How Fitch Makes Its (Fast) Pitch

When Fitch went in to make a pitch to Pacific Theatres, a privately held Los Angeles-based movie-theater operator that was looking to update its branding strategies, it had little to show off. In fact, Fitch had almost nothing to say about itself because it had little experience in the American movie-theater industry.

That was a big plus to Kate Baker, the vision keeper of ArcLight Cinema Co., Pacific Theatres' new movie-theater brand. "I wanted a design firm that was more interested in discovering what our needs were than in showcasing everything they had already done for someone else," she says. "I wanted people with ideas. I didn't want people who would just give me what I thought I wanted."

Baker got a full dose of Fitch's ability to disagree when she had them pitch the design for a company Web site. "They wanted a Web site because everybody had one," Hunter says. Instead of pitching design specs, Hunter created what he calls "knowledge ecology," a process for thinking through how Web sites, interactive kiosks, or any other digital initiative would add to the core idea of ArcLight's brand. Regardless of the medium, Hunter argued, the objective was to provide ArcLight's customers with a great movie-going experience. "I expected a pitch that would say that a site would cost this much and look like this," Baker says. "Instead, they asked us, 'How does this site fit into ArcLight's overall reason for being?' "

Fitch's overall ArcLight pitch? "We wanted to restore the emotion and the spectacle of going to the movies," Hunter says. "Right now, moviegoing is like a sausage factory. They stuff the ticket in your hand and push you into the theater, and when the movie's done, they deposit you out back by the Dumpsters."

Fara Warner (fwarner@fastcompany.com) is a Fast Company senior writer based in San Francisco. Learn more about Fitch on the Web (www.fitchworldwide.com).