
Spotted:
The Belgian communication agencies carrying out a virtual strike to protest again unfair competitions.
Protest was denouncing the unfair practise of more and more brands that didn't respect the existing agreement about how to call communication agencies for competition in Belgium. Fact is unfair practises are more and more common in many countries, and crisis has emphasised it: no financial compensations for the loosers, a crazy number of competitors, year-lasting competitions, competitions that stop after months of work and fine-tuning (fine-tuning??!) without a word to the agencies, work you've done for a competition you lost that finally turns out to have been given to a cheap freelance designer to finish the work without your permission, etc.
That's the reason why the Belgian agencies have stroken during one week early February 2010. 14 agencies jointly decided to "close" their website and present the visitor a part of their open letter; each agency has a part of that letter on their website; to be able to read the entire open letter, you had to jump from an agency website to another.
This is a première in our milieu that deserves to be relayed. I say "Congratulations guys" for your courage to do so above all in crisis time. And congratulations to the 14 agencies to manage sticking to their guns and not letting down the others because of sirens of clients-to-be!
Source: DesignFax n°298