Comments

That's the business. The CD takes credit for work and ideas that come from the AD. The AD take credits for the work performed by the production people. So of course an agency will take credit for the work done by partners and vendors. Its just how it goes.

Isn't it pretty obvious why they don't give credit? They want everyone to think that they're the ones that have done all the work when in reality, they farm out their ideas because they can't do it themselves.

I don't necessarily disagree with Ryan above. However, when you don't even bother to "share" the glory, you'll burn some very important bridges that could affect your business in the long run. Then again... "That's the business" and I bet another agency will be the hot topic next year. That's usually the trend.

Crispin is trying to build their own interactive group. That's becasue they've burned almost every top shop in the business and no one will work for them anymore. When it comes to credit they just plain lie.

I've seen cases where the agency farms out the concepting to propduction companies, it's called an open ended brief, or some bullshit and then takes all the credit. so it's rampant but it's dirty.

CP+B = KB+P

I dont think CP+B farms out concepting, though. We've worked with them before and they come with the concepts already figured out. They're just really tough to make stuff with because of their timelines and endless tweaking.

I think they farm ALOT out. Check this out: portfolio.barbariangroup.com. See anything familiar.

When I met them, I found them to be the most arrogant set of people I've come across in 10 years of being in the business.

Sure they do good work but it's not exactly curing cancer is it - so relax, check the ego and give the people who work hard for you some credit.

I know of 3 agencies who will never work with them again for a variety of reasons - and they're all good agencies with excellent reps.

Interesting to see that most of their MINI US work seemed to be a exact copy of the UK work created by WCRS & Cunning.

Oh well, what goes around comes around eh?

Regarding the offending bit of coverage in relation to CPB, I think it's worth noting that journalists often leave out key credits/details in their reporting. In the course of putting the spotlight on certain companies, others that are due credit are often inadvertently left out... which very well may be the case in this instance.

Actually, CP&B kinda is helping cure cancer....or at least curtail it. They partner with Arnold on all the truth work.

I've heard of people "winning" awards for work they never even touched (i.e. taking credit for a freelancers' work).

Thanks for the post -- I so agree about sharing credit. It takes a ton of people to build out these campaigns, and credit should be provided to everyone who contributes. It should be viewed as a collaborative effort between agencies and production companies, instead of a "farm out," in my humble opinion.

To pose another q: I’m curious as to how other groups deal with showing the work in a portfolio? As a creative and production partner for agencies, we (almost) always get credit for the campaigns we work on - and we assist with concepts, visual assets, executions, etc. But there are times when we are told that we can NOT show the work in our portfolio/reel (work-for-hire). This obviously becomes an issue if we are denied the ability to use our work to market ourselves – and can result in us passing on the work. Its rare, but it happens sometimes – generally with agencies that are incredulous with our need to show others work we have done. Thoughts?

If all these interactive shops are the brains behind the work, how come they can't make anything great without an agency. Yet the agencies like Goodby, Crispin, and some others seem to do great work regardless of who they work with.

I left the world of big agencies to start my own interactive design firm. Our little boutique partners with a lot of big agencies mostly because they don't want to keep interactive capabilities in house due to costs. The comment about "how come they can't make anything great without an agency" is really about the rolodex and the name. We could do larger scale projects with bigger initiaives, but getting in the door is tricky.

But sharing the glory rarely comes and we've learned to expect that until we can grow larger or steal the business. :)

Dave - Agencies like Crispin and Goodby put out good work bc they have great ideas. Sometimes, those ideas require a high level interactive/3D/Flash shop to get it done. An agency can always get their concept executed, but might not get it executed well - and the concept sinks. And there are varying degrees of responsibilities and roles for these engagements. Its not always as easy as "agency did concept" and "shop did production". Sometimes the outside shop does much more than make it functional and make it look pretty. A shared credit is not too much to expect for shared work, and the agency should allow the shops to show work you’ve done.

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:
(Will not display on site. Used for "Send me an email" option below)

URL:
Remember Me? Yes No
Comments: (HTML tags OK for style. URLs will auto-convert to links)

Send me an e-mail if anyone adds comments to this story

If even after clicking Post it seems to take forever for your comment to post, there's no need to click Post again. We're just blaming the problem on a mysterious, impossible-to-find bug we've stopped bothering to attempt to fix.