Treatment Considerations
The Artist Management Association created this resource in order to foster transparency, fairness, and collaboration between brands, agencies, artists and their representatives throughout the treatment process, as well as to ensure a productive and respectful engagement for all parties involved.
Relevant details to have when discussing a treatment
All shoot details including: Date, Agency/Brand, Agency/Brand Producer(s), Agency/Brand, Creative(s), Treatment Budget, Treatment Due Date, Review Call Date, Shoot Location, Schedule, Project Budget, Deliverables, Project Usage Specifications, Union/NonUnion Talent, Talent Specs/Usage.
Questions to consider as you work on your treatment and discuss with your artist and client.
Is there a budget for this treatment?
Is this a Triple Bid?
Who are the other bidders?
Is one of the bidders an agency in-house entity?
Have any of the other bidders previously worked for the client ?
Will there be a creative recommendation?
Will treatments be shared with client in totality?
Do all bidders have the same amount of time for the treatment?
Will there be an opportunity to present the treatment to the team?
Will the agency provide a template?
Is there a format Preference?
Is there an expected page minimum or maximum?
Is there a preferred style of deliverable (Link, Pdf etc)?
Are there any additional Client Preferences: Such as diversity, shooting location, union/non-union, etc?
Additional Considerations
If you are being asked to sign an NDA, be sure to ask for a mutual one. If you are not asked to sign an NDA, provide them with your own mutual NDA in order to protect your confidential and proprietary information and ideas. (You can download the AMA Mutual NDA as a PDF or .docx).
Add a copyright notice to your treatment, and mark all documents in the bid package “Confidential and Proprietary Information” to remind the readers whose contributions and images are in the treatment/bid.
If you ask for compensation, be prepared with suggestions on how that could work.
If you share content from other artists to illustrate your vision, consider giving them credit and notate that the content is for illustrative purposes.
Ask the agency if they have shared the same information with each of the teams.
Ask for client feedback if your artist was not awarded the job
Pushback on timing if it seems unrealistic.
Additional Links
No Free Pitches is taking a stand against unpaid creative pitches
AIR (Alliance of Independent Representatives) recently held a Production Summit on Creative Submissions and Treatment Reform and created materials to clarify pitch requests