Every pitch comes with rules. Hardly anyone polices them.

The panel splits on whether to follow the process or bend it, and argues that if rules exist, someone has to enforce them. Along the way they take on free creative thrown in to win media, chemistry sessions that turn into full pitches before anyone has been paid, and over-delivering, which one guest would punish with a six-month sin-bin.

Plus a half-remembered tale about an ad agency that owned a cab company so it could hear what clients said after a pitch, and one warning sign everyone agrees on. If procurement books the feedback call, you’ve probably lost.

Pitch disasters, told by the people who lived through them.

In this episode of Smack My Pitch Up, the panel trade their worst moments in the pitch room. There’s a 2011 Skype pitch that accidentally went to video, straight out of the pool, in front of ten senior marketers. There’s an art director in a banana costume chanting “save our bananas” through a client’s office while redundancy consultations ran in the room next door. And there’s a business partner who spent a two-hour pitch hiding in the stationery cupboard.

Not every story ends in a loss. One pitch was won over a phone call taken naked during lockdown. Another was won after a sceptical client asked if he’d have to tap dance for it, and the presenter did.

There’s a running theme under the laughs. The disasters are the pitches people remember. And as one guest found after turning a stand-up comedy course into team training, being able to laugh your way out of a bad moment is a real pitching skill.

Make the client fall in love with you without them realising it.

In episode 2 of Smack My Pitch Up, the roundtable shares how they’ve done it, from a £1,000 Scottish breakfast that won a drinks pitch to a cocktail truck turned mobile meeting room.

Plus, is it better to pitch first, middle or last?