As we are a Creative Ideas Agency we are constantly pondering what we should be charging for our ideas, I know clients are vexed by how much they should pay or have to pay for creative input. But perhaps this is not the right question. Shouldn’t the question be – what is a great idea worth? A colleague of mine was once selling an idea into an upmarket holiday company who were quibbling over the £5,000 creative development fee. He nipped the argument in the bud by reminding them that they only needed to sell one holiday package to pay for this. So possibly we agencies should match price to potential payback. Over the thirteen years that Guerrilla has been in existence we certainly would have made a lot more money.
Wake up to the ROI
I think we charged Great Eastern £3,000 for this idea. Based on an insight that we all fall asleep on the train at some time or other, we created a seasonal talking point that delivered a 3 to 1 ROI on the total spend in terms of extra sales and over £10 million worth of positive PR coverage including prime time TV, national and local radio and press.
Selling up with a little help from Tim
Our clever campaign for Slazenger re-creating Tim Henman’s face in tennis balls alerted a potential buyer to the power of the brand. I am not sure what was paid for the brand but I can guarantee it was a multimillion pound return on investment.
In reality an idea is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. That should be based on the potential business benefit, which in theory will be reflected in the project budget.
One thing is for sure a really good idea is worth much more that a bad one – or worse still none at all.