Demo Duck Expands Offerings with ‘DD Docs’
October 15, 2026
Winning and losing are the hard realities at the center of the creative pitching process, but as Nerdo ECD Claus Cibils points out, there are shades of both and lessons to be learned from all of them.
There is losing. And then there is losing. One hurts the ego. The other feels like getting hit by a train full of clowns.
Getting beat by great work is one thing. The project comes out, the spot is killer! The idea is sharper. The craft is better. The team found something you did not. Why didn’t I think of that? That was the one! It stings, with enough kinky pleasure.
The other kind burns differently. The only thing that comes out is WTF? Then you instantly share it with your team. The result does not justify the decision. The idea feels smaller than the ask. The execution feels weaker than the promise. The outcome does not answer the brief.
“There is losing. And then there is losing. One hurts the ego. The other feels like getting hit by a train full of clowns.”
And the question starts burning: What exactly did the pitch reward? What were we pitching? Pitching is a competition meant to create a meaningful creative choice. Not just to satisfy procurement, legal, or the need to say a process happened.
Teams approach the same problem and reveal different possibilities. Different instincts. Different references. Different risks. Different ways of seeing the project before it exists. Those POVs are why the pitch matters. And the pitch has to let those ideas fight for real.
That is where we keep getting sloppy. We are not taking pitching seriously enough. We treat it like a filter. Send a reel > Shortlist comes out > kick-off call > the deck > the presentation > one decision. Done. But that is not how great work usually begins.
We all know the other version, the pitch where everything clicks. The room opens. The conversation sharpens the idea. The agency pushes in the right place. The client says the thing that changes the whole direction. The studio sees a better way in. The proposal gets stronger because the process actually gave it a chance.
That is not decoration. It is Creative fermentation. When that interaction disappears, the pitch becomes a performance. Everyone acts like they are evaluating the idea, but half of what makes an idea real was removed from the room.
The pitch will always crown someone. That does not mean it found the strongest creative answer. It may only prove who survived the process better. That is the part nobody likes to admit.
A broken setup can still produce a winner, rewarding the team most willing, most able to carry the impossible without blinking, or the name the room already knows. Before the winner is chosen, the people making the decision should be able to justify their choice:
Why this one? What makes this idea the strongest answer to the brief? Was this a fair fight? Not why do we like it. Not why does it feel safe. Not why can this team take the hit. Not why is this the easiest yes.
“We need to push for and protect a process with enough clarity, time, access, guidelines, and creative exchange so the best ideas can actually show up.”
If the idea earns the choice under an honest system, the win has weight. If not, the pitch may have produced a preference. It may have produced momentum. It may have produced the name everyone felt comfortable choosing. But it did not produce a creative decision anyone can truly stand behind.
That is the Code: The pitch has to be a real, fair fight. A pitch should always reward the strongest creative answer, not the best performance under broken conditions.
We need to push for and protect a process with enough clarity, time, access, guidelines, and creative exchange so the best ideas can actually show up. Always leave the room with this in mind:
• You might not win this one, but you gave it all, and it was a good fight.
• You gave the ideas space to grow.
• You gave everyone a real chance to give it all.
The winner takes it all! Only when the idea, the thinking, and the process make the choice feel earned.
WE LOVE PITCHING
Let’s change the way we play the game.
Follow Claus on LinkedIn and Instagram.
WE LOVE PITCHING: Let’s change the way we play the game.
DISCLAIMER: All images are AI-generated. If it feels real, uncomfortable, or a little ridiculous, it’s intentional. Artificially made. Human crafted.
