This rant goes out to anyone who’s been ‘Faginned’.

I recently found myself being asked to do an ‘unpaid pitch’ for an existing client against 2 other companies. The expectations from the pitch were that I would happily supply ideas (in abundance), creative concepts (galore) plus a range of visuals to boot; all to be submitted free of charge. My client was confident that the project coming to me was ‘in the bag’. I thought differently however, as no project is ever ‘in the bag’ until the contract is signed, and this contract required a lot up front in order to win it.

If this sounds familiar read on…

As is my norm, I was happy to create a clear, full and detailed proposal of works outlining my approach and project costs, but I was most definitely not willing to provide creative ideas at this point. There are a few reasons for this but mainly it boils down to maintaining professionalism. Without a full brief (which in this instance was to be supplied once contracts had been signed), how could I possibly put cohesive sensible ideas together that would fulfill the objectives of the project? Credibility is at stake here – I won’t provide ideas that don’t promise results and are without substance and purpose.

So who does work for free these days?

Only those who want their pockets (and their brains) picked by those who think us creative professionals are happy to provide our expertise in the hope that we get chosen (that may have been the case 20 years back, but surely not now!). After all – would they do work for free? Most probably not, because every business needs to be profitable. You wouldn’t ask 3 different plumbing companies to put in a new boiler for free purely so you could assess who did the best job in order to award them the contract of re-plumbing the house! You wouldn’t ask 3 architects to design you a house for free in order to award the contract to the best design!

So it really does astound me that the creative industry is treated like this, and that some within it encourage the expectation of ‘free pitches’ to continue. Our professionalism is being undermined, and our perceived value is being ever devalued by those who simply ‘give it away’, or allow their creativity to be stolen in the hope that their pitch will win. Do you really think that any company with brains won’t steal any good ideas? Of course they will. So surely those who entertain doing ‘free pitches’ are living in Dickensian times, when stealing was a way of living.

It has to stop. Who agrees? Rant over, but please feel free to comment.