'World's Worst RFP' Hilariously Rips the Agency Pitch Process to Shreds

Canadian agency Zulu Alpha Kilo, which excels at parody videos skewering the ad business, revisits a favorite topic in a new spoof—the idiocy of the industry’s pitch process, including providing spec work for free. 

The agency tackled the issue in a wonderful video called “Say No to Spec” that went viral in 2015.

Three years later, we have a sequel called “World’s Worst RFP,” which skewers the RFP process in the form of a mock postgame press conference. It begins with the client and the winning and losing agency fielding questions from reporters.

Both the winning agency (which is actually a consulting firm, of course) and the losing agency spout ludicrous quotes, including “The client was on her phone the whole time,” “We cave twice as fast as the competition, we do sub-par creative, we kiss a lot of ass” and “We fumbled the clicker handoff during the PowerPoint.”

Along with the video, the agency has built a website that collects its thoughts about the pitch process. 

The video premiered at Strategy magazine’s Agency of the Year event, where video parodies of the industry have become a tradition. 

“Every year, Strategy invites the agencies shortlisted for Agency of the Year to produce a video to debut at the gala. And so we wanted to entertain, but also use the platform to call attention to how our industry can be better for both clients and agencies,” says Zulu founder and chief creative officer Zak Mroueh, who directed the RFP video. “Hopefully ‘World’s Worst RFP’ and smarterpitch.com will start a dialogue just like ‘Say No to Spec’ did.”

See the “Say No to Spec” video below.

CREDITS
“World’s Worst RFP”
Agency: Zulu Alpha Kilo
Creative Director: Zak Mroueh
CD/Art Director: Rodger Eyre
CD/Writer: Gerald Kugler
Agency Producer: Bette Minott
Account Team: Violet Karbalaei
Production House: Zulubot
Director: Zak Mroueh
Director of Photography: James Klopkp & Nathaniel Chadwick
Producer: Bette Minott / Christina Hill
Audio Mixer/Boom: Paolo Di Teodoro
Casting Director: Jigsaw: Shasta Lutz
Video Post Facility / Editing Company: Zulubot
Editor: Marissa Bourgougnou
Compositor / Online: Zulubot
Colourist/Transfer: Alter Ego: Connor Fisher
Audio Post Facility/Music House: Zulubot
Engineer: Stephen Stepanic