Now that the premiere of “The Pitch” has come and gone, what have we learned? Well, it seems that executives don’t seem to like the same things “we little people” like. Does that mean exec’s aren’t people? Doubt it!
After watching twitter all-a-buzz over the past few days ( #ThePitch ), I can’t help but see somewhat of a trend here. Two pitches, one is original, but a little edgy (if that). The other fits nicely into a box that could only hold a large corporate commercial. Which one wins? The one that makes the execs cry!
Now, with that being said, I also keep hearing that we don’t see everything and that there are numerous cuts & edits that affect the final outcome. Which I imagine IS the case. However, how can we as fans stand firm on our opinion without all the facts? If only we had all the facts, we could be even more judgmental! 
In case you missed it, here’s the commercial that won by SK+G:
And for your viewing pleasure, here is the one that lost by The Ad Store:
Now, to be fair, there are two things that I noted as I watched the “Why they won” video on AMC’s site:
1.) The exec’s at Waste Management noted the winning team’s Manifesto. What’s that?
2.) The social media campaign was seemingly missing from The Ad Store’s campaign (and apparently pretty cool for SK+G). Did The Ad Store really miss that?
Again, these kind of details leave me wondering if what we saw is really the whole story? Maybe I’m an eternal optimist, but it’s so hard for me to believe that the exec’s could have chosen something that would be so… forgettable.
Anyway, I think the biggest question for me is WHY?
What I mean is, why does Waste Management want the public to think of them as a power company? Is that going to make me give them more trash? Nope. Is that going to make me want to pay them more to take my trash? Nope. ”Maybe they just want a cleaner image”, you say? Well, I guess that’s fair, but check out their site and you’ll see that it’s not really working. I got pretty bored just looking at it; which tells me that I must be missing something? I still think of them as a trash company. 
If you want me to think that they collect all of my trash and turn it into beautiful, clean, green energy, they are going to have to convince me. Show me some stats, some numbers, some behind the scenes science. What’s the byproduct to these processes? Which parts of my trash become energy and which ones get put into a hole in the ground?
We all know that humans produce a lot of trash and that anything we can do to reclaim that is good. So, thank goodness for trash companies! However, a feel good commercial isn’t going to stop me from holding my nose the next time a Waste Management truck drives by. They collect on Monday morning’s here in my neighborhood.
I don’t mean to be critical, cuz our site here is still pretty humble. However, this is a mult-billion dollar company. Don’t tell me they don’t have a team of people that could be making this site HOT and their message crystal clear! I just assumed when I checked their site, I would find lot’s of cool video’s and graphics; instead it’s just a bunch of boring text. Too bad!
Just check out SK+G’s site. Now that is cool!
Anyway, these questions are burning me up! And the funny thing is that I’ve been following @TheAdStore and @SKGPR for over a week now on twitter and I don’t feel like I’ve learned anything new about them nor any insight into the show. Come on guys…this is a real PR opportunity here. And after that bald dude went all crazy in the board room and Paul Cappelli admitted to being broke, they both need it a lot worse than WM does.
Actually, to give @Wastemanagement some credit, they have been pretty active on twitter; running a chat just prior to the premiere and a viewer tagline contest in which they gave away an iPad. Unfortunately, I still really don’t get their “pitch”. Again, I guess we’ll see what happens.
Of course I wish the best to Waste Management and especially to The Ad Store and even SK+G. They are all brave for taking the risk that comes along with being on “The Pitch”. I just hope that they can use it to their advantage.
Be sure to check out our podcast on the Subway episode. We’ll have our next episode up before next Monday night’s “Clockwork Account”: