That way, they will be forced to do their homework a little bit better. And if they do go through with it, the pool of pitchers will remain small and will probably be a lot more constructive.
If a potential client is not willing to pay for a pitch upfront, he has to realize that he will indirectly be paying a lot more later as his agency will somewhere have to recuperate the costs of all the pitches that were not won.

Ik ben dus van mening dat ze pitchen helemaal moeten afschaffen. Het is dus geen kwestie van al dan niet pitchen voor een klant. We moeten er gewoon mee stoppen ! Je gaat je bureau voorstellen and that’s it. De mensen, je organisatie, je portfolio moeten voldoende zijn om een klnt te overtuigen. Al de rest moeten ze maar betalen. Dan kunnen we ons concentreren op bestaande klanten, meerwaarde bieden enz. Echt belachelijk dat we soms moeten pitchen voor een budget van 5k. Noem me ??n industrie op waar ze zoveel effort moeten steken in presales ??
Het charter is niet de oplossing. Redelijkheid wel !! en onze sector is niet meer redelijk

my 2 cents

thanks for your feedback, we’re getting somewhere.

First point: not running an agency. Fair, I’m not. I did work in an agency though, and had a pretty responsible role there. Just to say, I know something about the functioning of agencies.
But leaping from there to “we don’t have a choice” is one bridge too far according to me. You do have a choice, even more, you do have control!

Bear with me for one moment, and follow this train of thoughts. Suppose you have a choice

a) spend 1 million (gross / commercial value) euro a year on pitches, lot of them unrealistic / following the scenario ACC is battling against, losing the majority of them, winning one big client,
b) choice wisely and spend the same effort on realistic pitches, walk the extra mile, serve your existing clients extraordinary (maybe they won’t put you in pitch next time), win 2 major account in the process doing it, don’t feel frustrated

I know this is theory, but just imagine what better things you can do with the energy wasted on unfair pitches you nowadays CHOOSE to enroll in?
I’d say a lot.

More, talking about job security / income .. I’d say the complete opposite of what you’re saying: saying yes to unfair pitches jeopardizes job security. Agencies are getting way to expensive because of that. To compensate for the loses, the real clients have to make up (I’m not saying they’re sucked dry because of that, but this is clear business logic, right?). This means everybody looses.

BTW: you call saying no arrogant? I call saying yes arrogant! If 10 parties are invited, do you really think, as a default, you can win the pitch? That’s arrogant! The truth is, you make a chance winning it, like the others, that’s why they asked you for a pitch and didn’t gave you the account.
There obviously are ways to say no. You can explain, tell it’s not feasible, and yes that you care about your people and you might harm them by enrolling. They’ll understand. Or you could go to the press, make a big fuzz about it, praise yourself. Yes, they might call you arrogant in that case, because you are.

Talking about a union: you’re absolutely right, but why don’t agencies respect the union? It’s up to them, not the client. They can ask what they want, it’s about how the agencies react to these questions. If they systematically say no, clients won’t bother asking anymore.

You (client) can ask the architects (agency) to design the house for free. Guess what, they’ll say get lost. They, as in agency, not client. I agree with your example, but not with flipping the logic around.

So no, I don’t see any reason why agencies can’t say no. Other than that they’re afraid of loosing income (valid reason) but, as I tried to explain above, I believe that’s a fallacy.

That said, I agree with an action to build awareness with clients, but I don’t think this is the right way. As Christian is saying above: stand strong and don’t put yourself in a weak position. You’ll lose!

ACC is not whining at all. They do what they’re supposed to. See it as a union. If you’re at work and you’re boss is rowing against the rules, it can be dangerous to stand up against him on your own. That’s why there are unions. That’s why there is something like “sociaal overleg”. It’s pretty damn frustrating to have all members agreed on a charter and than seeing that they don’t act accordingly. Som?etimes they have no clue of what it takes to organise a pitch.

This is very unusual, you know. Try it yourself: build a house and ask 10 architects to design it for you. For free. (And then pick the one who’s married to your cousin.)