Battleplan Creative

Communications with Purpose

I'm a Creative, not an Investment Banker!

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Occasionally I’m asked to jump in on speculative pitches for work. Often these are based around design – a number of different concepts are worked up and presented to a prospective client, along with a spiel on how and why the concepts were created.

These types of pitches seem to be par for the course working in creative services, but they have never sat easily with me.  Years ago I was negotiating a PR contract with a potential client.  They were happy with our credentials, impressed with our client list and confident that we were the right company for them,  then they asked if we’d work for free for a month before signing contracts – just to prove ourselves. [Read more…]

caring and sharing….

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My mum & dad obviously did a good job in dragging me up as (for an only child) I’m a great believer in sharing.  I’ve often thought that if hard cash were not the currency of choice in our modern world then I’d happily do what I do for free – *Pauses* – Let’s be absolutely clear here, I don’t do what I do for free but neither am I so miserly that I’d refuse even to talk to someone unless I thought there was ‘something in it for me’.

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Feeling slighted….

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Rejection. Never something to relish but, sadly, a necessary part of working in PR… you write an article or opinion piece and try to syndicate it to relevant publications to gain profile for your client, or for yourself. Sometimes, despite you feeling all zeitgeisty and flooding with confidence, the product of your tapping digits is rejected or, if it’s done nicely, not considered ‘relevant’ for the readership. It all amounts to the same thing – a big fat NO that sends you scurrying back to that little safe place where you try and persuade yourself that it’s not you, it’s them and they’ll be crying into their decaf rooibush when they see it placed elsewhere and realise with crushing clarity that they’ve just done the literary equivalent of Simon Cowell turning down the Spice Girls.

It happened to me this week, I’d just finished writing a piece about ‘The Female Future – a New Business Model’. My focus was on the Print industry, which is where I spend a good chunk of my time, but the points raised had a much wider application. I had fun writing this, it was factual, well researched and pertinent (if I say so myself) and more than that I was excited by it. “This is it” I thought to myself as I sent it off to the the publishing editor, “this is going to start a progressive discussion that might actually bring about positive change.” “Ha-de-Ha-Ha” any cynical onlookers would have thought, “here comes a living illustration of the fabled fall following the pride.”

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