On a scale of 1 to 10, how annoyed would you be if someone would ask you to work for free? I assume 11? Maybe 13?
For me it’s 17.
So why when companies ask advertising agencies to pitch – they don’t see how morally wrong that is? I’m not talking about presenting your company, your services or things you’ve done – that’s a very basic and legitimate way for any business relationship to kick off. I’m not even talking about media plan and how you suggest allocating a given budget.
What companies expect is far more than that. They want you to come up with the concept, visualize it for them, plan everything into the details, and then among the who-knows-how-many agencies that they’ve seen, they will choose just one. Hours and hours of work that is expected to be completely free.
It shouldn’t be a consensus and we shouldn’t agree to it.
