Publicity in PUB

PUB magazine have written an article about The Collective. If you're one of those who read French, check out this link to go to the PUB French webpage or this link for those who read Dutch. Here's the English version below...

THE COLLECTIVE INTERNATIONAL
Agency now represents five nationalities of advertising freelancers across Europe

THE COLLECTIVE started life three years ago as an agent for 25 British freelance creatives in the Netherlands. Now it represents over 150 of the best Belgian, British, Dutch, French and Scandinavian freelancers.

THE COLLECTIVE OF INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING FREELANCERS is now the biggest agent for freelancers in Europe. Agencies hire freelancers for the creation of pan-European campaigns, country adaptations of existing campaigns, creation of new local campaigns, translation, and so on. And as more and more companies operate across Europe the demand is increasing.

It’s also not just creatives who are represented by THE COLLECTIVE. “As well as copywriters, art directors and designers, we also have photographers, illustrators and accounts people profiled on the website. Essentially anyone an advertising agency needs to hire on a freelance basis,” explains Simon Wallace, founder of THE COLLECTIVE.

Collective Belgium
The Belgian division of THE COLLECTIVE is our fastest growing section. “We’ve sent Belgian freelancers to the Netherlands, Germany and England. Inside Belgium itself, we’ve supplied Belgian copywriters and art directors to the biggest agencies, including DDB, Dentsu, Duval Guillaume, FCB and Quattro Saatchi & Saatchi. And we’ve also these and other agencies with English and Dutch freelancers.”

The major service THE COLLECTIVE offers to these agencies is the ability to find the right freelancer for the job – quickly and for the right price. “We’ve done the searching and vetting work for them, and they’re impressed with the quality and reliability of our people.”

History
THE COLLECTIVE began life to fill the gap in the market for representing freelance English-native copywriters, art directors and designers in Europe. It grew quickly, providing mainly award-winning creative teams for concept work and long-copywriters for brochures, internet and direct mail work.

“We started out just in the Netherlands, but because there was a big demand for British freelancers (mostly copywriters) across Europe, we expanded our operations to service ad agencies in Belgium, France, Germany, Scandinavia – even as far as Dubai. Because we are the only agent operating across Europe, agencies started asking us for other nationalities of freelancers this year, not just British. It was very difficult for them to find the right people. It became a logical step for us to expand the company.”

THE COLLECTIVE now has offices in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Antwerp, Copenhagen and Stockholm.