that is starting to build now, we can really see it, where we get tons of agency reviews, pitches, renegotiations, resets, all kinds of stuff happening all at the same time. As we approach 2027, this is really happening.

Today, we are going to talk about the important role that the CMO plays. And when we say CMO, we are using that as a proxy for the most senior marketer in the organisation or some kind of marketing leadership in a pitch. We will talk about why it is important, the role you are going to need to play as a marketer in any agency pitch, and then we are going to think about the implications when the CMO goes AWOL, when they find more interesting things to do and they leave a pitch to run itself. Sometimes that ends up being a bit of a challenge for everybody else.

So, let us get into that. This is a reminder: if you have not seen MediaSnack before, this is a weekly show we do. It is a live stream every Friday, 11:00 AM Eastern Time and around the world. You can follow along live and leave your comments in the show. We can see them. And then if you want, you can watch this on replay across various different channels. You can go to MediaSnack or ID Comms dot com to catch up with what is going on.

Okay. Right, CMO’s role in a pitch.

Tom Denford: David, you were a marketer for many years. You worked at Nike and Coca-Cola and you were involved in some agency pitches.

David Indo: Yes.

Tom Denford: So we are going to get your perspective on that. We are going to think about some of the implications. And then, as usual, we will come back to you, David, for everybody’s favourite bit, which is: what does a marketer need to know, what should we do as a result?

Okay. So, what is going on?

David Indo: It might sound like a silly question to pose in this day and age when most organisations see media as an important lever for growth. So, where is the CMO, or where is the marketing function, within media reviews?

You would be surprised. I use, as a point of context, 10 years ago, MediaPalooza One. We were involved in many of those media reviews which, frankly, in most cases, were being run by procurement. The reason they were being run by procurement at the time was because each of those reviews had one single-minded objective: reduce cost. Drive costs down and secure savings. The guardians of that discipline were procurement people, and that was true.

A lot of that came from consolidation, did it not?

Tom Denford: Yes, that is right. Again, we are not kicking procurement here. They did an amazing job.

David Indo: Yes. But if you fast-forward to where we are now, we are in the middle of MediaPalooza Two. There are loads of reviews going on, many reviews that are under the radar. And the very best reviews that we are involved in, that we hear about, that we get great plaudits from the agency community for, are those reviews where procurement and marketing are in lockstep.

Where marketing set the vision, where they articulate the role that media will play in that company’s growth agenda, and procurement do the commercials. They enable the commercial aspect of that to deliver. But without marketing, it creates a leadership vacuum.

What you are then doing in the pitch process is telling the agency community that the most important function within the organisation, when it comes to managing media, is simply the procurement team. That is where the misalignment starts.

The most effective, most engaged, most inspiring reviews in the marketplace are the ones where marketing and procurement work together. Remember, the role of any marketing and procurement function in this congested marketplace is to make sure that your pitch is a priority.

If you do not get that, you are in real trouble. Making sure that you inspire the agency community with your review is absolutely critical, and we will talk a little bit about how we do that later on in the show.

Without that combination of marketing setting the agenda, setting the strategic agenda for media within the review, and procurement driving the commercial and contractual aspects, the process falls down.

So, marketing: do not be invisible. You have to lead. You have to be front and centre.

And, frankly speaking, it should be an enjoyable experience, because there is brilliance within the media agency community. There is nothing like a brilliant, inspiring, strategic media pitch to galvanise an entire organisation around the power of media.

But marketing, you have to be there. You have to champion from the front.

Tom Denford: Very good. That is the imperative. We know that pitches are better when marketing is really visible and seen and heard a lot, and agencies respond well to that.

One business we worked with years ago, if you remember, described the roles in a way we always liked. We have always been fascinated by the role of marketing procurement. Ten plus years ago, in that first MediaPalooza, there was tons of agency consolidation going on. A lot of it was taking fractured agency agreements, lots of different contracts and unclear scopes of work, and procurement did quite an amazing job of cleaning up the media side.

They applied diligence and discipline and rigour to things that had sometimes been back-of-napkin type contracts. They asked for value, asked for transparency, and cost was a big lever because there was a lot of value to be extracted from consolidation.

We had a client around that time who said, 'Marketing are the rock stars and procurement are the roadies,' in their mind. That was quite a nice idea.

I think nowadays there are definitely some rock star procurement people, and we are fortunate to work with a lot of them. As we have said many times on #MediaSnack, the discipline of marketing procurement has evolved to be arbiters of value and architects for long-term value creation. And that is not a euphemism for cost saving. They genuinely want partners that can add value to the business, and they are diligent in trying to set those up in the right way.

That has been great, and I think it has been good for everybody. But there is still this idea that marketing is the rock star. When the CMO walks in, they are the rock star when they walk in the room.

Good marketing procurement are quite happy, and quite proud, to be the stage manager, to be a bit more in the shadows, not in a dark-art way, but to be the roadie, to help put the show on and help the marketer be the rock star. It is a good dynamic.

If you work in marketing procurement and you want to be a rock star, apologies. Maybe you should just try. Some do move into marketing.

But that is the reality. We have a lot of time for marketing procurement and we spend at least half our time working with procurement as we do with marketing. But, as I have said a couple of times, the agency CEO does not wake up on a Monday morning excited to work with marketing procurement, as much as you might want to believe that is true. And I am sure they do not wake up wanting to work with us either. But they do want to work with amazing marketers.

Their people want to work around amazing marketers. Those amazing marketers have the ability to communicate, inspire, engage and energise. When you see that in a pitch, it is amazing because it sets fire to the process in a good way.

It lights it up. Only the rock star marketer can do that. Your role as the marketer in a pitch is to come in and add that kind of magic.

Let us, as the consultant, or let procurement, and often we are working closely with procurement, let us be the roadies. Let us manage the process for you. Let us make sure everything is working and that on the day everyone will perform to their best ability and the agency is set up for success. Marketing should come into the room like the rock star that they are and should be, and add something special.

When they stand up and deliver their vision, talk about the brief and their ambitions for the brand and what agencies can do to help, that is hugely powerful. It is a great way of selling that vision, and it is fun to be part of. We are privileged to see that.

You probably had a few of those moments, did you not, David, when you worked for brands like Nike or Coca-Cola, where marketers are treated like rock stars?

David Indo: Yes. Bizarrely enough, in those days, in both of those companies, perhaps they were exceptions to the rule, but they did not really have a massively vocal procurement function. The whole thing was very marketing-centric.

Agencies loved it. You would walk into the agency offices and represent your brand, whether that was Coca-Cola or Nike, and there would be a buzz about the place.

Also, those two organisations always believed in the power of media. They were fairly progressive in the belief that media would drive competitive advantage if you got it right. That inspired the best talent on the agencies, and that is what you are looking for.

You are looking to attract the best talent on your business. The best people in agencies want to work with the best organisations that value media. Generally, they sit within media and marketing.

So it is really important.

Tom Denford: You have seen that crackle of excitement when you get those marketers on stage.

We talk a lot, and we will not get into it fully in this show, but if you have been following #MediaSnack you will have seen previous episodes where we talk about the importance of delivering a great brief. In fact, we did that as part of this MediaPalooza series. You can go back a few episodes and see the one we did with Yasmina on the importance of getting the brief right.

Really, the marketer has to deliver that. We find that if a CMO or senior media leadership, if you have a Chief Media Officer or a main Media Director, are not involved enough, then the alignment of other stakeholders starts to suffer.

If you have been in agency pitches, you know it involves a lot of decision-makers and stakeholders: marketing, procurement, finance, legal, and others. Sometimes it is spread across multiple divisions or regions.

On the stakeholder side, the teams we engage with upfront can be quite wide. If the marketer is not significantly present, you tend to get misalignment because nobody is championing the vision. We can act as a proxy for that, so we become the proxy owner of that vision because we have brought everybody together and galvanised them around what they want to get out of the process and how they want to inspire agencies.

But if the marketer goes AWOL, distracted by other business issues, you sometimes lose alignment across those different teams. That confuses the brief and the messages to the agency because they are left wondering, 'Who is in charge here? Who is the client?'

A third implication, and an important one, is that agencies are becoming more discerning than ever about which pitches they take part in. We estimate there will be about 200 major agency pitches or renegotiations in 2027. That means an agency CEO has to make a couple of decisions a week on which pitches to go for.

There is going to be a lot of rejection. You have to do the best you can to get well organised. We can help you do that. Write great briefs, we can help you do that. Deliver those briefs in an inspiring and engaging way for agencies, we can help you do that. But you really need marketers to be front of stage delivering.

When they are absent, the risk is that the agency CEO sees the pitch as 'meh'. They do not feel compelled to understand or put their best people forward. That can lead to disengagement from agency leadership.

So that is a big implication.

Tom Denford: Okay, let us think about some of the advice then.

Before we do that, shall we watch a little ad? We have a little ad break.

Ad segment voiceover: You know how agencies really want to talk about AI and technology, but often those just sit on slides and it is hard to know what is good? We are trying to establish how much confidence advertisers have in agency AI and the claims they hear in pitches.

We currently have an important piece of research in the field and we would love you all to contribute. It is a survey called The State of Agency AI in Pitches. It takes four minutes and asks you about your perspectives on the state of agency AI and how it shows up in agency presentations.

You will have the chance to benchmark your readiness and your confidence in agency AI. In just four minutes, you will calculate your personal AI pitch confidence score and unlock advance access to our executive report before it hits the trade press.

You can head to idcomms.com right now. Look for the link at the top of the screen, click that, do the four-minute survey, and get your custom score immediately by email. Together, and with your help, we can build an agency model truly fit for the AI age.

Tom Denford: There we go.

David Indo: Nice voiceover.

Tom Denford: Thanks, mate. That was just a few exercises while I was off-screen for a second.

Thanks to everyone who has done the survey. The response has been amazing. If you have not done it yet, as we say, go to idcomms.com, click the link, get involved. We want to hear your voice. These are important pieces of research.

Okay. What should marketers be thinking, going into a pitch? What is our advice?

David Indo: The first thing that marketers in the marketing and media function need to believe is that they need to be involved. Number one. Let us assume that is going to be a fact.

Once they have committed, and they should commit because this is such an important decision, I think there are three things marketing needs to own as part of that process.

They need to set the vision for media. This is really important. You would be surprised how few organisations have a clear articulation of the role media plays in the growth agenda. Media sits higher on the corporate agenda than it has ever sat before, but marketing needs to define what it means: why you are spending that much money and the role the agency needs to play in delivering against that objective. That is the first thing: set the media vision.

The second thing is to define what value means to you as an organisation before you go into the pitch. This will have cost and price implications and savings combined into it, but what is the value equation? What is the value proposition that you are going to set, that agencies will try to illustrate for you? That is really important.

The third thing is you have to inspire. You mentioned it earlier. You have to lean in and create a degree of inspiration for agencies to want to participate.

I will give you a small anecdote. As part of our pitches, given that the marketplace is so congested, we tell our clients that the most critical phase in any pitch management process, certainly within preparation, is the very early bit when you begin to engage with the agency community without any conditions attached, to see whether they will participate.

As a brand, you have to work really hard at that stage. Once you get them enticed and leaning in, then you have a proper pitch process. But you have to work hard to seduce, in some cases, the agencies into wanting to work on your brief.

As part of that process, we try to engineer top-to-top meetings, where the most senior marketers and procurement people from the brand side meet very senior agency leadership in a Chatham House Rule environment. The client shares their vision; the agency shares their unique propositions and what makes them culturally distinct from the marketplace.

At the end of this meeting, both parties leave and come back to us. The brand will say, 'That is an agency I want on my shortlist.' And the agency, we hope, will come back and say, 'Please give us the RFP, because that is a brand we really want to work with.'

The doomsday scenario is when the brand wants to work with all the agencies they meet, and the agencies do not want to work on the brief. Thankfully, that has never happened to us. But there are certain brands where, when we engineer this meeting, you are never quite sure whether the brand will be appealing to the agency.

There was one instance where I was a little nervous going into a series of top-to-tops. The CMO took it upon himself to go in and, unscripted, deliver his vision for media and what he was looking for from a media agency partner.

At the conclusion of those four or five top-to-top meetings, I have never had so many agency CEOs call me saying, 'If you do not get us on this RFP, there will be a black mark against you and ID Comms. That is the one we want to win.' It was entirely down to this CMO’s ability to articulate such a powerful and inspiring vision for media.

So that is the thing. You have to inspire. If you get that right through defining your media vision, through a clear articulation of what value means to you as an organisation, and if you can tell that story in a powerful way, your role is done. That is what we need from a CMO or a Chief Media Officer or a Chief Brand Officer. That is the role you can play.

Tom Denford: Exactly, and that is right at the beginning.

We do these all-agency briefings where we prep the CMO or the leadership to deliver that show. It is such a good way of doing it. If you are running a pitch or planning a pitch, we really encourage you to watch some of these videos because they help you understand the importance of how you set this up. It really pays dividends.

If you need help, you can go to idcomms.com. We have been engineering amazing relationships between advertisers and agencies and other partners for years. We know how to do that well, protect all stakeholders in the process, and do it efficiently and effectively to create long-lasting, highly productive, value-creating relationships.

It is worth investing a bit of time and resource in doing it properly. You do not want to be doing it again next year. You want relationships that last, grow and thrive, and we can help you do that. So reach out if you need help. Get yourself ready for MediaPalooza.

Next week, in the next episode, we will talk about the important role that media procurement plays in these processes, so they are not left out. Very important. As you have mentioned, and as we have probably said hundreds of times across our MediaSnack shows, a great understanding and alignment between marketing and procurement going into these things is invaluable. Without it, the process is really at risk.

Tom Denford: That is good. Hopefully we have not upset too many procurement folks and you will join us next week when we dig more into the amazing roles you play.

Any closing thoughts on the CMO’s role in pitches?

David Indo: Just that they have to be excited. Because if you, as a CMO, are not excited about a media pitch, the chances are your agencies are not going to be either.

Tom Denford: Very good. Well said.

Okay, we will see you next time. Thanks for watching MediaSnack Live. If you found it helpful and want to learn more, head to idcomms.com to get more tips, tools and resources to help you get good at media. We will see you next week.