Who Doesn’t Want To Be A Millionaire?

The screening of ITV’s highly entertaining Quiz a
couple of months ago brought memories of a pitching disaster flooding back
which I think I have suppressed for the last 22 years.

At the time I was MD of a once great agency that had rather
fallen on hard times when, thanks to the networking genius of our formidable CEO,
we were invited to pitch for a new TV gameshow, provisionally titled Cash
Mountain. Our proposal was, if I say so myself, brilliant.

It had news gen ideas galore, stunts, including the “theft”
of a million pounds on the way to the studio, and much much more. And the pitch
went remarkably well. This account was clearly going to be ours, make us famous
again and revive the fortunes of the agency.

Right up, that is, until the point where the man from
Celador mentioned that they were considering Chris Tarrant as host for the new
show. I don’t think I actually blurted out the words “What? That washed up
loser from Capital radio?”, but whatever I did say conveyed the same impression:
We (I) didn’t think it was a good idea. My colleagues rapidly backtracked and
tried to repair the damage, but our fate, not to be the PR agency representing
one of the biggest TV shows of all time, was cast.

Of course, they were right and I was wrong. Chris Tarrant
defied my character assassination and proved himself to be the consummate Who
Wants To Be A Millionaire? front man.

If there was a lesson to be learnt here about caution, I
didn’t learn it and have continued to say what I think at pitches ever since.
Sometimes it is well received, others not, but on balance probably more of the
former than the latter. Having an opinion, even if it turns out to be wrong, is
better than having no opinion at all. And if it turns out to be right, you’re
doing what a good consulting agency should be doing.