FAQs - Business
- Why should my company hire The Ad Diner/Catered Creative?
- But I already have an agency, why should I hire another one?
- Who are these agencies?
- How does it work?
- What kind of project can I use with Catered Creative?
- Are these produced, complete campaigns?
- Who will finish the ideas into the final form?
- How much does it cost?
- Can I change the parameters?
- Who owns the ideas when the process is completed?
- Am I involved in selecting the agencies to participate?
- Will the agency know who we are?
- Is there a non-disclosure agreement?
- Will your selection process make sure we don't work with agencies that do work for our competitors?
- How quickly does the process take?
Catered Creative does two things for your business, it allows you to get new, fresh ideas for your specific needs for a very reasonable price. The second thing is it creates an easy, hassle-free selection process that introduces you to a new creative company (or companies).
The agencies participating in Catered Creative aren't necessarily trying to replace your current agency. It is common for larger companies to work with smaller agencies that supplement the work of their national agency. This can be for project work, or perhaps an orphan brand–brands that don't get as much attention as the main brand, or just to get some new ideas into the pipeline.
When we refer to small agencies, we are actually referring to small and medium-sized agencies, typically from 8 to 80 people. These are generally agencies that have local and regional accounts, or their national accounts are smaller companies. They may do work for divisions of bigger companies. Most of these agencies are independently owned.
But don't let their smaller size fool you. Some of the best strategic thinking and creativity can come from these smaller shops. We have national award-winning agencies participating in Catered Creative.
What makes a lot of these agencies attractive to larger companies is that they really want to impress you. They will work hard to give you better work than you've ever seen before. Plus, they are used to working with smaller budgets, so they know how to make a smaller budget work harder for you.
The Ad Diner/Catered Creative company will work with you to determine the project parameters and write up a creative brief. We will then select eight agencies to work on concepts and ideas for you.
Our Catered Creative team will give these agencies the necessary information to develop the ideas. We will act as the conduit between you and the agencies, so you aren't inundated with repeated questions. (For the most part you can sit back and relax as we take care of things for you.)
You will then be delivered a bound book (printed and in pdf form) that contains all the ideas. (Each agency will submit one to three ideas, so you will receive a total of eight to 24 ideas.)
You agree to choose at least one idea to purchase. (You can purchase more if you like.) You also agree to meet with the agency(s) whose idea(s) you selected so they can give you a capabilities presentation.
Anything that you want. We will select the agencies to participate based on your criteria. It could be just to see some ideas for your main product. It could be ideas for a new product launch. It can be as specific as a new point-of-purchase display or as encompassing as general new ad campaign ideas.
No, these are creative ideas only. You will receive a rough pencil drawing and a one page description.
When you purchase the idea(s) you purchase the copyrights to the idea(s) and can do with them whatever you want. You are not buying anything beyond the concept, so all production costs after that is separate. More than likely the agency submitting the selected idea will try to convince you that they should also finish the project and create the final ads when they meet with you in person. This is up to you whether you want to hire them to do that or not. (And it is also up to the agency, you would need to work that out between the two of you.) Remember, you are only purchasing the ideas through Catered Creative, not finished ads or materials.
The Ad Diner charges $2,500 to administer the program. You also agree to purchase at least one idea, with a recommended price of $2,500. (So the total investment would be $5,000.)
If you find that you like more than one idea, you can purchase as many ideas as you like. For each one, you pay the same amount again. So if you select two ideas, your total investment will be $7,500 ($2,500 Catered Creative fee + $2,500 for the first selected idea + $2,500 for the second selected idea = $7,500.)
We will ask you to pay the administration fees and for one selection in advance and if you select additional ideas, pay for those at the time of your selection. (We want to be able to pay the agencies right away.)
Yes, you can add more agencies, add more money to the kitty, etc. We can work with you to customize a program for your needs, but we insist that we stay away from it being a "contest" and really concentrate on giving select agencies a chance to show you what they can do.
Any of the ideas that you pay for, you own. You are purchasing all rights to those ideas. You can do with them whatever you want. The ideas that are not selected (and not paid for) remain the intellectual property and copyrights of the agency that created them.
No, not exactly. We will work with you to help define what type of agency you are looking for, but ultimately to keep anonymity, we will be the ones choosing the agencies for you. We can give you a synopsis of the participants in a general description but we don't give you the actual names. You can also let us know in advance if there are any agencies that you want to make sure are not invited to participate.
That's up to you. You will approve the creative brief before we send it to the selected agencies.
We will have all agencies that participate sign a non-disclosure agreement before participating. You can also submit your own non-disclosure agreement (either in your name or substitute our name as your agent) that we can use.
During the agency selection process, we can ask questions about their current and past clients to eliminate any conflicts of interest. We can do it in a way where they are asked about enough different companies that they cannot infer who we are actually talking about.
Once we get the creative brief written and approved, we recommend putting a two week time limit on the process. Less than this and you may not give the agency enough time to work on it. We would also suggest limiting your selection process to two weeks after you receive the ideas.