Creative-exchange.com, an online advertising marketplace, has been launched to enable advertising agencies to showcase and offer for sale creative concepts that havent been used.

The website aims to offer an online creative resource that agencies can use to market creative ideas that have been left on the shelf because they were not used by clients.

Founder of the site Vivian Greig explained that the service can be used to sell existing concepts or repurpose creative ideas for different clients and brands, not just in Australia but globally. Buyers can browse through a range of creative ideas and choose concepts that are ideal for their own purposes.

The service also aims to help agencies boost awareness of their creative talent and other skills among potential clients, the creative community, prospective employees and freelancers.

“It’s a fact of life in the advertising industry that, for various reasons, many creative ideas never progress beyond the concept stage into production as fully-fledged ads. However much creative departments object, their ideas can end up being discarded because the client has decided on a different concept. But concepts that might not be right strategically, factually or in tone for one client could be spot on for someone else – even overseas – which means there is almost certainly someone out there who will buy those unused ideas,” Greig said.

Greig indicated that potential buyers include clients who are between agencies, other agencies (even within the same agency group locally and internationally), conflict clients or advertisers who don’t want or see the need for a full-service agency.

Endorsing the resource, Belgiovane Williams Mackay associate creative director Rocky Ranallo said, “This is a brilliant site for those ideas out there that really should be seen and for whatever reason have been shelved forever. It’s like a virtual bottom drawer.”

Buyers of the service are charged a subscription fee, while sellers pay a small upload fee to display and on-sell agency material. Copyright is retained by the seller.

Once the material has been sold and paid for electronically, the service forwards the funds to the agency having deducted a commission fee.