This is a much-discussed concern in the marketing world.  Agencies and their clients are forever engaged in this dance.  Agencies want and need new business opportunities,  but have to be careful about investing resources in developing new creative concepts and ideas that might not lead to paying work.  Marketers want and need an opportunity to evaluate agency talent.

Let’s first dispense with the  ugly truth about this:  nobody owns an idea.  There are only two ways to protect an original idea.  One of them is to keep it a secret.  That’s not very helpful in a new business pitch, obviously.  The other is to only disclose it after you have a written promise that it will stay confidential. But this is just one of the practical steps agencies can incorporate into their business processes to deal with this issue:

– Enter into a nondisclosure agreement.  Many agencies are reluctant to broach this with existing or potential clients.  It can be awkward.  I get it.  Try to get over it.  A simple, straightforward agreement that acknowledges the ideas and concepts you disclose are yours, and stay confidential unless you agree otherwise, is completely reasonable.  And you can, and should, soften the blow by agreeing to make the confidentiality mutual – both agency and client keep all information exchanged secret.  If the client will not sign it (and some will flat-out refuse, or, ironically, require that only you sign one), and the risk of disclosure is a reasonable one for your agency, that’s a perfectly valid business decision as well.  Just make it with open eyes.

– Reduce your work to physical or electronic form.  Copyright law can be helpful to you in these situations, but it only protects original creative work that is reduced to some type of tangible form of expression.  Use storyboards, written proposals, computer models, video, and the like to embody your work.  You own copyright in these materials as soon as you create them.  Place copyright notices on these materials – they are an excellent, and effective form of public notice of your claimed ownership in the work.

– Negotiate an up-front ownership arrangement.  This is, of course, not as easy as it sounds.  But increasingly, marketers are recognizing the value of addressing this issue proactively by negotiating up-front stipends in exchange for ownership of the intellectual property disclosed in a pitch.  The fees are not usually large, and most times they will not make an agency whole for the amount of resources invested.  What they are, however, are a way of expediting an agreement on the ownership question early and avoiding ugly surprises.  The agency can then make an informed business decision about moving ahead.

What are some of the ways you’ve addressed this issue in a business pitch?