The Disappearing Pitch: How a Magician Cost Us the Client
5/14/20264 min
When James Thomlinson decided to “bring some magic” to a high-stakes pitch for InterContinental Hotels Group, he meant it, literally.
The plan? A magician disguised as a team member, ready to wow the client with a “reappearing newspaper” trick. The result? Cringe, confusion, and a fast lesson in what not to do when pitching creative ideas.
In this hilarious and humbling episode, James shares how a failed attempt at showmanship turned into one of his biggest professional lessons and how he eventually won the client with a smarter, more authentic approach.
If you’ve ever pushed creativity a little too far in your marketing, this episode will hit home.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsChris Norton· Host0:00
Obviously, this, this, this show is all about marketing mistakes, and you, you're a bit of a black belt in the pitch scenario. Um, have you made any- [laughs] I didn't get a black belt in making mistakes then. [laughs] [laughs] Yeah. Have you ever made any- So that, that's new.
James Thomlinson· Guest0:13
There's two, there's two links as well.
Chris Norton· Host0:14
I'm sure you've learnt a lot from pitching. Have, have you had any mistakes that you've learnt from, um, while you've been pitching yourself?
James Thomlinson· Guest0:20
Yeah. So many mistakes, and, uh, you've always got to learn from your mistakes. I can think of, um, two or three funny ones. Um, so it ended up being a positive. So after three attempts to pitch to InterContinental Hotel Group and their, their European comms team, uh, we ended up winning business at, at one of my old agencies. Um, but prior to that, I think it was the second time, uh, we pitched, I had this, what I thought was genius, but it was actually a terrible idea, um, to bring a magician in disguise into, uh, into the pitch.
Will Ockenden· Host1:02
[laughs] Okay.
James Thomlinson· Guest1:04
Um, and he was, he, he was pretending to be, you know, one of the team.
Will Ockenden· Host1:10
Okay.
James Thomlinson· Guest1:10
Uh, account or account director. And then at one point in the presentation, we got to the press office part of it. Um, it was quite early on, and, uh, we were talking about the target media they wanted to get in, and he's like, "Well, I'm now gonna show you exactly how we're gonna get you into the Financial Times," or something, something