Bournemouth International Centre and Pavilion hire Five by Five

Five by Five will look to drive awareness across media channels while also working on marketing projects and promoting the town as a premier business and meetings destination to the national conference and exhibition market.

The Drum asked the client why so many agencies were asked to pitch and was told that it was felt that there was a need to ensure that the agency that was appointed was the correct one and that public money was being spent correctly.

Clive Tyers, head of Conferences, Exhibitions and Events at the BIC continued: "We are part of Bournemouth Borough Council where there are stringent rules on the tendering process. We went out to agencies who had the full marketing mix including advertising, marketing and online."

Two briefs were issues for either side of the business - conferences and exhibitions and one for the entertainment side, and asked for agencies to respond with ideas and creative and one ad schedule. Some of these were provided before the presentations, some during.

The pitching process took two days with five agencies being seen a day having been invited to pitch or having approached the client to pitch. Some agencies which approached were rejected if they were unable to offer a variety of marketing services.

Tyres admitted that number of agencies pitching was high but also explained: ""The quality of some of the agencies was extremely high and when people have put the effort into getting creative work and an ad schedule put together we feel it should be seen. We also want to meet the team as it is important to the working relationship and we felt it was right to meet each agency and see what the personalities were like and if we could work with them."