As a paid intern (at minimum wage) i was able to gain fantastic experience and develope many of my skills through out my internship which i would not have been able to afford to do if i was unpaid…businesses cannot expect interns to work 40+ hours unpaid and still manage to pay their rent, bills, food and travel no matter how valuable the experince is.
Also alot of my friends were on placement last year too some of which were unpaid and some of them gained very little valuable experiend other than how to file papers and make coffee….
Small buisnesses wishing to take on an intern should have the means and work to do so. Interns are not free labour it is a mutual experience of professionals aiding in the education of up and coming prespective employees in their sector and students or graduates gaining the experince required to gain a job at the end of their studies or internship many of which require experience that cannot be gained any other way.
My internship was an extreemly positive experiencr for me and my employer. Through out the internship i contributed to the team as much as any other paid member of staff and by the end held similare responsibilites too so why should we not be paid?

In a way, it is lost time if you don’t win the work, but the creative process you go through to complete a brief can go on to inform other projects in the future. It’s not something I like doing as an employee, and often leaves a sour taste when it’s not a ‘won’ project. With any business, there’s a feeling you’re being taken advantage of in having to work for free. I am much more in favour of requesting a ‘nominal’ fee to cover the creative time taken to produce pitch work, but understand that not every organisation has the luxury to pay these fees to a number of competing studios.

Another scenario would be that before the client looks to creative studios for work, they meet and speculate that their may be pitch work soon by conduct a round of preliminary discussions. This way, the client gauges how suitable a studio is to win a given pitch, and the time-waste factor is kept to a minimum for the ump-teen studios who don’t stand to gain a contract/project from the work.

It’s a very interesting discussion that won’t go away.

Secondly, if I can turn by baseball cap round for a minute, and look at this from a client ‘who is spending public money’ point-of-view then quite frankly, their hands are bound by regulation, rather than a desire to waste designers time and with it the ability to earn an honest living.

The decision on whether Origination pitches for a project is based initially on the content of the brief itself. If we find the brief to be concise, informative, appears to be factually accurate and creates a level playing field, then I’m confident our strategy and creativity will stack up against anyone. Therefore we will be in with a fighting chance of winning and probably continue the process.

On the other hand, if as we’ve found on the odd occasion recently, a brief contains elements that are inaccurate, unfair or disproportionate to the value of the project, then we politely decline and go again.

The mid-point for me would be for ‘agencies’ to respond to a tender opportunity, receive a brief in return and submit their credentials in such a way to best demonstrate their ability to meet the clients requirements. The client should then be willing to ‘pay a nominal fee’ to each selected agency, therefore demonstrating a willingness to commit on both sides from the start.

In answer to the Russ question we were all on paid time! Undertaking work that we felt was necessary to be FAIR from our perspective. If any of us felt we were ripping someone off we wouldn’t do it and I think such negative emotional remarks try to paint us as something we are not. One of the crucial rules for the public sector is that anything over £3000 has to go out to tender – the purpose of this is to prevent corruption i.e. deals with “mates” and the negatives that can come with this.

I have personally been involved in pitches from the delivery side worth many many millions of pounds. We had a simple metric for success, putting some science behind the win some lose some analogy. If you didn’t pitch you didn’t exist – the end.

Over the last 10 years we have worked with a variety of clients, across a range of projects – some of which we have pitched for and others whom have appointed us based on our approach & credentials.

If you are on client side, I think it’s fair & professional to short list after a credentials presentation and out of those, if you really need to see ideas, then ask 3 agencies to pitch strategy/creative IF the size of the opportunity warrants the time investment. For example asking 11 agencies to pitch creative for a £6,000 project is disproportionate, as if you collectively worked out the time those agencies have put in it would amount to over £22,000. ( taking an average of 4 days, so take an average of £2000 per agency)

In defence of the University of Derby, we have worked with the central Marketing Department and they do normally take this approach, inviting agencies which they feel are suitable for the project following credentials. So not quite sure what happened on this particular one.

Whilst we are talking of pitching, I felt it only right that I mention Bombardier’s pitch to Thameslink, which was I believe was over a 6 years period for them for a contract value 1.4 billion. That is a no doubt, a large carrot worth pitching for, and understand that it’s what their industry is used to doing – along with many others, the total investment to do that pitch was over 100 million pounds – so around 7% of the contact value. They made a business decision to go for it, there are other which they don’t go for. (So it’s not just our industry that pitch!). So on top of the horrendous decision by our British government that they have not currently being awarded the Thames Link contract, 1500 job losses, potentially ending our UK train manufacturing industry & they also have to account for all the time gone into bidding process. You can help try to reverse this decision by our government by visiting http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Thameslink-Protest/118345774919703

Pitching seems part of the world and for large accounts appointing the right agency is a huge decision for a Marketing Director – what produced is reflected directly on them, so it’s important that a process is gone through to find the right agency BUT it’s also important that the appointment process is done to best practice and proportionate to the value of the contract. And back to my first point, it’s important for agencies to decide how, if and what projects they go for.

A great topic for continued discussion.

Your blog explained your stance that you “respectfully decline” offers to pitch and went on to outline “we’ve lost work where we were in a prime position to win because we refused to put forward some free ideas” really tables my argument.

Let’s talk straight, with pitching you can either suck it up and get on with it or not. No one agency declining is going to make a jot of difference overall to this working practice is it? If you and your agency want to work on a certain brand/sector/client and that’s the way your prospect wishes to run the selection process then that’s what you’ve got to do. In fact in this current market I’ve noted lawyers, accountants and other professional services firms approaching our agency offering “to prove themselves” with no commitment of winning our business.

BCS has been running for 16 years following an MBO from the now WPP owned Grey Communications. From day one our strategy was always to pitch for work, but to try and ensure you had at least a 20% advantage in a pitch situation. Sometimes that easy through your network/past expertise/previous relationships etc. Sometimes you need to be a little more “creative” in gaining that edge. Oh yes, and sometimes you get it wrong – as I believe we were one of the ten you refer to in your first paragraph!

However, if you believe you are a strong competitor and your team are engaged and wants to win/work on a great piece of business. If you know that winning is going to enhance your agencies reputation and increase your fee income then you go for it. Massively. Insight, strategy, asset creation, campaign deployment, mock ups – the works.