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What to bill...

We have recently been asked to design and produce a new print ad campaign for a national brand. It is a retail client - 36 stores across the US, with billings of $75 - $100 MM. (Private company, no figures available)

This is outside our normal client or project base. The campaign is being tested in one market in April. Does anyone have any advice on pricing it?

Thanks Natalie Gerngross

What is your normal scope of service? What print ad work have you done in the past? How does this compare? Then, based on what experience you have, what are you able to offer in actual market value? If you believe the end product will be of the highest quality and command a high market value, even though you could produce it - based on size and overhead, etc - for less --- go for the big bucks. A client gets what he pays for. I don't know if your current pricing is reality based on hours needed to deliver a good product, or the value of that good product and what your local market will bear.

If it's one ad, and you don't have to do any research, brand development or the like... If the message is clear, and you are simply executing a clever ad that hits the right message to the right target, I would suggest approximately $7,500 in fees. BUT AGAIN: location, size, market, and what your client is used to paying all play a part in that pricing.

It could easily go to $15,000 - or if they are used to national campaign pricing - $20 - 25,000. Craziness.

But we are a small, 15-person agency in Columbus Ohio. For ONE ad, even though its a national client, we would probably stay in the $7,500 range, depending on how much information they give you to go on. It's the strategic development and core message development that can eat up a bunch of hours. If you can nail that, the concepting and ultimate design should come easily.

Shelley Holloway

It is extremely difficult if not downright impossible to accurately estimate the cost of an entire campaign before you even concept it, especially if you don't have a budget to work toward. It really really helps if you can get a realistic budget out of the client before you start estimating. How much have they spent in the past on a project like this? Even if they lowball the numbers, it gives you a rough idea of what you have to work with.

If a client has to have a number, do the best you can and fill it with disclaimers pertaining to number of ads, art/photography/illustration costs included, number of sets of materials, shipping, etc....

We also separate the campaign into parts and then estimate the parts. We found that it's easier to estimate that way and also easier to track. A "Concepting" job is opened first and also a research/development job if necessary. The concepting job would include all time (creative and account service) through an approved concept(s). Then we estimate actual production time (after approved concepts) per ad. Your major hours are going to be spent on concepting and that's harder to evaluate, but easier when you separate the concepting time from production time.

For the concepting job, look back over some of your jobs and get a feel for what it takes for your particular creatives to do one ad, estimate how many ads will be included in this campaign, do the math and then bump it up by about 20%. If you don't know how many ads are going to come out of the campaign, make sure you have ample disclaimers on the estimate. And then track your time closely and produce change orders if necessary. We also open a separate job for art & retouching and estimate this separately. We have found it's just easier to work it this way since most of the art is shared between the ads and most of the retouching is done at the same time. Makes accounting much simpler also.

In my experience, hours expended on concepting always exceed my estimates. I try to estimate as accurately as possible, but the client is only going to buy off on so much. The rest you just have to eat.

Good luck.

Mary McMurtrey