Legendary PR Pitches

My colleagues were telling me over lunch about a legendary PR pitch, one that they thought you just wouldn't get away with now.

It goes something like this...

Back when the UK's railways were nationalised under the name British Rail, the British Rail PR account came up for tender.

A few agencies were invited to pitch and a team from British Rail visited the offices of those agencies they think would be up to the job.

So they go along to one office of a agency, are greeted by a receptionist, and told to wait in a waiting room until one of the PR Execs comes to meet them.

To the British Rail Execs surprise, the waiting room was in a terrible state. There were dirty ash trays spilling out onto the coffee tables, stains on the seats, and empty drink cans, various bits of food packaging and yesterday's newspapers strewn across the room.

The British Rail Execs were waiting for a long time in this mess of a waiting room, with no one offering them any refreshments while they waited and no reason given as to why they were waiting so long.

As if that wasn't enough, people kept popping their head round the door and the whisking themselves away again before the British Rail Execs could ask why they were waiting so long.

After at least half an hour, a PR Exec came in.

"We're ready to see you now."

Needless to say the British Rail Execs were very frustrated and angry by now, and said (in a bitterly ironic tone): "Oh, you're ready for us now, are you?"

When asked what the matter was, the executive got quite angry: "We've been waiting here for at least half an hour now, in this complete pig sty of a waiting room, and no one has told us what is going on."

The PR guy calmly replied: "Well, now you know how your customers feel. Let us show you how we can change that."

Inventive, original - and very risky - but they won the account.

There's also a legend about a pitch for a cruise ship company's account where the meeting room was completely decked out like a cruise ship, the PROs dressed up as cruise ship staff, and the clients were served a variety of tropical cocktails - but that's another story...

Anyone else have their own anecdotes of legendary PR pitches?