Confused.com offers three PR pitch losers cash for their ideas

Matt Cartmell, prweek.com, 12 September 2009, 11:47am

A trio of top PR agencies have been offered 'cash for ideas' after being eliminated from a high-profile pitch process.

Cash for pitch ideas: Confused.com

Confused.com this week concluded a six-way pitch for consumer PR support, by appointing Cake.

But the price comparison website then surprised some of the losing agencies by also offering to pay for their creative.

Agencies taking part in the pitch included Borkowski, Hill & Knowlton and The Red Consultancy.

Confused.com PR manager Kelly Davies said rather than being passed over to Cake, the ideas would be used by the in-house team, which will continue to focus on the personal finance pages.

Davies revealed that one of the agencies approached declined to sell its ideas. She said she was ‘working out the details’ about how much the other two agencies would be paid.

Trade body the PRCA, which has formed a working group to protect agencies’ intellectual property, welcomed the unusual move.

PRCA communications director Richard Ellis said: ‘When an idea is inspirational, it has a value beyond the time spent on it.’

Davies said Cake’s brief was to ‘take Confused.com off the money pages and on to the consumer pages’.

She added that broadcast media and consumer magazines would also be targeted. Cake associate board director Michele Newberry said: ‘We’re looking to develop an overall strategy across PR, experiential and digital outreach.’

PRWeek previously reported that Confused.com’s pitch process was initiated via Twitter, in what was dubbed the first-ever PR ‘twitch’ (PRWeek, 22 May). Ironically, Cake did not join the pitch list via Twitter – Davies contacted the agency separately.

Confused.com previously used finance agency Polhill Communications. Cake has been appointed for an initial one-year contract.

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All Comments

Carole Scott - 17 September 2009

Credit all round to Confused.com on this. It's definitely the way forward in handling what happens post-pitch. Does the PRCA or CIPR have a 'pitch process' category in the annual awards?!

ROSS FURLONG - 17 September 2009

A step forward for agents used to being 'pumped and dumped' in the horribly one sided pitch process. An industry standard pre-nuptial for pitches might even things up, has the PRCA got one?

Hannah White - 22 September 2009

Fair play by confused.com - great to see a client recognising the hard work and value of fantastic ideas that are given away at pitch presentations.

Sarah Kent - 23 September 2009

The PR industry has long debated the issue of whether we should charge for pitches, but unless there is buy-in from every single PR outfit in the country, the idea is unworkable.

This recent move from confused.com is encouraging - at best it may encourage other companies to follow suit; at worst it at least highlights the fact that ideas presented in pitches have value in their own right. But the practice does pose two fundamental questions. Will agencies want to sell their concepts to be implemented by someone else and, if they do, how will the value of those concepts be calculated? It will be interesting to see how confused.com and the agencies involved reach an agreement on the value of a campaign, before the success of that campaign is known.