AMC's The Pitch: Modern Day Mad Men

[Shifty]

THE PITCH
2 Hour Original Series Premiere
Monday April 30 9/8c

[YT]sookW2_DTvQ[/YT]​

AMC's new original series The Pitch offers viewers an intense, gripping, never-before-seen glimpse inside America’s top ad agencies. Each week watch two agencies as they compete to win a new client the only way they can: by going head-to-head in a cut-throat, winner-takes-all showdown, a presentation known as The Pitch. With only seven days to prepare, the pressure to perform is intense. The whining, the brainstorming, the blue-sky thinking: it’s all here as the teams work around the clock and pray for the moment of inspiration that will win them the job and keep their companies alive. The drama is real, the stakes are high, and the clock is ticking. From the producers of Undercover Boss. Witness the pressure…The passion…The Pitch.

AMC launches its newest unscripted series, The Pitch, with a sneak preview of the premiere episode, featuring SUBWAY® restaurants, on Sun., Apr. 8 at 11/10c following the award-winning series Mad Men and The Killing. The eight-part unscripted series will then return on Monday, Apr. 30 with a new episode featuring Waste Management at 9/8c, followed by an encore showing of the premiere in its regular time slot at 10/9c. The Pitch SUBWAY® restaurants episode will also be available on AMCTV.com, iTunes and YouTube following its sneak peek.

Executive produced by Eli Holzman, Stephen Lambert, Phil Lott, Brien Meagher and Aaron Saidman from Studio Lambert (Undercover Boss, Project Runway), The Pitch chronicles the incredible lengths, intense stakes and tight deadlines top advertising agencies encounter when they take aim at a major new piece of business. The series follows the best creative shops as they prepare campaigns knowing that in the end, it all comes down to the pitch. Real competition, major stakes and an incredible ticking clock are all elements of this docu-style series.

"The Pitch was born out of a desire to look for non-fiction series that present characters and story in a grounded and authentic way, and take us into inherently dramatic worlds that have yet to be explored," said Joel Stillerman, Executive Vice President of Original Programming for AMC. "Advertising is really the idea business, but with incredibly high stakes; and Studio Lambert has captured, in a very feature doc style, just how hard it is to come up with a great idea, only to walk into a room and have it all ride on The Pitch."

"Stephen and I are thrilled to have The Pitch join the roster of exceptional series on AMC," said Holzman. "The competition to win new business in advertising is incredibly intense and our goal is to provide audiences with a behind-the-scenes look at the compelling and dramatic pitch process. With encouragement from AMC, we fielded one of the finest filmmaking teams we have ever assembled to give this series a unique look and style. It is one of our proudest achievements."

Brands featured in The Pitch include

SUBWAY restaurants
Waste Management
C. Wonder
One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning
Benjamin Franklin Plumbing
Mister Sparky
Frangelico/Campari America
JDRF
Autograph Collection
popchips.

Competing for their business are agencies including The Ad Store, Bandujo, BooneOakley, Bozell, Conversation, DIGO, FKM, Jones Advertising, Kovel/Fuller, McKinney, Muse Communications, SK+G, The Hive, WDCW and WOMENK!ND.

Complementing The Pitch will be a host of online activities and extra video scenes at AMCTV.com. Users will also be able to vote in polls related to the show's content, read blog posts including exclusive cast interviews, and check out episode sneak peeks, extra/extended scenes and photo galleries and participate in a series talk forum.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

I'll watch it. But mostly because I work in the industry.

 

[SuperT]

Yessssss! I'm an Advertising/PR major and I've been waiting for a show like this for FOREVER!

 

[jerrystoner]

I will.

I was a proud participant in The Pitch, but event if I weren't I'd be watching this series. I can tell you from experience, the producers were top notch and did nothing to alter or enhance what the viewer will see. Can't wait to see how the series does. I'm betting the bigger shops who turned this down will want a piece of this action.

jerrystoner.com

 

[The Question]

People do realize that Mad Men is good because it explores institutionalized racism and sexism and follows the lives of people who've failed to live up to their expectations of themselves despite being "successful" by conventional terms and find themselves emotionally empty and grasping for meaning in arbitrary social constructs, not because it's about ad executives, right?

 

[Scarecrow_King]

doesn't mean this won't be a good show.

 

[Shifty]

People do realize that Mad Men is good because it explores institutionalized racism and sexism and follows the lives of people who've failed to live up to their expectations of themselves despite being "successful" by conventional terms and find themselves emotionally empty and grasping for meaning in arbitrary social constructs, not because it's about ad executives, right?

And the attention to detail!

I just used Mad Men to try and attract people to the thread.

Even if this was on a different network I would tune in.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

so their little "preview", which was basically just the first episode, wasn't impressive.

it was filled with pretentious *******s that thought horrible ideas were amazing, and a sob story about one of the creative directors being a woman.

mostly, it was just ****ing boring.

 

[Shifty]

I'll watch it. But mostly because I work in the industry.

What do you do in the industry?

 

[Prison Mike]

I enjoyed the show. I really liked the zAMbie campaign and thought it should have won. The one girl who was working for McKinney and had the idea of having Subway sandwiches talk was a little crazy. I really liked the boss at WDCW. He seems like a cool guy to work for.

 

[Shifty]

I wouldn't say it was a sob story, I enjoyed it for what it was.

Liked the zAMbie one as well. This was filmed before the second season of The Walking Dead so maybe they would've went with that one 'cause that would've been perfect to air during the show.

I wonder if that girl at McKinney is still even there.

It was late but The Pitch lost a lot of the Mad Men viewers for their preview, though people could've just DVRed it and watched other Sunday programming they already DVRed. I didn't see it until last night. Might get a million for a Monday night with a better promotional campaign, which is still better than what AMC would get on Mondays with their movies.

The Pitch (AMC)
-11:04 PM: 0.519 million viewers, 0.20 A18-49

 

[The Incredible Hulk]

People do realize that Mad Men is good because it explores institutionalized racism and sexism and follows the lives of people who've failed to live up to their expectations of themselves despite being "successful" by conventional terms and find themselves emotionally empty and grasping for meaning in arbitrary social constructs, not because it's about ad executives, right?

also Christina Hendricks.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

I wouldn't say it was a sob story, I enjoyed it for what it was.

Liked the zAMbie one as well. This was filmed before the second season of The Walking Dead so maybe they would've went with that one 'cause that would've been perfect to air during the show.

I wonder if that girl at McKinney is still even there.

It was late but The Pitch lost a lot of the Mad Men viewers for their preview, though people could've just DVRed it and watched other Sunday programming they already DVRed. I didn't see it until last night. Might get a million for a Monday night with a better promotional campaign, which is still better than what AMC would get on Mondays with their movies.

The Pitch (AMC)
-11:04 PM: 0.519 million viewers, 0.20 A18-49

Yeah, but it was on after The Killing, how many viewers does The Killing lose from Mad Men? I know I dropped that show last season.

Also I really don't think you can compare the two shows, the advertising industry is much different these days and a reality series about a pitch is going to be a lot less interesting than a scripted show like Mad Men, where Don just comes in and says a few things and bam!, that's the pitch, let's go get drunk and bang our secretaries.

 

[Prison Mike]

That's what I love about Mad Men. Don comes in, says a bunch of **** that doesn't make any sense, and the people applaud him for being a creative genius. Then he drinks and bangs his secretaries.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

What do you do in the industry?

I used to work a super small advertising agency in my college town. I've very recently left, after about a year, due to admission to graduate school.

 

[Scarecrow_King]

I don't know if I can take watching these pretentious dick holes much longer. I love the premise of the show, and I like to see the creative processes behind this stuff. But man, these people think that they're just sent from Heaven.

Both teams had some good stuff this episode, unlike the last. I think they went with the wrong agency, though. The "Trash Can" idea was the first thing that came to my head, and I think the execution showed a lot more of the impact that the Waste Management company could have than the other agency's.

The winners didn't have nearly as good of a message, but they dressed it up with a bunch of animation and media tricks. Their commercial, while held impact, was basically a rip off of the Levi Jeans commercial that uses the Walt Whitman poem.

By picking the winner they did, the company basically said that they value style over substance. I mean, "Turning waste into wow?" That's not exactly a memorable tag line. "Trash Can" is.

 

[Shifty]

Well it either be shunted to sister network IFC but it doesn't look like it will have a second season unless it can grow over the next six episodes.

Last night's episode

0.0 A18-49 (45,000 viewers 18-49, but it rounds to a 0.0 rating) and 173,000 total viewers at 9/8c.

The sneak preview after Mad Men at 11/10c on a Sunday earned 0.519 million viewers, 0.20 A18-49.