I’ve seen this idea pop up a few times in the last couple months, This new business model is indeed very simple. Lucky for them they had the foresight to claim that the project was So here’s why I HATE this idea: It’s the worst example of short Here’s why this is a bad idea, and it’s going to hurt all of us: a And last by not least, here’s why I’m so mad about this: seasoned Are we as an industry charging too much? In some cases yes. Are we So what do you think about this new, rising trend in creative
but this morning I was smashed over the head with it on twitter, with seasoned
vets discussing it like it was the wave of the future. The latest installment
of “creative professionals devaluing themselves for potential short term
gain” is taking place at Agency Nil (www.agencynil.com). First let me start off by
saying this isn’t a direct attack at the people over at Agency Nil, this is a
direct attack at every one of us in the Advertising/Creative Services industry,
myself included.
“Fill out a work request form”
specify”
you pay is that amount”
worth at least what it cost them to produce it, or they’d be in trouble more quickly.
sighted business thinking I’ve ever seen. You can’t walk into a McDonalds,
order a Big Mac, eat it and then tell the kid behind the counter “Ya know,
this was really only worth about $1.04, not $3.95, so that’s what I’m going to
pay you.” And there’s a reason you can’t do that. McDonalds knows that
while that Big Mac might have only cost them $1 to make, the value to you of
NOT having to make it is $2.95. (Yes these prices are totally made up,
but you get the idea).
group of creatives working this way starts to make the rest of us not working
this way look “over priced.” Congratulations, you’ve succeeded in
forcing us to compete with each other at the lowest common denominator, price.
You know what else competes solely on price? Corn, pork bellies, coal, gold.
That’s right, commodities.
industry vets and teachers should be ashamed of themselves for encouraging
this. You’re encouraging young professionals to consider their skills (the
thing most of them have paid tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to learn
and hone) worthless. Worse yet, this devalues the work that interns are doing even more and makes it less likely to get paid even minimum wage for their time. This IS a slippery slope, competing on price always is.
More work for less money now will NOT lead to more work for more money later. It always leads to more work for even less money later. While
working as a designer without a degree I had to deal with this devaluing of my
work because I didn’t have a piece of paper all the time. It’s demoralizing. You work hard, wrack your brain and do something people think is awesome, BUT when it’s time to talk about increasing your rate (or in some cases, paying the bill at all), it’s not THAT awesome. This model just extends
that impression include everyone now degree, experience, past clients it doesn’t matter, current client is setting the price. What’s the incentive they have to pay more than it cost to produce?
as an industry in need of a new model? It couldn’t hurt IF it’s well thought
out. But being the lowest bidder isn’t going to make you rich or
more successful (and the promise of doing work for your portfolio is a
tired excuse at best. Here’s a secret, you can take those skills and do
whatever you want with them, and put that in your portfolio, for free and without client headaches.)
services? Let’s hash it out in the comments 
