# How to build a pitch from past work with Claude

> Give Claude the prospect's brief and let it draft the argument, then feed it proof from your past work for each claim the argument makes.

Canonical URL: https://vivu.ai/guide/how-to-build-a-pitch-from-past-work-with-claude

Give Claude the prospect's brief and let it draft the argument, then feed it proof from your past work for each claim the argument makes. The argument is the easy half. The proof sits inside finished videos, in the product reveal you handled well or the opening that set up a hard claim, and Claude can't see any of that unless it is connected to a search that indexes footage or someone has already written the moments down. Before any client's work goes into a deck or a tool, check that you're allowed to show it.

## Turn the brief into things you can search for

Pull the claims the pitch needs out of the brief first, such as "we can make a technical product feel simple" or "we can explain the product without a presenter". Ask Claude to rewrite each one as a description of what the proof would look like on screen. That list is what you search for. Without it, the search starts from whatever pieces come to mind first.

## Four ways to get past work in front of Claude

Paste in what already exists in writing, such as case studies and credits lists. It's quick, and it's limited to what someone wrote down, which describes results in words and leaves out the shots.

Point a filesystem MCP server at the archive, and Claude can read the folder tree and any documents saved beside the footage. Folder names say which client and which year. They don't say which spot has the strong product reveal, and [searching from the moment you remember](https://vivu.ai/guide/how-to-find-old-marketing-videos) tends to get further than browsing the folders.

Build your own index: transcribe the archive, embed the text with timestamps, and give Claude a search tool over it. Voiceover and interview lines become findable. The visual craft a pitch reel exists to show does not, unless you index the picture as well, and [keeping that pipeline cheap](https://vivu.ai/guide/what-is-the-cheapest-way-to-generate-embeddings) mostly comes down to processing each file once.

Use a hosted video search connector, which indexes picture and sound and lets Claude search through MCP. The trade is an upload step and a usage allowance. Client footage also ends up with another vendor, so the contract check comes first here too.

## Find the proof shots for a pitch from a Claude chat

[Vivu](https://vivu.ai/mcp) can be added to Claude as a custom connector, and for pitch work it helps to keep one project of finished work you're cleared to show next to the per-client ones, because a search covers only the project it runs in. Ask by description, such as "find the first time the product appears on screen" or "find the shot where a phone lock screen shows the time and notifications". A fast search returns candidate pieces, and with short spots that often means the whole spot with no pointer to the moment, which is enough to tell whether the project holds anything worth a closer look. A precise search with the same description takes longer and uses more of the allowance, then returns a few short time ranges with a one-line reason each, and you can preview every range on the results page.

Claude drafts the pitch with each claim tied to a range. Whoever presents opens every range before it goes in, and the editor cutting the reel works from the ranges that survive.

## When this won't work for a pitch

It breaks down when a pitch needs one search across every client, since searches stay inside one project and the cleared-work project only covers what you've put in it, and when the work can't be uploaded to a Vivu project and indexed in the cloud. Every search also spends plan allowance (there is a free tier and a paid tier, and Vivu's MCP page has the limits), and what comes back is a range to open, so the exact frame gets picked in the edit. If the pitch also takes apart the prospect's competitors' ads, confirm you have the right to use that footage before it goes into any index.

## When you don't need any of this

If the team can name the right few spots from memory, or the pitch leads on strategy and shows little footage, your written case studies will carry it and Claude can work from those alone. Setting up an index for one pitch a year is more work than the pitch.

## Is it worth setting up before your next pitch?

Think about where the hours went on the last pitch. If they went into remembering which project had the shot and scrubbing to find it, the footage is the bottleneck, and a searchable project of cleared work gets used again for every pitch after this one. If they went into the argument, Claude and your case studies are enough, and whoever remembers the reel can pull it.

## FAQ

### Can Claude search all of our past client work at once?

Not through a video search that works one project at a time, and a per-client setup means one project per client. The practical fix is a separate project holding only finished, released work you have permission to show, so a single search covers the pitch material.

### Do we need client permission to show past work in a pitch?

Often, yes. Contracts differ: some let an agency show released work as credentials, some restrict it, and unreleased or confidential work is usually off limits. Check the contract before the work goes into a deck or into any outside tool, including a search index.

### Should I use fast or precise search to find pitch examples?

Fast first, to see whether the project holds relevant pieces, then precise with the same description to find the moment inside them. Precise search takes longer and uses more of a search allowance, so it's worth running once you know the material is there.

### What should Claude get besides the footage?

The prospect's brief and any written case studies you're allowed to share. Claude builds the argument from those, the footage search supplies the moments that back each claim, and a person checks each moment before it goes into the deck.