Paid for pitches… a barmy idea
‘…we have been in the fortunate… position of having to turn down pitches due to the number of requests received.’
– Julia Newton, Shine Communications
Julia Newton of Shine Communications kicks off the letters page in new public relations weekly, PR Business with a client scaring bid for prospective customers to pay to be sold to.
There have long been calls for clients to contribute towards the cost of an agency’s pitch, mostly from advertisers who incur significant costs in time and materials putting creative together. Add to that the risk that the client may like your ideas, but not you, and choose to ask someone else to implement them and you might think they have a point. Yet I can’t help but be struck by the irony of marketers who resent paying their own advertising costs.
The arguments Julia Newton presents for pitch charging sound like a client’s worst nightmare. Many hate the idea of being pitched to by one group of people only to find another set actually doing work. Says Julia: ‘Separate pitching divisions could exist within agencies that… could at least be self-financing.’
You may as well set up separate businesses; one would pitch for work and, if successful, sell the contract on to someone else. Indeed, Julia envisages agencies with no clients at all subsisting on the fees earned from failed pitches for work. Sounds barmy to me.
Contact Stephen Newton
Comments (2 comments)
I do not charge for pitches. But I would cosnider it if other agencies made it mandatory.
Most prospective clients are interested, but the odd one that eats up your time and never even thanks you or even let’s you know their decision is rude in the extreme – as well as the cost.
But tehn again it tells me that I do not want to work with them. I judge the prospective client by their actions as much as they judge me by mine.
rob / November 3rd, 2006, 8:24 am / #
Being paid to pitch is a daft idea. I don’t expect an invoice from every prospective employee that I interview.
Anonymous / December 19th, 2006, 12:08 pm / #
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