Survey shows support for clients paying for pitch ideas

Peter Hay, prweek.com, 13 October 2009, 08:49am

Clients should pay for the pitch ideas they use, according to PR professionals polled in a survey organised by PRWeek.

Survey: PRWeek

Eighty-three per cent of respondents are in favour of the idea, according to the results. The poll follows the news last month that Confused.com paid agencies for the concepts they had pitched in spite of their not winning the account (PRWeek, 12 September 2009).

Only 13 per cent of the 158 people polled disagreed with the idea that they should be paid for their ideas following a pitch.

Furlong PR founder Ross Furlong said: 'The move by Confused.com is a step forward for agents used to being "pumped and dumped" in the horribly one-sided pitch process.'

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

All Comments

Tom Wells - 13 October 2009

Payment for pitches has been relatively accepted by more sophisticated clients for many years. However, both agency and client must make sure they understand what is actually being paid for. For example, is the client acquiring legal ownership of IP in the agency's pitch ideas, or merely contributing to the agency's time-costs? It's a tricky area - take competent advice.

Ben Cotton - 13 October 2009

Confused.com offering money for ideas is a step in the right direction.

The practice of agencies pitching against one another and nobody winning the brief, only later to discover that their ideas from the pitch have been implemented \(without recognition and payment) is theft.

It is vitally important for our industry that intellectual copyright is recognised and respected and more should be done to vilify perpetrators.

In the current climate stripping down parts of PR to very specific services such as just thinking time without implementation could be a bold, new business model that suits both parties.

Stephen Waddington - 13 October 2009

Clients might be in favour of payment for pitching when polled in a survey but the reality is very different. Why would a client pay when there are plenty of firms lining up to pitch for free?

The issue is the oversupply of PR agencies; for every agency that wants to charge there will always be an agency willing to pitch for free. As a result the cost of pitching is priced into an agency's overhead.

The only way this could work would be if the industry switched wholesale to a payment for pitching model under the campaigning leadership of an organisation such as the PRCA or PR Week.