Singapore’s advertising community will probably be aware by now of a pitch called by Singapore Management University that required agencies to pay to participate.

Yes, actually pay for the privilege of offering the university its ideas for free in the hope that they might get a whiff of the business.

It was only $100, a token amount which SMU has justified as an administrative cost in the name of good governance, and probably thinks will weed out those who aren’t serious out its business, but will probably result in any serious agency boss running for the hills.

Like this one, who captured the feelings of many of their peers with the following diatribe on Facebook (now deleted, name withheld):

SMU has been approached for comment on whether they’ll be sticking with the $100 ‘admin’ charge in future.

Here are a few more comments that give an indication of how agencies feel about paying a fee to pitch, which by the way isn’t a new thing, but seems to touch a nerve every time.

“They’re letting you know they will be a shitty client early in the process. I’d give them the money in gratitude.”

“I would be more than happy to pay for the pitch document if they were prepared to pay for my time to prepare the pitch response. Yeah, like that would ever happen!”

“Totally ridiculous! Really, zero appreciation of time and intellectual capital. So happy that I liberated myself from this type of tyranny.”

But of course the sad reality is summed up with the following:

“As much as we provide witty and sarcastic remarks here, do note that SMU would have likely gotten a room full of comms agencies still vying for this piece of work.”