Originally Posted by harvey

more or less.

I don't know how it translates to English, but it's called something like "conceptualization meetings", big companies have talks with 2 or 3 ad agencies and they make a mockup of the idea. Up to 10 years ago they were just that, mockups, or story boards when it was about TV ads. WIth technology came "almost finished" mockups, and there are no excuses nowadays to present a mockup in pencil (so to say), therefore there's a misconception that ad agencies work for free. The big ones doesn't, they do these concepts only after some deep talking and candidates are between 2 or 3, no 1000s. Only the small firms, usually "creative boutiques", tend to work "on spec", because they need to showcase their talent, but when ad agencies work like this is because they're after million dollar accounts and chances are 50/50 or 25% at worst.

Speaking of which, I don't enter contests unless I find them amusing. I did enter in one contest because it was fun and non adult (which I want to go towards in the near future). 2 hours later, all color schemes, some of the fonts, some of the styles and effects are used in each and every design after mine. Go figure