You’ve done the thinking. You’ve built the strategy. You’ve rehearsed the story. And then you open the deck – and the room switches off.
It happens more than agencies realise. Not because the ideas are weak, but because the slides are working against them. Poor visual design doesn’t just look bad. It actively destroys attention, undermines credibility, and makes even brilliant thinking forgettable.
Here’s a fact that should change how you build every slide you ever make: the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. Not a little faster – sixty thousand times faster.
What that means in a pitch room is brutal. While you’re talking through a slide crammed with bullet points and body copy, your audience has already made a judgment. They’ve looked at the slide, decided it’s dense and hard work, and mentally checked out – all before you’ve finished your first sentence.
Attention research is unambiguous on this: we are visual creatures first. We don’t read presentations, we experience them. And if that experience requires effort, we disengage.
Roughly two thirds of people process and retain information most effectively through visual means. Not through reading. Not through listening. Through seeing.
Which means the majority of the people sitting across from you in a pitch – the ones whose votes you need – are going to remember what they saw far more vividly than what they heard or read. A powerful image, a clear diagram, a well-designed data visualisation: these don’t just look good. They are your argument, made in a language the brain is wired to receive.
When a slide contains too much – too much text, too many competing elements, too little white space – the brain experiences what psychologists call cognitive overload. It’s not that the audience is disengaged or uninterested. It’s that you’ve made their brain work too hard just to process what’s in front of them, leaving no mental capacity to absorb the actual idea you’re trying to land.
Ironically, the agencies that pack the most into their decks – under the belief that more content signals more rigour – are often the ones who leave the least impression. The audience is exhausted, not impressed.
The best pitch decks do the opposite. They remove everything that isn’t essential. They use visual hierarchy to direct attention. They give each idea room to breathe. And they trust that a clean, confident slide communicates authority far more effectively than a dense, cluttered one ever could.
The principle that changes everything is this: design every slide as if the audience will only look at it for three seconds. Because many of them will.
In those three seconds, what do they see? Is there a clear focal point? Is the single most important thing instantly obvious? Or are their eyes bouncing around, unsure where to land?
If you can’t answer those questions confidently about every slide in your deck, your design is working against you.
The good news is that this isn’t about making things pretty. It’s about making things clear. Visual design principles — hierarchy, contrast, whitespace, alignment — are attention management tools. They tell the brain where to look, what matters most, and what to remember. Use them deliberately, and your ideas don’t just get seen. They get felt.
Before you add another bullet point to a slide, ask yourself whether it’s earning its place. Not whether it’s accurate or relevant – but whether it’s helping the room understand and remember your idea, or adding to the noise they’re already trying to filter out.
The agencies that win pitches consistently aren’t the ones with the most content. They’re the ones whose thinking is clearest – and whose slides make that clarity impossible to miss.
We’re drowning in content. AI has made it cheaper than ever to produce words, decks, emails, and pitches at scale. The result? A sea of sameness – polished on the surface, hollow underneath. This is the age of slop.
And in the age of slop, the single greatest competitive advantage an agency has is the ability to tell a real, human, emotionally resonant story.
Humans have been wired for narrative since before writing existed. We don’t remember facts. We remember stories. The structure – a person, a problem, a journey, a resolution – is how we make sense of the world.
In a pitch context, this matters enormously. A client sitting across the table from five agencies isn’t going to remember the one with the best credentials slide. They’re going to remember the one that made them feel something.
Every great pitch follows a version of this arc. You start by establishing the world as it is – the Situation. Then you introduce the tension – the Complication. You position your agency as the path through that tension – the Resolution. And you paint a vivid picture of the world on the other side – the Better Future.
This isn’t just a nice narrative device. It’s a decision-making framework. Clients buy the future, not the agency. They buy the outcome, not the process. Story is how you make that future feel real and achievable.
Before your next pitch, ask yourself: what is the one problem this client is losing sleep over? Not their marketing problem. Not their business objective. The thing that keeps their CMO awake at 2am.
Now build your pitch around that. Lead with their world, not yours. Introduce the tension they feel every day. Show how you resolve it. And make the Better Future so tangible they can almost taste it.
That’s story. That’s what wins pitches. And in the age of slop, it’s rarer – and more valuable – than ever.
AI-driven search has arrived and it’s already shaping how content is surfaced in results. If you’ve been on Google lately or used a generative AI (GenAI) tool like ChatGPT or Claude, you’ll have seen the new reality facing marketing teams.
A recent Forrester report found that 95% of B2B buyers are planning to use generative AI in at least one area of future purchasing.
With impressions rising, click-throughs falling and traditional rankings no longer telling the whole story, it’s easy to feel like you’re being left behind.
Getting up to speed matters. But can you approach AEO and GEO without rewriting everything you know about SEO? The short answer is yes, and our experts are here to help you break it down.
Answer Engine Optimisation (AEO) means structuring content in a way that makes it easy for search engines to extract, summarise and cite in AI-generated search results (Google’s AI mode and AI overview predominantly). Users receive more direct answers to their questions, and having your brand or content referenced will do wonders for visibility and awareness.
It’s not just about being top in the recommended ‘blue links’ in search engine results pages (SERPs) anymore. It’s also important to get your content cited in AI overviews, referenced by generative AI engines – we’ll come to that shortly – or used as a direct answer to someone’s search query (jackpot!).
That’s what AEO helps businesses achieve.
One of the nuances to be aware of when writing for AEO vs traditional SEO is the emphasis on short, summarising answers that AI can parse or crawl easily. Here’s an example of a direct question and answer that should do well in AI search:
Answer engine optimisation (AEO) means maximising the potential of your content to be featured in AI search results and snippets – Google’s AI overview and AI Mode, for example. GEO is the agreed-upon term for making content more visible in generative AI applications – when you ask engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude a question. Many argue they’re an extension of search engine optimisation (SEO) rather than a new discipline.
If SEO is about ranking in search results generally, and AEO is about AI content extraction in search engines specifically, GEO is about getting your content included in the wider gamut of GenAI tools. So how does that work? By considering how large language models (LLMs) interpret authority, structure and clarity, and using that to increase the likelihood of your brand being mentioned.
The three core principles of SEO absolutely still stand: technical performance, authority and content relevance are still hugely valuable. The issue is with how this information is now presented: rather than leading with organic listings, AI overviews now summarise the results. This means that, for many users, answers are provided without the need to click through to your website. It’s prompting behaviour change that demands a more nuanced approach.
What does that change look like on paper? You might see a bump in organic impressions and a corresponding dive in click-through rates. It can also be harder to get to the bottom of which keywords prompted an LLM to return your site in a search.
Any LinkedIn user is more than likely aware of this hot-button topic and in essence what it boils down to is this question: is AEO just a supercharged SEO strategy OR is it a whole new discipline?
The truest answer: it’s a bit of both. It’s important to have an AEO strategy and to invest in making your content as AI-friendly as possible. But the best way to do that will be no surprise to those with a good understanding of SEO and Google’s EEAT principles for creating helpful, reliable, people-first content.
This explanation from AhREFs sums it up nicely:
“To earn mentions and citations in AI-generated answers, marketers will need to adapt familiar tactics—not invent entirely new ones.”
At Proctor + Stevenson, we’re similarly pragmatic about our approach, and would suggest that you probably don’t need to invest in expensive tools and subscriptions to get started with AEO.
You can build a strong foundation for your content with excellent technical SEO, clear EEAT signalling, thoughtful content strategy plus a bit of clever positioning. We also recommend maximising UX and conversion opportunities so visitors to your site translate into sales, leads and enquiries. There’s a chance traffic that comes from AI overview is more likely to convert, as top results are often a more accurate match for the user’s search intent.
Brands that invest in AEO and best-practice content SEO are seeing the biggest performance benefits. Here’s an example of how an integrated approach can seriously boost your search performance.
Our client, TTP, wanted to rank for a high-value commercial search term in the US market. We applied our structured framework, addressing technical performance, embedding EEAT signals and improving page clarity with AI crawlers in mind.
We made sure the content was laser-focused on the query’s commercial search intent and that the content was rich, useful, and written and structured for AI visibility and, importantly, the user’s informational needs.
After three months, performance hadn’t shifted so we reviewed and realised that although the content quality was strong, the page wasn’t indexing.
We requested re-crawling in Google and within days:
What we proved is that AEO works best when it combines specific market and competitor analysis with best-practice content optimisation, layered atop strong technical foundations. Shortcuts just won’t cut it.
…you can build a strong foundation for your content with excellent technical SEO, clear EEAT signalling, thoughtful content strategy plus a bit of clever positioning…
Because LLMs are trained on broad, aggregated internet data rather than search engine rankings, GEO requires wider visibility across diverse sources. Brands that are consistently mentioned in reviews, comparisons, and discussions are more likely to appear in model outputs. Traditional SEO signals like backlinks and domain authority still matter– but mainly because they increase a brand’s overall visibility, not because LLMs use them directly.
Again, there’s nothing fundamentally new here. It’s still just good content strategy. The difference is in the pace of impact. GEO is as lower burn driven by PR, brand reputation, and sustained authority-building over time – not quick fixes. That makes it a longer-term play. AEO, on the other hand, can deliver relatively quick wins through focused on-page optimisation. That’s why many teams – ours included – are prioritising opportunities like Google’s AI overviews first.
You’re not starting from scratch so take a deep breath: everything you’ve learned about SEO fundamentals (technical health, authority and strategic content) is still enormously important. All the work you’ve been doing to build your site’s authority, create valuable content, and drive traffic to key pages, is a great foundation to build on.
You just need to layer in AI search optimisation for a holistic approach and consider search intent more carefully than ever. AI is already influencing visibility, attribution (who gets the credit for answers) and competitive positioning. But if you tick off the following, you can start to increase momentum, take back control, and regain some of the lost and declining positions you may have seen over the past six to 12 months.
Not quite sure where to start, or fancy some expert advice on applying a targeted yet scalable AEO/GEO approach for your sector? Drop us a line: [email protected].
The rise of AI is sparking new discussions across the advertising industry, raising questions about how campaigns are created and how consumers make decisions. In a recent Advertising Week article, our Managing Director, Sammy Mansoupour, examines the “AI doomsday scenario” and its potential implications for brands.
Sammy explores concerns that AI could reshape both production and consumer behaviour, but he emphasises that human oversight remains essential. As he notes, “Agencies may need fewer executors, but the human brain will remain the most valuable asset in a creative business, even if it is no longer the largest cost base.”
The article also highlights how agency structures may evolve with AI adoption. While AI can scale output and automate routine tasks, creative and strategic thinking will become increasingly rare and important. Sammy points out that even as production becomes industrialised, “The emotional drivers behind why people buy – identity, aspiration, trust and taste – will remain stubbornly human.”
Finally, the piece addresses brand loyalty and the limits of AI in decision-making. Even if algorithms handle routine purchasing, human emotion and cultural insight will continue to drive advertising strategy, ensuring that human judgment remains central to creating meaningful connections with consumers.
Head over to our website to see the full article
The growth in digital ad investment is reshaping how brands approach marketing in crowded online channels. In a recent feature with MediaShotz, Head of Media at AgencyUK, Sam Bradshaw, shared his perspective on what this surge means for marketers.
Sam highlights that record investment reflects both confidence and rising competition. “More money in the system increases auction pressure and makes attention harder to earn,” he explains, stressing the challenge of standing out.
He adds that optimisation alone is no longer enough. “Sustainable growth comes from building mental availability at scale, designing coherent media plans and measuring commercial impact alongside platform metrics,” Sam notes, underscoring the need for a holistic approach.
He also emphasises the value of creativity, saying, “Creativity is the strongest profit multiplier marketers can influence,” showing how thoughtful media planning paired with compelling content delivers stronger results.
With budgets increasing and competition intensifying, brands that focus on strategic planning and creative execution are better positioned to make the most of the digital landscape.
Click here to see the full article on our website
In a recent Mediashotz Q&A, our Head of Strategy, Chris Moody, and Head of Media, Sam Bradshaw, share their perspectives on how media strategy is evolving, the growing role of AI in planning, and the common pitfalls brands face when balancing long-term brand building with short-term performance.
Discussing the realities of media fragmentation, Sam explains that audiences aren’t thinking about channels in the same way marketers categorise them: “We label it CTV, OTT, BVoD, but the audience aren’t thinking in acronyms like we are. They’re thinking, ‘I’m going to watch TV.’”
The conversation also highlights the importance of consistency in brand building. As Sam notes, “The real problem isn’t fragmentation; it’s brand ideas that look like disconnected bursts instead of one consistent story repeated over time.”
The interview explores how we approach strategy at AgencyUK, including the role of AI in planning, how data should guide decisions, and why distinctive brand assets and consistent messaging remain critical for long-term growth.
Read the full interview on our website.
A recent interview with our Head of SEO & Tech, Jake Bentham, explores how the rapid evolution of AI is reshaping the SEO landscape and what it means for brand marketers.
Discussing the biggest shifts in search behaviour, Jake highlights the rise of AI-generated answers and ‘zero-click’ searches, explaining: “More often than ever before, users are finding the answers they need directly via an AI summary at the top of the results page.” As a result, brands are being encouraged to rethink how they maintain visibility when fewer users are clicking through to websites.
Jake also emphasises the growing importance of authority-led content, noting: “Prioritise creating content that establishes trust, authority and expertise within your field.”
The interview also explores how at AgencyUK we are adapting our strategies to help clients stay visible in an increasingly AI-driven search environment.
Read the full interview on our website.
Congratulations! You’ve produced a video you’re really happy with. Now all that’s left to do is upload it to your preferred streaming platform and forget about it, right? Well, not quite. Uploading it to one platform and moving on is a missed opportunity. A single video can generate weeks or even months of marketing content when used as part of a structured video marketing strategy.
There’s a much better way to maximise your investment, and it’s far less expensive than you might think…
As video becomes more and more important in buying decisions (don’t just take our word for it) making the most of your content has become essential. The aim is to maximise the number of opportunities to engage with your audience and that means translating your content into the most eye-catching formats and showcasing it on the most relevant platforms.
Ensuring the consistency of your brand’s look and feel across each touch point is also key to helping build trust and recognition. Plus, it means you can have content that can more easily be used at a later date.
This is where the strategy of producing one main film and cleverly repurposing it with mini edits comes into play. Where appropriate, you can also use it to create micro content (films or animations). Extracting key moments and insights from the hero video means marketers can tailor their content to suit different platforms and audience preferences.
So how is it done? There are 3 main ‘Ms’ to bear in mind.
(view image in the original article here)
The first M (Main) is pretty straight forward, so we won’t spend too much time here. Your Main is the complete film you’ve put all your effort and time into. A tight script, some fun effects and clever camera work and you’re good to go.
As a rule of thumb, you’ll want to put this on YouTube or your preferred streaming platform etc. YouTube is perhaps the best know and makes your videos very discoverable, but you might benefit from the additional insights a platform such as TwentyThree can provide. This allows you to continue refining how you position your content and helps you attract more views.
*Don’t forget that you might want to hype your main film using your shorter pieces of content first, so hang fire on posting it until you’ve released a few canny ‘teaser’ edits.
We’ve used an example from the TOUGHBOOK campaign we produced for technology pioneers, Panasonic, highlighting how we maximised the video assets – from the primary film to short clips and teaser content.
(view the video in the original article here)
The second M (Mini) is where you start to create shorter, more focused edits of your Main film. A Mini edit’s purpose can either be to build a queue of people ready to watch your main film OR highlight unique parts of your offering.
For example, your Main film may be about your complete suite of products or services, but your Mini edits might break it down into your specialism in individual sectors. Equally, you might have produced a tutorial on how to use your product and found that people are most often searching for (and watching) one particular step of the process. Creating a Mini edit focused on that one step, packed with quality SEO, can increase your discoverability to new prospects.
The key here is not to create lots of new content, you should be aiming to recycle, reuse and reformat as much as possible into new edits.
Here’s a quick shorthand for how you might define those different types of edit.
These give the audience a reason to watch your main video. What are you audience going to find out? Does it give a glimpse of a new product or service? Are you announcing a particular date or event? Perhaps your interview had a nugget of gold in, you can create a short edit that leads up to that point, encouraging viewers to watch your main film to find out more.
Think of this as a short snappy edit that sets everything else up. This will come out in advance of your main video, so the goal is to create a queue of people ready and waiting for when the main video launches.
Here’s a little teaser video from the Panasonic Toughbook campaign.
(view the video in the original article here)
These combine as many hooks as possible to pull people towards your main film OR provide another CTA i.e. to a landing page or sign-up form.
By condensing the most compelling moments and messages from the core video into shorter formats, marketers can deliver targeted edits that resonate with different segments of their audience.
Now’s the time to think social media: using LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok etc. With these platforms, your audience often wants smaller bite-size content.
Whether it’s a brief teaser, a highlight reel, or a quick tutorial, each edit serves to capture attention and drive engagement, ultimately leading viewers back to the full video for a deeper dive into the content.
Check out this short snippet from the Toughbook campaign- a quick example of how a single core video can evolve into engaging mini content that grabs the attention of the viewer.
(view the video in the original article here)
This most often refers to content such as Gifs, presentations or web animations. Think of them as small single-issue messages, or very brief statements. Examples could be:
The key here is to keep it concise. If someone asked you to explain your micro edit, could you sum it up in one sentence? You’re giving potential customers clarity in seconds, and for the time-poor that’s a compelling reason to click.
The outputs for Micro tend to fall into gifs, MP4s, or Lotties and Rives, and the use cases are the broadest:
Here’s an example of how we make the most of one explainer video. This is our Atomic Design explainer video. We use the complete video to kick off pitches, giving the audience a quick overview of the methodology.
(view the videos in the original article here)
Video marketing remains a powerful tool for brands looking to engage audiences and drive meaningful interactions. By creating one full video and repurposing it into shorter edits, marketers can maximise the reach and impact of their content across various platforms –without drastically increasing the total cost.
A well thought out video marketing plan should guide your production of the video. It lets you know up-front exactly what the strategy is and the exact content you’ll need to produce. For example, when you animate that icon, is it also going to be needed for a Lottie? And, if so, what steps do you need to take to minimise additional work?
By combining compelling visuals with strategic messaging, and getting under the right noses, brands can create memorable experiences that resonate with their audience and drive tangible results.
If you’re wondering how to squeeze even more value out of your video content, or just want to talk through your ideas, get in touch at [email protected].
The latest World Advertising Research Center (WARC) report points to renewed confidence within the advertising sector, with brands continuing to invest as digital channels and on-demand media become a bigger part of everyday life. Ongoing improvements in technology, connectivity, and measurement tools are helping organisations plan campaigns with greater clarity and reach audiences more effectively.
Offering his view on the findings, our Managing Director, Sammy Mansourpour, explained, “Perhaps the greatest boost has been in confidence from brands to invest, based largely on improved targeting and measurement from platforms.”
This reflects a broader shift in how businesses approach marketing, with more emphasis on digital-first thinking, cross-channel planning, and flexible media choices. As audience habits continue to evolve, advertisers are placing increasing value on insight, adaptability, and long-term strategy.
Read Sammy’s full comments on our website.
Search is evolving quickly, and businesses are having to rethink how they appear online. The lines between traditional search engine optimisation and paid advertising are becoming less clear, which means brands need a joint approach rather than treating each channel separately. A strong content strategy now plays a central role in how organisations are discovered and how they stay visible to the right audiences.
As our Managing Director, Sammy Mansourpour, recently noted, “ChatGPT results and all the mainstream LLM models are based on search data inputs, so it is difficult to see how advertising – ChatGPT in this case – and SEO can be split. The present reality is that any robust search content strategy is informing ChatGPT results.”
This shift highlights the importance of planning content, advertising, and visibility together rather than in isolation. Businesses that adapt early are more likely to build stronger long-term digital presence and maintain consistent reach across platforms.
You can read Sammy’s full comments here.
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