Dear PCAM Member,
This is the latest in a series of Newsletters that we publish five times a year, following meetings of the PCAM Committee.
Each Newsletter contains a brief report from the recent Committee meeting, plus other current news and views and an edited version of a recent query to the PCAM Helpdesk.
This Newsletter also contains the first of a two-part series of observations and advice for those members who are being commissioned in the area of audio or sonic branding, set out by PCAM Chair Paul Reynolds.
We would like to receive more contributions to the Newsletter from PCAM members. If you want to write something for inclusion or send us a link to something interesting you have read or seen, please contact admin@pcam.co.uk.
Best regards,
The PCAM Committee
CONTENTS
— Message from the PCAM Chair
— Support with Sonic/Audio Branding
— PCAM Social Event
— Unique Opportunity in Dubai
— Notes from the PCAM Committee Meeting: 6 December 2022
— Committee Meeting Dates in 2023
— Case Study from the PCAM Helpdesk
MESSAGE FROM THE PCAM CHAIR
Is there some light at the end of the tunnel?
For many of our members, 2022 was a year to forget. L ow confidence in the markets (due to many factors that you will have heard again and again in ’22) meant a sharp tightening of our clients’ belts. Work of a ‘reasonable’ nature became harder to find and expectations to work at an unreasonable rate were commonplace. Some members reported budgets of larger projects being put on ice with a common phrase: ‘We’ll look at it again in ‘23’.
But maybe everything isn’t quite so doom and gloom when looking ahead to 2023.
The quarterly IPA Bellwether Report for Q3 2022 was quite bleak. Since then, it feels like the economy in the UK hit quite a low and perhaps may start to show some green shoots as the year progresses. With claims that inflation will drop and with fuel prices going down, some recovery later in the year for disposable income and some political stability (well, at least compared to last year) will all have a positive impact on the confidence of brand marketers and their agencies. This is a huge generalisation on a complex topic with many other factors involved, but some of our members already reported a bit of a flurry of activity leading up to the end of the year, and a fairly promising start to 2023. Here’s hoping that this trend continues!
With budgets being such an issue in 2022, more so than in the last two decades (I’m showing my age now), I reiterate my point from the last Newsletter that with so much video content being produced, we should expect higher volumes of work at lower budgets. With the modern tools we have available to work with, are you able to handle greater volume at a lower price point? Or is this work impossible to produce? Will new AI editing tools help or make the situation more dire? We’d love to hear your thoughts – send them to admin@pcam.co.uk.
Once again, I’d like to thank all our members for supporting PCAM, and all those who made the trip to join us for Christmas drinks after our last Committee meeting on 6 December, and especially the guests who joined and contributed in the meeting itself. It was great to see everyone in real life after such a long time!
I’d also like to thank all the Committee members for all their hard work over 2022, specifically Tony Satchell for answering so many of your Helpdesk queries, and Bob Fromer who keeps us all in check and makes sure all the useful information gets passed on to you.
To all our members, on behalf of the PCAM Committee, I’d like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope that you all have a healthy, fulfilling and prosperous 2023.
P.S. Don’t forget that if you are struggling with anything, please look after yourself and reach out for help via the PCAM Helpdesk (info@pcam.co.uk) or at https://www.helpmusicians.org.uk/.
Paul Reynolds
PCAM Chair
SUPPORT WITH SONIC/AUDIO BRANDING
Paul Reynolds writes: Many of our members are being commissioned or are actively seeking work in the audio or sonic branding field, and are encountering many new challenges in the work, the administration and the deal negotiation
In this and the next Newsletter, I’ll be providing a few notes that could be helpful for those starting out in this area, including a few things that you really should know before starting this type of work.
If working with a creative agency, often they will insulate you from many of the tricky processes you can experience when working with a brand, and the path to winning and completing the work will thus be much simpler, but the downside is that the work itself tends to be more executional than strategic (though some of our members have expressed a preference for this!). However, a lot of members are finding themselves being commissioned for work directly by a brand rather than a creative agency, especially when it comes to audible brand identity work.
In this Newsletter, I’ll deal with the deal itself. This is the trickiest part of the process and where, if you’re not careful, you can end up with costly problems. But if you get it right, then the work can be very enjoyable — and quite rewarding too.
Deal Negotiation
- Who are you dealing with? It’s important to know the type of person you are dealing with, and what their responsibilities are. You could be commissioned by a brand manager, marketing manager or by procurement. For larger commissions and brands, it’s often the latter that will get in touch with you. If you haven’t already, brush up on what their roles are, as there are different motivations for each party.
- Insurance. An immediate bump in the road is something thatcan happen further down the line when a contractual agreement surfaces. If it is from a brand, it will almost certainly require you to have a certain level of business insurance that includes professional indemnity cover. If you don’t already have this type of insurance, check early on in the process to see if it is required, as this will give you time to organise cover. PCAM has teamed up with Performance Insurance to offer PCAM members discounted cover that also includes cyber insurance at a very competitive rate.
- Compliance. Do you have a Diversity and Inclusion Policy? A Corporate Social Responsibility strategy? An Anti-Slavery policy? This might all sound very OTT for a small business but you will encounter these types of questions when you are starting work with a sizable brand. You can access a lot of this material through the web, but be prepared to assemble a ‘Company Handbook’ or statement of business policies very quickly if you don’t have this already.
- RFI/RFP/RFWhat? On the subject of completing questions, when being asked to pitch on an audio/sonic identity, you may be approached to complete an RFI (Request For Information). There will be a lot of questions about your business, including requests for financial information. Make sure you are up to date with your own accounting and that you have your business paperwork to hand. Alternatively, if you have an accountant or bookkeeper, it can be advantageous to ask them to assist you in parts of this process.
Should you be selected for the pitch, you will then complete an RFP (Request for Pitch). The pitch process can take many forms. At its worst, it’s a 50+ page document to complete plus a few rounds of pitching. At its best, it’s a single pitch presentation/meeting.
The pitch process can be very arduous and costly in terms of your time. Don’t ever shy away from asking for a pitch fee. Whilst not common, smaller creative music companies cannot afford to pitch at the same level as large advertising/marketing agencies and a pitch fee is an entirely reasonable ask. If there is no set pitch fee, then consider your time that will be spent, plus any administration/third party costs and budget the fee from there. Whilst rare, it has been known for large project pitch fees to be as high as £20,000.
If you get stuck in the process, do reach out to the PCAM Helpdesk where someone will be able to help you.
- Budgeting for your work and time. ‘How do I budget for a sonic brand?’ is probably the most common question we get asked. There are many factors to take into consideration, but we can crudely split the budget into four areas.
1) Composition/Licence — You may find that there is a set budget to fit everything into, and therefore calculating separate fees for the composition, recording, mastering, and the subsequent licence feels redundant. However, it’s very useful to have absolute clarity on what is charged for different parts of your work. It is much harder for procurement to chip away at figures if you are armed with justification for every £1 in your costs. I’d always recommend using the PCAM suggested rates and format when building the budget and make sure that your licence agreement is clearly set out and agreed. A brand might want to start small (cheaper licence) and then expand/extend the use if they feel the work is successful, and we all love a good re-licence. Upping or lowering the licence based on intended usage also allows you some room to negotiate as your production/composition time is fixed and shouldn’t be subject to much negotiation.
2) Research/development time — Some more involved sonic branding projects will require a reasonable amount of desk work. Research, brief development, mood boards etc all require considerable amounts of time. Make sure you set your hourly or daily rate and cover yourself for the amount of work that will be needed. It is often at this stage that the work can really drag along and eat up a lot of unbudgeted time. Make sure you build in some maximum time limits so you are able to charge overages due to client changes in the process.
3) Out of pocket expenses — It seems obvious, but if you are using external talent, make sure that you budget enough for the time they will need to put in. Sonic branding work requires a lot of experimenting with different routes and can use up a lot of talent time. Make sure that your deal with the talent is clear so you both go into the project knowing what the expectations and boundaries are. You’ll also want to make sure that you agree up front any ‘win’ fee should your third party talent be successful.
4) Legal/administration — Often overlooked is the cost of all the administrative tasks that you need to undertake. You may need some legal support or would want to factor in the cost of a musicologist. You can easily drop these out of the budget if they aren’t needed, but it’s much harder to introduce the costs further down the line. Your client won’t want to have any surprises later on, so the whole idea is to cover all the tasks that you need to undertake in the completion of the project. You will also want to cover the cost of all that time taken on the RFI/RFP.
- Negotiation. Charge what you are worth! It doesn’t matter who you are dealing with — you bring a lot of value to the brand with your work and I strongly advise you to stick to your guns. Procurement can sometimes feel very intimidating when you are negotiating but it’s important to remember that they are just doing their job. Getting a very good relationship with them in the first place will make a big difference. If you are budgeting carefully, make sure you know the point at which the ‘deal’ becomes unfavourable. You are entitled to fair remuneration, so make sure you are comfortable with whatever the final deal is. If in any doubt, please get in touch with our Helpdesk.
It’s good to remember that with projects like this, the work can drag on for many months and you can get pulled into multiple iterations of your work. There is also an added danger of the project cancelling if it drags out for a long period, so make sure that you build in cancellation clauses entitling you to payment for all work (including hours) to date, plus a fair cancellation fee as you will have booked future time/talent for the project. Also make sure that you add clauses that are very explicit with the work, including time, that you are being contracted for. Any vagueness in this area will not end up in your favour.
If you feel that the initial deal on offer in the negotiation is quite a fair distance from what you feel is acceptable (fair), then please also let us know. Being a reasonably new service for many brands, there isn’t that much knowledge around the cost or process involved for your work and we want to encourage the promotion of good practice to both our members and your clients.
Next Newsletter, we’ll dive into the work process and the administrative side, helping ensure that you can complete and wrap up your project without any hiccups and have every opportunity to enjoy any future revenues.
PCAM SOCIAL EVENT
Paul Reynolds writes: It was great to be able to do a Committee meeting in real life on 6 December after such a long time! It was also great to be joined by a number of our production company and composer members who raised some useful issues and points, and also contributed to our work on current challenges and opportunities.
Following the meeting, we were able to enjoy some lighter conversation with our members over some drinks and seasonal nibbles.
It was a great opportunity for members of the Committee to meet with PCAM members both old and new, sharing experience and insights and generally getting to know each other.
For many, these meet-ups are more of a therapy session than a social! The mood was incredibly positive and despite a tough year, everyone left with a smile on their face and, hopefully, some useful knowledge to help them in 2023.
PCAM had a number of very positive messages following the event, including:
“It was such a great feeling joining a PCAM gathering in real life, finally!”
“Thank you so much for the drink and for sharing your insight with everyone. It helps a lot to hear it and get a sense of the current state of things.”
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY IN DUBAI
A unique opportunity has arisen for a composer / sound engineer to join the most established music company in Dubai, working primarily in advertising, events and sonic branding.
The candidate will need to demonstrate superb creative skills, originality, orchestration ability on Protools and a comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of sound engineering. An ability to grasp a feel for oriental touches in due course would be essential.
A two-year initial contract will be offered plus full package remuneration between 80-100,000 USD and additional composition fees.
Please send showreel / credentials to: bkxxxx@protonmail.com.
NOTES FROM THE PCAM COMMITTEE MEETING: 6 DECEMBER 2022
The PCAM Committee held its first in-person meeting in over two years on 6 December 2022, followed by a PCAM Social Evening.
The following Committee members attended the meeting — Paul Reynolds, Chris Smith, Tony Satchell, Simon Elms, Imogen Pring, Jonathan Watts and George Hyde – and they were joined by these PCAM members: Paul Cartledge (Yellow Boat Music), Lucky Monroe (Composer), James Bargent (Massive Music), Shervin Shaeri (Mutant Jukebox), Hari Limaye (Composer/Producer).
Here is a rundown of some of the main topics discussed at the meeting:
PCAM Statement on fair remuneration. The PCAM Committee has begun drafting a document about fair remuneration for composers and ethical behaviour by Agencies and clients that we hope will be supported by the APA and endorsed by the IPA and ISBA.
PRS Media Music Group. George Hyde attended a recent meeting of the PRS Music Media Music Group on behalf of PCAM. George has put himself forward to join the PRS Licensing Committee in the hope that he can provide a voice for creators of advertising music, since the major publishers who make up the majority of the Committee have little interest in this.
Mental Health Seminar. The proposed Mental Health Seminar with the PRS is now likely to be in February at the new PRS offices. The first Mental Health Seminar in 2020 was a major success and this one can provide an opportunity, following lockdown and everything that’s taken place in the interim, to revisit the issues and see how people are. It should also provide a great social opportunity.
State of the industry. The Q3 IPA Bellwether Report on trends in the advertising industry reported a 20% drop in new advertising in the first half of 2022, and forecasts for the immediate future are pretty grim, even though digital spend is still increasing. It might be 12-18 months before things really pick up. All this makes it even more important that PCAM continues to fight for its members in an environment where composers are being squeezed even more than usual.
New Committee members. The PCAM Committee is keen to take on additional members that can make the Committee more diverse from an age, ethnic and gender point of view, with experience in the industry less of a consideration. Anyone interested in finding out more should contact PCAM Administrator Bob Fromer (bob.fromer@outlook.com).
Members List on PCAM website. An update to the PCAM website, to be installed early in the new year, will allow the Members List to be seen by anyone who visits the site rather than only by members who are logged in. Hopefully, this will mean that the Members List will become a place where people can go to look for composers to do a job. An opt-out for members who do not wish to be available on the public list will be provided.
PCAM Finances. Membership income for PCAM in 2022 was £23,556, compared to £21,038 in 2021. The last two years have each seen large percentage increases in members and in income, though our income in the scheme of things remains small. A lot more people seem to be joining because they need the support that PCAM provides, especially to those new to the industry.
Website recommendations on social media and streaming. With advertising increasingly going to social media and streaming services, where royalties are often miniscule or not paid at all, there is a major problem that PCAM, hopefully working with the PRS, needs to address. Library writers in particular are being done in because royalties are tiny, and while more money is being distributed, most of it is going to major publishers, not to creators. Some platforms, such as Facebook, won’t report on advertising at all, which means royalties don’t get paid. PCAM Committee members will talk to the PRS about these issues, and guidelines on the PCAM website will be updated to deal with individual social media channels.
AI and music creation. A final discussion at the meeting was around the use of AI to emulate copyright music and where this might lead. Should composers be remunerated for what the AI is being taught to do? It will surely be only a matter of time before someone uses AI to infringe on someone else. This is another issue that PCAM will need to keep on its radar.
PCAM Committee meeting dates in 2023
PCAM Committee meetings in 2023 will be held, hopefully in person in Soho, on the following dates from 4.00-6.00 pm:
Tuesday 21 February
Tuesday 18 April
Tuesday 13 June
Tuesday 12 September
Tuesday 14 November
Any PCAM member interested in attending any of these meetings should contact PCAM Administrator Bob Fromer (bob.fromer@outlook.com).
PCAM HELPDESK Q&A
Here is a recent question and answer exchange from the PCAM Helpdesk (the question is in black type and the Helpdesk answer is in blue):
Q: Thank you for your advice, which I am finding incredibly useful, but I have another couple of questions. Can you explain to me why the PCAM website uses percentages of the Composition Fee to work out the License Fee?
A: As PCAM is not a union or cartel, legally we cannot set fees, nor would we want to. It is important to charge what you feel comfortable with and the PCAM recommendations are just a way of helping to keep a sensible, flat and fair working platform for all. Undercharge, and you will be damaging not only your business but also everyone else’s; overcharge, and you might not get the job. I’m afraid nothing in this world is easy!
All the PCAM recommended Usage Rates are based on percentages of your Composition Fee. So, for example, if someone’s Composition Fee is £2,500 and the PCAM suggested License Fee is 600%, then they would charge £15,000 but if another composer quoting for the very same job had a Composition Fee of £3,500, then they would charge £21,000 for their Licence Fee.
Q: As a way of getting a job, do people ever roll the Demo Fee into the Composition Fee? In other words, I get paid a Demo Fee and then if I am successful and get the job, can I say that they can deduct the Demo Fee from the Composition Fee but my Composition Fee is still £3000 and all future licenses are based on that?
A: Yes and no!
Yes, deducting the Demo Fee from the Master Fee is often done as a come-on, but it should be deducted from your Production Fee, NOT your Composition Fee, which anyway is only charged on the Master.
A Demo Fee just covers your basic production costs, so it should be deducted from the Production Fee. Remember that every job’s cost/quote structure, however big or small the actual fees, should be exactly the same:
- Demo Fee
- Master Fee
- Production Fee
- Composition Fee
- Licence Fee (detailing all Media, Territories and the Term)
I feel it’s always extremely important to charge a Demo Fee, however small, as it commits your client to the job. Doing Demos for free only encourages clients not to take you seriously and is one of the industry’s bad practices that PCAM is continually railing about. No one should be asked to work for free — full stop!