It’s a long-standing quirk of the creative industries that we can sometimes be persuaded to give our work away for free. But the pitch that is a ‘creative beauty parade’ is a pernicious practice that not only devalues our skills and undermines the creative industry, but leads to clients devaluing their own challenges by placing so little value on reaching the right solution.

The culture of providing services without charge is deeply entrenched in the creative sector, but why?

Well, regrettably, many businesses buying creative work don’t really understand the process or the outputs – or often even the challenge they are asking for help to solve. It can perhaps feel like a risky exercise because if they brief an agency and don't like what they get back, they’re no closer to their goal.

But the buyers of creativity aren’t just the issue. At the heart of this, all agencies need to win work. And if you refuse to take part in the creative pitch beauty parade, you may risk missing out to an agency that will pitch for free. So there’s a fear of the potential financial implications of taking a stand.

However, deciding not to pitch is short-term pain for long-term gain. It’s challenging the status quo in order to generate long-lasting value.

We all know (and I think our clients know) that creatives are so passionate about producing aesthetically pleasing work because their mentality is ‘why wouldn't you?’ But this approach feeds into a fundamental issue with some clients’ perception of the value of creativity: that it is somehow ‘not real work’ or that it's a ‘privilege’ to work in this sector or on ‘my brand’.

Yet there's a difference between a beauty parade and creating beautiful, creative work that is impactful and drives a business forward. That isn't about privilege, it's about smart, creative thinking and problem-solving - and that level of rigorous insight shouldn’t be given away for free. In fact, you’d be foolhardy to do so because of the level of effort you would have to put into it. And clients would be foolhardy to ask for it.

After all, when a business asks an agency to pitch, they’re essentially hiring the services of a creative team of professionals. Whether they win or lose that pitch, they’ve still committed their time, energy and resources to that process. If the agency is doing this out of their own budget, they’ll be operating at a loss – I’m pretty sure that’s bad for business and indeed no client would do this themselves. Furthermore, people only value what they pay for. So, regardless of the effort invested - if the client doesn't pay a penny, chances are they won't value what you’ve created anyway.

The cost is clear: providing work against a tight deadline, with minimal briefing, and little to no user insight or client collaboration, creates a woefully skewed impression of what it takes to create great work - grossly devaluing you and your creative endeavours.

More than a quick fix

In fact, there are inherent dangers in marketers and their procurement teams using the creative pitch as their selection process. If the brief is for a new brochure or logo, an agency might agree to do that for free because they think they can - fairly quickly - produce something attractive and they’ll win the work. They’re giving the client the quick fix solution that they've asked for (and think they need) but because they’re not digging deeper into what they truly need businesses are likely to end up with superficial solutions that temporarily disguise their real problems, rather than meaningful results that would drive their organisations forward. It’s lose-lose. Neither side gives it the thought that it deserves, which damages working relationships and long term value.

And a successful project requires close collaboration, so the creative team understands the organisation and its challenges. We know about brand and problem-solving, but clients know about their businesses. The best ideas are when those two parties work together. The team can then come up with an idea and a solution - and after that they can start making the idea come to life. You can't just leap to that end frame. And if you do it will be a shallow solution, not a deep meaningful one that will drive change. Besides, now AI is here, those shallow solutions could be even shallower than ever before.

Just say no!

Unfortunately, the problem is perpetuated by a willingness of the creative industry to engage in this practice. Organisations only ask people to do things for free if they continue to do things for free!

My advice? Try just saying no. Or at least explain why it’s not a good idea and what the benefits are to a different approach. No good can come from giving your work away. Not paying for creative thinking, design or even art has been damaging the creative industries for decades – eroding the real value that we bring, commoditising what we do and meaning that we can’t properly invest in talent or our futures. If you pitch for free, you’re fuelling the problem. In my experience, when you inform clients upfront that you aren’t prepared to do it - and educate them on the reasons why - only around 5% lose interest.

Clearly, it’s difficult, particularly when you're starting out, to say ‘no, we're not going to get involved in any of that,’ because you want to get your business off the ground. After all, not many established businesses can say hand on heart they haven’t had the odd lean month where free pitching looked like a good idea. But the world can’t be made perfect overnight. You could always strike a compromise, such as being paid 50% of the fee to create the pitch, with the remaining 50% payable afterwards, if the work is used. Creating a process that explains why free pitching isn't the right course of action - and perhaps meeting organisations halfway, so that they're at least contributing something towards it –should mean they take the creative process more seriously. And perhaps if we all start to take a stand and educate on why it’s not right, we’ll be able to stamp out free pitching altogether. I’m also hoping that the younger generations, more aware of the value of their creativity, will just say no and think we were all crazy for ever doing it in the first place.

But the established businesses need to lead this. Because if we keep doing it, that doesn't give new ventures any chance at all. We owe it to our industry, and to the small agencies coming through, to stand up for them and their value and create different expectations for the future. More importantly, we owe it to our clients to show them that there is a better way to work, so they can get the best results for their businesses and the best return for their investment.