Over the next week, if you visit the website of any leading design or advertising agency in Belgium, you’re likely to find a white screen and message that looks something like this:
A spec work manifesto?
Interesting stuff. Seems a group of Belgian advertising and design firms have banded together in a ‘virtual strike’ to protest spec work (speculative pitches in which the agency or designer performs an entire unpaid design gig, in the hopes of getting selected FOR the gig). The websites are linked together, and each ‘page’ of the online manifesto takes you to another participating website (the image above is the introduction). The HTML title tags of the websites now state “Website Closed“. You can start reading about the campaign on the Ogilvy (Belgium) website.
The online protest was organized by some outfit called ACC (the Association of Communication Companies), a self-regulating body whose goal, at least according to their mission statement, is to “upgrade, promote and defend the profession (creative communication)”. At issue here is our old bugaboo spec work, more specifically protection for the unpaid intellectual property involved and companies ignoring an earlier agreement that limited the number of firms participating in high-profile spec pitches. It’s a noble effort, but unlikely to have much in the way of resonance with anyone BUT people already in the choir, as is usually the case with any anti-spec initiative. There’s the usual push-back too, with some quarters accusing the participating agencies as ‘whining”.
Worthwhile effort or publicity stunt?
Arguably, the virtual ‘strike’ is a publicity stunt (I would have thought a good one too) but so far, the mainstream media has been relatively silent about the effort. Will it have much of a impact? It’s unlikely, but have to applaud participating firms for putting their ‘virtual’ money where their mouth is, even though the real impact on their actual bottom line is probably pretty minor. Don’t think many of these players, Ogilvy and Saatchi for example, get much in the way of surf-in business. Also gotta give them kudos for managing to get so many design firms and advertising agencies, competing ones at that, on board. At the same time even. Organizing creative types is notoriously difficult, and has often been referred to as ‘herding cats’.
Who’s participating?
Decent turnout for a relatively small European country. Participating agencies include VVL BBDO, Boondoggle, Famous, Punta Linea, LDV, AIR, N-BBDO, Saatchi, Open Here, Fe Online, Kunstmaan, Bubka, Polygone Group, Tagora, Mccann-Lowe, JWT, LBI and Ogilvy.
Related posts:
- SXSW ’09: Is spec work evil?
- Defending crowdsourcing & design contests. The platitudes of spec work.
- Snippets: Crowdspring to offer spec writing, NEA holds a spec work contest & other news
- Snippets: The crowdsourcing, writing on spec & design contest follies edition
- The Politics of a Spec Design Pitch
I prefer what these guys are doing: http://www.threeview.com
Advertising agencies out-muscle and bully smaller agencies. They need to realize that the rules of the game are different now.