New online global marketplace helps agencies and creatives sell their ideas direct to clients
A new online advertising marketplace launched today will enable advertising agencies and creatives for the first time to showcase and offer for sale creative concepts that have yet to see the light of day as fully fledged ads.
www.creative-exchange.com offers a one-stop, online creative resource that agencies can use to market creative ideas that might have been left “on the shelf” because they have not been used by clients.
The service can be used to sell existing concepts or repurpose creative ideas for different clients and brands, not just in Australia but globally.
Buyers using www.creative-exchange.com can browse through a range of creative ideas and choose concepts that are ideal for their own purposes.
www.creative-exchange.com also helps agencies boost awareness of their creative talent – and all their other skills – among target audiences such as potential clients, the creative community, prospective employees and freelancers.
The service, which is a world-first Australian innovation, is fast,highly cost-effective and can work for agencies anywhere in the world,around the clock.
Describing www.creative-exchange.com as a long overdue aid for agenciesand clients, founder Vivian Greig (pictured) said the new portal had the capacityto offer ad agencies a real competitive advantage by using a new methodof “trading” creative ideas.
“It’s a fact of life in the advertising industry that, for variousreasons, many creative ideas never progress beyond the concept stageinto production as fully-fledged ads,” Greig said.
“However much creative departments object, their ideas can end up beingdiscarded because the client has decided on a different concept.
“But concepts that might not be right strategically, factually or intone for one client could be spot on for someone else – even overseas -which means there is almost certainly someone out there who will buythose unused ideas,” Greig said.
Potential buyers include clients who are between agencies, otheragencies (even within the same agency group locally andinternationally), conflict clients or advertisers who don’t want, orsee the need for, a full-service agency.
Endorsing the new resource, Belgiovane Williams Mackay associatecreative director Rocky Ranallo said: “This is a brilliant site for those ideas out there that really should be seen and for whateverreason have been shelved forever. It’s like a virtual bottom drawer.”
Managing director of creative agency One For All, Rob Willett, said: “Ican see creative-exchange.com changing the way agencies and clients dobusiness, to the advantage of both.
“Great ideas and work aren’t always the right solution for one clientbut may be for another. How many times have we seen great campaignsmothballed?
“Agencies pour enormous resources in to pitching to sometimes see thework only to see it wasted. creative exchange allow us to see what isout there and will be particularly valuable to creative agencies,” hesaid.
Greig said that www.creative-exchange.com also gave agencies theopportunity to grow revenues, and potentially profits, by selling ideasthey would normally have forgotten about, and by recouping valuablehead-hours spent on concepts that have not been used.
“The service also provides fast turn-around times, letting clients gettheir ads to market more quickly, which in turn means agencies can getpaid sooner,” Greig said.
Greig added that agencies could sell much more than just creative ideas on www.creative-exchange.com.
“Strategy documents, below-the-line material, even complete pitchesthat didn’t make it can be showcased on the site,” she said.
Among the many other products and services also available onwww.creative-exchange.com are music, such as unused jingles and otherdemos, research, stationery, logos, annual report and newsletterdesigns and web design.
In addition, agencies with any creative “downtime” can use it to workon new ideas for the clients they are targeting and display it to themvia www.creative-exchange.com
In addition, printers, production houses and dubbing and edit facilities can provide their services through the site.
Buyers of the www.creative-exchange.com service are charged asubscription fee, while sellers pay a small upload fee to display andon-sell agency material.
Copyright is retained by the seller.
Once the material – which can be anything from a PowerPoint document toa Mac art file or speaker rough – has been sold and paid forelectronically, www.creative-exchange.com simply forwards the funds tothe agency having deducted a commission fee.
It’s fast and easy.
In future, www.creative-exchange.com will also store work for internalagency use, and can create content libraries for inter-agency groupaccess.
“We tailor our service and have different levels of participation so wecan genuinely offer something for every agency, regardless of size orlocation,” Greig said.
38 Comments
It is a shame they have chosen such functional name. How much more effective would it have been with a simple one-worder like ‘hubris’?
Not to be confused with
http://www.creativeexchange.com/
Good to see someone trying to do something positive. Good luck.
As an industry, this should clearly concern us. Here are a few reasons why:
It completely undermines what we do.
How can we justify a large retainer to a client when they can log on and buy an idea for a quarter of the price?
We’ll be forced to compete on price, not quality.
It’s the stock photography of advertising.
One size doesn’t necessarily fit all, and it even undermines what we as an industry supposedly do. We find a truth about a certain product, a personality, or highlight a new feature and we explain that to the public. We don’t trick people into buying things, we entertain them.
What if this gets out?
Imagine this. If the public find out that Saab & Toyota go to the same website and just buy ideas that supposedly trick people into buying their products, instead of believing that when Toyota says ‘This is an amazing car, check out the features’ that message has come from Toyota.
Now. Are they ever going to believe anything Toyota say again? The public should believe the brand is talking to them, not the advertising, otherwise we fail to win their trust. It will actually increase consumer resistance to ads, the very thing we’ve worked so hard as an industry to break down.
Copyright issues.
Who owns the idea? The creative? The planner? The agency? The CD who knocked it back? Or the client who paid for the time that idea took to be developed, but for whatever reason rejected it? It’s double dipping and if I was a client, I’d be pissed off.
Plus, how many juniors are going to get absolutely shafted as soon as they show their books to anyone?
We lose revenue and quality.
No 5th level degrees in rocket science required here. Clients aren’t getting tailor made campaigns specifically crafted and slow cooked with their tastes and stomachs in mind, instead they’re getting the frozen dinner pack, reheated and dropped in front of them. Oh sure, it’s a great way to get those great ideas out there. But whoever buys it, isn’t really getting their message as it wasn’t tailored for them in the first place!
Imagine if products did it.
Imagine if Coke was selling Homebrand Cola with a Coke label. Toyota was rebadging Great Wall of China cars, but never told anyone for 3 years. Then, it gets busted wide open and everyone finds out. You find out your Toyota, is actually a Great Wall of China hunk of crap that has been marked up several thousand dollars. Would you be shitty? Yes! Will our clients be shitty? I’d hope so!
It turns agencies into agents.
Our only skill, as an agency, will be how well we can lunch, wine, dine & sell to clients. Because if every agency has access to everyone’s ideas, where is anyone’s point of difference? It will come down to agencies competing on price, disintegration of profit, loss of staff and possibly, if this takes off and any of us support it, fuck the industry right up the arse entirely.
I can’t see any reason why as an industry, we should support this, in fact I think we should boycott this, because in big picture terms it harms us far more than it will ever, ever help us.
SH
Hullooooo!! Just thought I’d pop up and say ‘Hi!’
“6. You agree that by submitting creative work to Creative-Exchange, you grant Creative-Exchange and its associates full ownership of and intellectual property rights to the submitted work for each country in which it is sold. ”
No thanks.
Interesting? How much are they paying?How do you stop stealing? How do you stop
clients getting the shits when they see their rejected idea working for someone else?
Why do the providers of the idea have to pay to show their work? Seems a very strange model.
Congratulations on a great innovation. Agencies, worldwide, will benefit as will freelance creative people – copywriters, designers etc – also strategic planners. Good luck!
Rocky, think about it. Then your salary. Then your mortgage. Then your kids.
You might have done yourself and others out of a job.
Kids, save those ideas. If they are as good as you think you will be able to use them one day in your career.
Ideas looking for a home.
Mmmmmmmmmmm.
So the strategy doesn’t matter.
Just find an idea you like and get the suit to sell it to an unsuspecting client.
What self respecting agency would go for this.
What self respecting client would buy it if they knew where it came from.
Welcome to the McDonaldization of creative.
It will prove to be equally bland, equally bad for the business.
Creatives rise up and strike it down; your integrity is at stake.
are you a junior? struggling to compile a great folio? them come to creative exchange where talent people post ideas for you to steel. Don’t worry about being busted, CD’s never have time to surf the net.
Also good for clients with no marketing strategy and little cash.
Since the agency owns the work (until the client owns the work if they have paid for it whether or not they use it) it is difficult to see who gets paid with this scheme.
Surely the creatives who come up with it while being paid by the agency wouldn’t try to get paid twice would they?
Call me a snob, Dave, but when you misspelll so many words, you look a little silly.
This might work if it was an honorable industry, alas, it is often not.
Creatives steal (some call it being inspired by) ideas from You Tube.
Clients steal agencies ideas during pitches and encourage a preferred agency to use it or elements.
Creatives steal ideas from other ads and re-jig a few components to clear copyright.
Having a handsome bottom drawer i would be reticent to parade it before the industry…although the urge to set it free and get money and kudos is very strong, that’s what you’re trying to tap.
You could argue that placing your bottom drawer
(which you really should have called it considering there is another creativeexchange.com) out for all and sundry to see, declares it squarely as yours.
But then tell that to the director that made the video that the Target brand ad ripped off…or was “inspired” by…
Anyway, i hope i’m wrong and you do well.
To the person with the inability to overcome bad spelling…
a. It’s spelled ‘misspell’ and
b. Some people have problems with spelling.
It can be an insurmountable condition. It doesn’t make one silly.
Now you know.
Unless you work for one of those wanky CDs who insist on “keeping their finger in” and repeatedly choose their own routes ahead of those from creatives younger and more talented, chances are your work has already been ruthlessly judged and found wanting. It is pure hubris that drives us to keep a bottom drawer. This idea is flawed from the start in that it appeals to our own conceit and vanity
in’t this like what PLUSH does/did to TVC production, with traditional production companies making the same type of response? why is that a good idea but this a bad one?
vested interest much? 😉
There’s no way this will fly. Clients own the work they’ve rejected and I can’t see them releasing it for re-use.
I have, for many years advocated a regular feature in the ad industry press – B&T, Ad News or Campaign Brief, showcasing rejected pitches and it’s always been rejected as too difficult, too political, too sensitive.
Yes, this has to be a belated (or early) April Fools joke.
Clients own the work unless it was a pitch the agency paid for. Retainers, head hours, whatever the fuck you want to call it, conflict of interest… you know… suit speak.
If it was a pitch the agency paid for, every agency I’ve worked for have re-pitched the idea to someone else – if it’s a corker, and usually when the opportunity arises or a really cheap version of it to win awards.
But generally, for example lets take a beer brief, you have different markets, the clients want to say different things and funnily enough, you present different creative, because, well, some clients like the taste of chicken and others prefer cow manure.
Nope this is nothing like Plush who are the collection agency for non disclosed commissions.
What makes you think we think Plush was a good idea?
hasn’t this been done before?
I’m sure I was given a t-shirt claiming the same sort of thing (and proclaiming the traditional agency is dead), about 18 months ago.
Rubbish Idea.
A previous blogger is correct. Unless it’s an unpaid pitch, the client’s own the ideas conjured up and presented while they paid fees to the conjurers and presenters. To resell the idea will make lawyers appear.
TIP: To keep the lawyers away though, anyone can steal from this “stockhouse” concept, then change an element here or there to keep it legal – something you’re regularly doing with stock photography now. Under that scheme you don’t have to pay for this service OR legal bills.
Thank you for expressing these concerns as it gives us the opportunity to explain the service more fully. We have covered many of the issues, and some additional ones, within the site but will now deal with your specific points.
Creative-exchange was never intended, nor is it positioned to, compete with full service agencies. Clients that can afford the many benefits offered by full service agencies will continue to use them. Proof of this exists as the clients you refer to have always had access to all of the products we have put forward but continue to support their agency/agencies. There is always value in quality and collaboration.
However, there are many SMEs that could benefit from advertising but don’t know where to begin to find an agency. Similarly, there are many smaller creative services available that could successfully trade if their access to small business was faster, affordable and easier. Imagine a small agency that does not have to use up its capital in long lead times, expensive pitches, bad debts or slow payers, changing briefs … it can actually make a profit using all of its existing resources.
There is transparency in our website, so I’m not sure what trickery you have been exposed to in your experience. In fact, there is no pressure or coercion involved in buying online at creative-exchange.com.
Lots of good ads reflect what the consumer identifies with but a client may not feel comfortable using it. It doesn’t mean the frozen idea wasn’t ‘carefully crafted, slow cooked’ and if the agency wasn’t paid for it, why shouldn’t they recoup their losses in another geographic market?
Copyright issues are probably the most important point you have raised. If the agency has employed a copywriter, the agency owns the copyright on the material the creative has presented on the briefs supplied. If the client has paid for a pitch, eg $10k to $20k on a pitch, then the client owns the pitch material. If the agency has waived the pitch fee, they retain ownership of the material. To use your rocket science example, hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on a pitch vs $20k on a pitch fee, perhaps the agencies will consider retaining and repurposing their work for another geographic market.
Selling versus shelving means you get revenue and sell the quality product your agency created.
We cannot predict the opportunities for repurposed work, but the internet opens the scope for agencies to showcase their entire portfolio in overseas markets.
Please feel free to explore the site. There is a subscription fee to use the service. It provides us with information on subscribers which in turn provides copyright information, assigned to the subscriber.
There is a 20% commission charged on work that is sold online although we encourage sme’s to go directly to the source, which cancels the commission.
If the site helps us all to understand what sells and just as importantly, what doesn’t, it can make the industry stronger.
There is great work out there and http://www.creative-exchange.com will celebrate it.
Finally, agencies should be able to justify their retainers. Many do so everyday. I hope the site does challenge the work to be better. There is plenty of talent out there and we intend to give them an opportunity to shine to everyone‘s benefit.
On your final point, clients read blogs too so they can answer your first sentence. All agencies are struggling and the smaller shops are disappearing to the detriment of the industry. We hope this service will give them a lifeline.
Sarah we would love to convert you to a fan of the site and hope your passion for the industry generates lots of ideas we can sell for you.
Vivian Greig
That’s very funny, then you wake up as the phone is ringing
and it’s your client’s lawyers.
Vivian,
A proper piece of creative, as you’d know from your time as a suit at The Campaign Palace Sydney, is a well-conceived answer to a specific brief. Which is itself developed as a result of an often exhaustive process of developing a strategy to address a specific marketing problem. A good ad is unique. It is not transferrable.
Advertising is not a one-size-fits-all product. Although I’ll admit from most of the rubbish we’re surrounded by these days, it often looks like it might be.
Recycling may be an admirable theme of modern life, but with very rare exceptions, advertising is not something you can put out in the yellow-topped bin, let alone get up once it’s been rejected, for whatever reasons, and re-sell.
And I think you have vastly underestimated the legal issues.
I’ve yet to meet a client who’ll admit he chose the wrong pitch and declare their idiocy publicly for a few dollars.
And woe betide any agency that tries to re-sell a rejected idea for one client to that client’s competitor. Even if they are in some other corner of the world.
With modern technology there’s nowhere to hide anymore.
In fact this business idea could spawn a whole new branch of the litigation industry, just watching your business like a hawk and waiting to pounce.
Normally i’ld agree with you Tim until i saw a Gorilla playing the drums to a phil collins track…insert product here. It seems, if you can think of an interesting visual and stick a product next to it with a very loose rationale…you will receive the trinkets and kudos that propels to lofty positions and pay cheques.
You could easily avoid the legal ramifications simply by creating ideas outside work hours and submitting them, but i still wouldn’t.
By all means let’s have a site for all those lovely ads that have been killed, often for the most ridiculous and spurious of reasons.
But it should be a museum, not a supermarket.
That gorilla playing the drums is the biggest load of emperor’s new advertising in recent memory. What a perfect example of off-the-shelf advertising. Insert product name here. What a load of bollocks. Pluck an idea out of the air regardless of its relevance. Yes, brilliant. What’s next on the assembly line? I’ve got it! A helicopter full of eels. Cracked it!
Shame on the industry for rewarding that sort of lazy nonsense by awarding it. Perhaps that just proves how shallow and irrelevant awards are.
But maybe that’s another topic for another time.
Or as those of us with the ability to differentiate between generic and specific advertising say (loudly), “OFF BRIEF.” Or “WHAT BRIEF???”
‘Tim’.
Every successful good idea has personal interest at its heart. This all sound way too rational and therefore unappealing. If you are asking people to give you their precious bottom drawers, don’t offer them money. Offer them emotion; a glimpse of glory and fame.
Like these guys: http://www.chipshopawards.com/pages/thechipshopstory
Cynic / Gorilla dudes…
While that ad may appear to be random and ridiculous, it came from a long crafted strategy, fit to the client.
The strategy wasn’t that unique (Chocolate makes you happy. Here’s an ad that makes you happy. Insert chocolate tagline). It could have been done for anyone. But the thinking that led to that ad was quite unique. A moment of happiness brought to you by the people who give you happiness. Yes you could have used it for anyone.
But nobody really had done that before.
I guess it’s reminiscent of an industry who puts creative execution above the thinking behind it, the psychology, the things that happen often before a brief hits the creative department.
Brilliant planning will never be replaced by great executions.
‘Tim’ you shmuck, that ridiculous gorilla increased Cadbury’s sales by 9%. You’re an utter fool. Sit down and shut up.
A troop of skydiving weasels it is then…um …er…for Mazda!
Zoom Zoom for pure joy.
(This highly crafted strategy brought to you by a legion of suits working in shifts)
There you go Vivian, first cab off the rank.
Don’t worry about the Mazda thing we can make it work for anyone. Wink Wink.
“Brilliant planning will never be replaced by great executions.”
Well, why don’t we just put Powerpoint presentations on TV?
Pretend Planner clown. There were many brilliant ads before there were planners. The best insights come from true creatives mate. Not from guys who fill in poerpoint preos and gain ‘insights’ from focus groups. BTW Gorillas is a brilliant piece of film. And eels in a helicopter is silly and shows how good you are.
I presume your planner jibes are directed at me, 10:40. You couldn’t be further from the truth. I am, or was, a copywriter who worked with distinction in the tawdry advertising business for almost 30 years. With top agencies in Australia and overseas. And I was – and still am – of the firm belief that while creatives supply the brilliance, someone else who has a better knowledge of the client, the product and the consumer supplies the insight. We are merely barristers who persuade the court of public opinion from the brief supplied by the lawyers who we call account handlers or planners. Geddit?
4:36, AKA ‘Tim’ (not his real name)
Stock photography (for concepts).
I’ve seen a couple of these companies crop up over time. For some reason they never seem to last very long. It all seems to make sense on paper, but I think the trouble is, there aren’t many genuinely good creative people in this industry, and the few who do come up with consistently brilliant ideas aren’t attracted to this business model.
At best. this is a company for very small tertiary tier marketing companies such as small pet food companies who until now have been awkwardly serviced by scam ads and the like.
Lynchy, how about an article about the outsourcing trend Bogusky keeps talking about in the US? I’d like to know whether I should cash it all in and open a chip shop in Kangaroo Valley.
Screw it, we’re all fucked:
http://industry.bnet.com/advertising/10001606/bbh-offers-just-1500-for-new-logo-design-creatives-infuriated/