How do you use ad agency terms and English job titles when pitching an overseas client?

Be careful with the acronym AOR ('Agency of Record') when pitching British clients. Never use this title unless you are the primary agency running all global brand communications under one roof. Calling yourselves a 'Creative Campaign Partner' sets expectations much more cleanly.

on our first pitch abroad we literally wrote 'Customer Representative' for our cliet lead and the client actually asked during the meeting if we were a call center then definitely use 'Account Executive' or 'Account Manager'; in advertising client management revolves entirely around the word "account".

Before moving on to the budget slide, add an 'Out of Scope' section right under the deliverables. UK clients love seeing what's excluded upfront. A single line stating that extra revisions will be billed at an hourly blended rate is more than enough.

We've worked with 4 different UK-based brands over the last two years. The very first pitch where we didn't include an hourly effort breakdown got rejected immediately. They want full transparency on how a 30,000 GBP budget is split by role and hours (like 50 hours x £70 for a Senior Designer, for instance).

Drowning the presentation in fancy jargon can backfire. London agencies have shifted to an extremely straightforward tone these days. Instead of buzzwords like synergy or holistic ecosystem, clean and direct headings like deliverables, timeline, milestones, and cost breakdown are taken much more seriously.

watch the file names imo. anyway a general deck introducing the agency and its work is a credentials deck while the deck with tailor-made ideas for that specific brad is called a pitch deck or creative proposal.

I recommend adding an 'IP Rights Assignment upon full payment' clause at the end of your proposal document to cover copyright transfer. Seeing the intellectual property framework in the deck before the contract gives British corporate clients confidence in your professional discipline.

I'm writing this so you don't make the same mistake. The biggest time-waster for us was not knowing who had the final say.

Don't hesitate to ask; those who don't ask always pay more. Good luck with that.

My perspective changed after experiencing that. If it's your first time, start small; scaling comes later.

Just leaving this note, it might be useful.

Here's how it went for us. Just because everyone does it doesn't mean it's right.

I'm also curious if anyone does it differently.

Do you think this works at any scale? like hasty decisions become decisions you have to fix six months later.

When we decide without measuring, we always end up in the same place. Of course, it varies if your situation is different.

This thread is archived.

Quick summary for newcomers: Access credentials should be opened in the company's name, not personal accounts.

This is my opinion, I'm not claiming it's absolute truth.

I'm a small business, let me explain from my side. The harder it is to reverse a decision, the slower you should make it.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

The opposite happened to me, that's why I'm writing. Code without setup documentation isn't yours, even if you have it.

Most time waste accumulates in tasks waiting for approval.

I'm curious too.

I was thinking the same thing. If code ownership isn't in the contract, you have no bargaining power when leaving.

You're right.