Last year saw an uptick in the number of Canadian advertising and marketing accounts that were up for competition, a new report from agency search consultancy Listenmore has found.

The Canadian Agency Pitch Report summarizes pitches across creative, media, digital, multicultural and PR accounts, as well as across sectors and product categories. This year’s report showed a 23% increase in Canadian pitch activity from 2022. The bump up followed an even sharper increase of 195% in 2022 when pitch activity returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Within those pitches, the most active sector in 2023 was Packaged Goods, which more than doubled its reported activity from 2022. Government, Retail and Financial Services were the other most active sectors that the report found.

The report is developed by Listenmore as a barometer to roughly assess the state of the Canadian pitch market. Its findings are based off marketer and agency contacts, press reports and what Listenmore hears about during the course of its regular business. 

One factor that may be fuelling some of the growth the report is seeing, Listenmore founder and CEO Stephan Argent says, is agencies reporting back to Listenmore more often.

“We see agencies almost on a daily basis, and people say ‘Hey we just won whatever,’ or ‘We’re pitching whatever,’ or clients tell us ‘Yes, we’re going to market’ or ‘We’re not going to market,’” Argent says. “Agencies have become better at, and this may be fuelling some of the growth in the report, at telling us when they’ve won something throughout the year.

In total, the report found 55 agencies that won a pitch competition of some kind in 2023. Argent says that financial motivation in a difficult economy could be another reason for the increase in pitches.

“Marketers are under pressure to cut their budgets,” Argent says. “Whether they’re looking to save money, whether they’re looking to trim fees or whatever it is, I think the number one reason is a financially motivated [idea that] ‘Hey, we got to save some money here. Let’s have a look at what else is in the market and see if we can save money.'”

Argent says other factor that are leading to an increase in pitches includes an increased turnover in resources on both the agency and client side, as well as a continued reassignment of responsibilities that’s changing the scope of an agency’s work through insourcing and outsourcing.

The report also shows that independent agencies dominated with creative AOR pitches for the second year in a row, although indie shops are down 9% from last year in this area. On the other hand, the six major holding companies in Canada led the way in media wins with more than 90%, according to Listenmore’s report. Argent adds that another surprising finding is a rise in not-for-profit pitches from 2022.