By Ajay Parek, Project Director/ Executive Producer Kabuki Productions,
I recently attended a Senior Leaders Breakfast hosted by EVCOM, where JFDI presented the New Business Barometer 2025 – now in its eighth year and drawn from hundreds of agency business development professionals across 18 disciplines. Around 30 of us were in the room: agency heads, production specialists, suppliers, venue operators and, crucially, four client-side commissioners from sectors including oil and gas, real estate, law and the NGO space.
Both sides of the relationship, in the same room, looking at the same data. That doesn’t happen often enough.
Let’s start with an uncomfortable truth.
The events industry runs on a business model that, in almost any other sector, would be considered completely irrational.
Clients receive world-class creative thinking, technical expertise, logistics, production management, strategic consulting and so much more in the hope of ‘something new’. Whilst agencies provide a long list of services all frequently operating in a state of near-permanent P&L anxiety, often over-servicing in the hope that one speculative pitch might convert into billable work or a project that leads to repeat business.
At the centre of this ecosystem sits the industry’s most enduring ritual: the pitch.
Which in practice means agencies invest weeks of time, resource, senior talent and creative firepower and well-earned profits into ideas that are developed fit for an architect’s marketing brochure, and in almost all cases may never see the light of day.
And yet here’s the uncomfortable paradox: it keeps working, clients keep asking and agencies across the land keep pitching and presenting.
The Data Says the Same Thing the Industry Already Knows
The JFDI New Business Barometer produced a long list of findings. Some were illuminating and none were particularly surprising.
Chemistry Beats Everything
The most important factor in converting prospects into clients?
Chemistry.
The industry might pretend procurement processes and pitch decks decide outcomes, but the data confirms what most of us already know: people buy from people.
Trust, familiarity and rapport beat polished presentations every time.
Which raises an obvious question: if relationships matter most, why do we still structure so much of our new business around anonymous, high-pressure pitching processes that have so often have not been qualified, or conversations with stakeholders not had to better understand the needs, the team fit or expected long term growth opportunities. Why are agencies so afraid to ask the difficult questions and why is client loyalty only a quarter away?
The talking points around the table suggest that clients must make time to meet a range of agencies, small and large, and vet them beyond the procurement process to understand what makes them tick. To develop a tiered roster and lean into the long-term relationship for best results.
Referrals versus Strategy
86% of new business comes through management networks and contacts. 74% through client referrals. The report frames trust and authenticity as a superpower in what it calls “an anxious world fuelled by misinformation and uncertainty.”
Separate research consistently supports this. The PM Society found that agencies routinely spend £15,000–£25,000 in internal time on a single pitch, with some investing upwards of £40,000. Yet the most reliable source of new work costs nothing – it’s the client who recommends you because you delivered.
For agencies: Your new business strategy is your delivery standard, your operating model and credentials. Every project is an audition for the next one. Show the client how you work and invest accordingly.
For clients: If an agency has done good work for you, recommend them. A two-minute introduction is worth more to a small agency than most people realise, and make time to get to know the next agency that makes the time to knock on your door.
Half the Pitch Work Is Never Used
Only half of the ideas presented in pitches are actually executed once the project is won.
The report notes that clients often treat the pitch brief as a means to an end, then reset with firm requirements once the agency is appointed.
This is the single most fixable inefficiency in the system. Agencies pour weeks into cinematic fly-throughs and fully rendered concepts that bear little resemblance to the final project. Meanwhile, the things that actually determine delivery success – team capability, process discipline, strategic thinking – get a fraction of the attention when engaging an agency.
For clients: Be honest about what you actually need at pitch stage. If the brief is going to change, say so. You’ll get better responses from agencies who spend their time on the right things. Work harder to get to the know the agencies USP.
For agencies: Have the confidence to pitch the team, the thinking and the approach – not a speculative production Bible. If half the work gets thrown away, the answer isn’t to do more of it. And to ask more strategic questions upfront, and not be afraid to ask the difficult questions.
Specialist Briefs Are Rising
Clients are increasingly issuing specialist briefs as they search for new ways to engage audiences.
Every organisation today faces the same fundamental problem: how to capture attention in an environment saturated with content and noise.
The opportunity for agencies is obvious to me: move beyond execution and become strategic partners.
The risk is also obvious: if agencies remain purely reactive to briefs, they simply become a delivery arm, are not seen as delivering value and ultimately interchangeable.
The agencies that win will be the ones willing to challenge the brief, and if brave enough help the client to rewrite it.
New Business Takes Longer Than Ever
The average new business lifecycle from first contact to billing is five and a half months. The sale is becoming more complex, and as the JFDI report notes, the pitch now starts well ahead of brief receipt – yet few pitch processes that’re built for that timeline.
This should change how both sides think about the relationship. For agencies, it means patience and sustained investment in connections that may not pay off for two quarters.
For clients, it means recognising that the agencies responding to your brief have been waiting for this occasion and likely been investing in you for months before you knew they existed.
The Rise of the Ghost Pitch
45% of agencies reported losing pitches because the budget was withdrawn entirely. Up two points on last year. Not lost to a competitor. Just gone.
The report recommends agencies activate tighter qualification of budget status within client organisations – asking directly whether budgets are confirmed, speculative or still to be approved.
The IPA and ISBA’s Pitch Positive Pledge, now with over 190 signatories, was designed partly to address this – asking clients to confirm a pitch is genuinely necessary before issuing the brief. But three years in, adoption remains uneven. There are seven times more agency signatories than client signatories.
For clients: Don’t brief agencies on work you haven’t secured budget for. If the budget is speculative, say that upfront. It costs you nothing and saves agencies thousands.
For agencies: Ask the hard questions before you commit. Is the budget signed off? What’s the decision timeline followed by PO’s? Who’s making the final call? Can we have a period of time to explore the brief and better understand the details. If the answers are vague, that tells you something.
A Market That Is Quietly Polarising
Large agencies reported a 33% increase in pitch wins. Small agencies saw a 23% decline. Meanwhile, the report found that revenue targets have increased significantly – mall agencies by 31% – while marketing spend hasn’t kept pace.
The middle ground is getting squeezed. Scale is increasingly being mistaken for capability, and larger agencies can afford to invest in relationship-building that smaller firms simply can’t match.
For smaller agencies: Specialism is your advantage. Define what you do better than anyone else and be disciplined about which opportunities you pursue. Not every invitation to pitch is worth accepting.
For clients: Make time to meet smaller agencies outside of formal pitch processes. Some of the best thinking in this industry comes from teams of ten, not ten thousand. But they need the door opened and time around the table.
What actually needs to change
The data isn’t surprising. Most people working in this industry could have predicted every finding. What’s harder is doing something about it.
One client in the room shared that they’ve started paying for pitches and early-stage ideation – and that the quality of responses improved immediately. It’s a small example, but it points to something important: when you change the incentive, you change the behaviour, and another way to see this is, if the price is zero then the value is also zero.
The Barometer data gives both agencies and clients something concrete to point to. Use it. Challenge your own processes against it. And if you’re a client wondering why your last pitch didn’t attract the strongest agencies – or an agency wondering why you keep investing in pitches that go nowhere – the answers are probably in this report.
The full report is published in partnership with the IPA, PRCA, BD100, The Drum Network, Alliance of Independent Agencies, MPA, BIMA, NetworkOne, EVCOM and Bristol Creative Industries.
Author: Ajay Parekh