Belgian ad agencies band together to protest ruthless pitching

The ad agency sector as well has not been spared from the economic crisis—on the contrary.  Last year was a difficult year, with many lay-offs, mass pitches, and immense cost pressure. Many contractors used and still use the economic crisis as a killer argument to continually push prices further down, and pitches for little or no money are no rarity.

Following an initiative of the ACC (Association of Communication), reputable Belgian agencies banded together in a one-week virtual strike to protest this crassness. Some 20 ad agencies, among them BBDO, Ogilvy& Mather, Saatchi& Saatchi, McCann-Lowe, Polygone, and JWT have closed down their websites as  signs of protest, instead each displaying a different section of a joint protest letter on their homepages. The letter starts on famous.de and continues through all participating websites. The spokesman of the strike is designer Hugo Puttaert, founder and owner of Vision Factory.

In their protest letter, the agencies criticised the lack of compliance with the ethical code for fair pitches that was once established by the ACC and the UBA (Association of Advertisers). According to the agencies, now often more than ten agencies are pitched against each other instead of the originally intended three. Today's pitches, so the complaint, are a pure waste of energy and money and ultimately harm the client : Instead of channelling their creative energy to the existing, paying customers, agencies are forced to invest a great deal in the pitches—a process by which the client becomes a victim.  In their letter, the agencies urge clients to again take the ethical code seriously and also call on the agencies to deliver already existing clients what they are paying for:  the best possible work.

Further information at:
famous.be and www.visionandfactory.com/index.php/Be_hard_to_get