AT&T ENTERTAINMENT GROUP: Terms & Conditions

There is no challenge that I have taken on in my career that compares to last year's AT&T pitch. It tested absolutely everything I have learnt over the last thirty years. It was without doubt the most comprehensive, complex and financially significant pitch I have ever worked on.

At a macro level, we were pitching for the creative and media business for the biggest spending client in America. Allegedly, it was the largest pitch in the history of the advertising business. If that wasn't daunting enough, we had to demonstrate how we were going to service three very distinct business units, in three different locations; show how we were going to leverage AT&T's data to inform creative and media decisions and, finally, deliver greater effectiveness and efficiency. And, we had to do all of this within 60 days.

The core assignment was to  develop a strategy for the newly formed Entertainment Group that comprised mobility, TV (DirecTV and U-verse) and AT&T's internet services. We needed to develop a new value proposition for AT&T's integrated consumer business and show how we'd execute this strategy in both creative and media.

For me, the highlight of the pitch was the strategic presentation. We had a beautifully simple strategy that was supported by data that quantified the impact of both the strategy and individual messages to support it. We also articulated communications architecture for the consumer business and showed how this fitted with AT&T's other business units and the overall company mission.

We created a strategy film that I think is one of the best that I have ever been involved with. Our proposition was simple: AT&T gives you life on your terms. We brought this to life by taking the idea of terms and conditions, which have a reputation for being particularly onerous and lengthy in this category. Instead of writing these from the company perspective, we wrote them from the standpoint of the consumer, but kept them in the legal language of contracts. It was a brilliantly funny 4 minute film written by Matt MacDonald, our ECD, and we used Bob Odenkirk as the voice over. True pitch magic.

This film literally inspired the new campaign that recently broke, starring Mark Wahlberg. This is big, populist work with a clear point of view and will enable AT&T to rise above the claims, counter claims & latest offers of the category. It will also help to transition AT&T into an entertainment company and pave the way for the integration of the Time Warner business.