Coffee shops don’t let you taste an entire coffee unless you pay for it. Can you consult multiple lawyers for legal advice and then pay only one? Do architects hand over their designs and blueprints unless you hire them? Then why is it that designers and agencies are often required to showcase free speculative work (‘spec work’) as part of the creative bidding process in new business pitches? Worse yet, why do they continue to do it? Is it not realized that a designer’s time (or any creative for that matter), is worth being paid for? If this is something you’ve heard as true, just don’t believe it. After all, this is not a new question.
Alas here is one agency willing to tackle this and in doing so has brilliantly answered this ongoing delima. Based in Toronto, Canada, ad agency Zulu Alpha Kilo Inc., has created this hilarious yet poignant video illustrating just how ludicrous ‘spec work’ is. Watch it to see the the reactions of real men and women (not actors), being asked to conduct or give their business in such silly way.
I love it and it’s why I will never do it.
