Messaging and project requests

FOOH has built-in messaging, so you can talk to creators (and they can reply to you) without ever leaving the platform. You'll find everything under Messages — reachable from the chat icon in the top bar.

Starting a conversation

On any creator profile or talent card, hit Get in touch. The overlay gives you two ways in:

• Message — a quick, casual note. Good for a question or a soft intro.
• Project request — a structured brief with project details (at least 50 characters), a target date, and a budget. Tick Let them recommend a budget if you'd rather hear their number.

Stuck on wording? Hit Write with AI and we'll draft the project details for you to edit.

Once you send, the creator gets an email notification with a link straight to the thread. After a project request you'll also see a few other creators who might be a great fit — tick the ones you like and send the same request to all of them at once.

The greeting is on us

You don't need to open a project request with "Hi …". We add the salutation ourselves, resolved from whoever is receiving it: Hi Slim, for an individual creator, Hi CGWORKS team, for a studio, agency, or collective. It sits as a fixed line right above the message box, so you can see exactly how your request will open.

Your own words are never touched — whatever you type is stored and shown exactly as you wrote it. If you do start with a salutation, we'll quietly point out that you can skip it; we won't remove it.

If whoever you're writing to lists key people on their profile — usually a studio or agency — you'll see an Address this to picker above the message box. Leave it on the default to greet the team, or pick the producer you actually mean and the request opens Hi Sarah, instead. It's a per-message choice — only the greeting changes, everyone reads the same request — and the next one you send starts on the default again.

That's what makes sending to several creators safe. One brief goes to everyone you ticked, each of them sees their own name at the top, and there's nothing to edit per person. Nobody gets a request addressed to somebody else. Sending to several creators never asks you to pick a person — every one of them gets their own automatic greeting, so it stays a single click.

Those suggestions are picked on three things: how closely a creator's industries and capabilities overlap with the creator you just messaged (a creator who has ticked every box on their profile doesn't get suggested more often — an overlap that's precise counts, not one that's merely large), their standing in the talent directory, and whether they actually answer the requests they receive — a creator with a track record of leaving briefs unanswered is suggested less often, though never excluded, and a creator with little or no history yet is simply unaffected. The order is drawn rather than fixed, so refreshing or sending a second, identical brief can surface a different set — that's deliberate, and it's how creators outside the usual top of the directory get seen.

Where it's earned, you'll also see "Usually replies within a day" — in the Get in touch overlay's header and next to a suggested creator's name. It's real reply history, not a promise we make on their behalf: it appears only when most of the first contacts a creator has received were answered within a day, over enough requests to mean something. No hint just means there isn't enough history yet — it's never a mark against anyone, and it never appears on public profiles.

If nobody answers you

Studios get busy, and sometimes a good brief just sits there. You're not left waiting on people who aren't coming: three days after a project request has gone without a single reply — across everyone you sent it to — FOOH steps in with alternates.

• An email tells you nobody has replied yet and suggests a handful of other creators who fit your brief, with one link back into the thread.
• The same prompt appears in the thread itself, so if you're on the site rather than in your inbox you see it right where you're already looking.

The suggested creators come preselected with your original brief loaded — untick anyone you don't want, press send, and each new recipient gets the same text with their own greeting at the top, exactly like the first send. Nothing goes out until you confirm: FOOH never forwards your brief or budget to anyone you didn't choose.

Everyone you've already contacted is excluded from the suggestions — you'll never be nudged into approaching the same studio twice — and so are you. The rescue looks the same whatever happened on the other side: FOOH never tells you how a creator handled your request, only that no answer has arrived yet.

A week in, we offer to take over. If your request is still without a single reply after seven days, one final email offers the Concierge service — hand the brief to the FOOH team and get a hand-picked shortlist back, instead of chasing anyone yourself. Follow the link and the Concierge form arrives already filled in with your brief, its budget and timeline, and your details; review it, change anything, and nothing reaches the team until you submit. For a brief with a real budget, or one that went to several studios, the hand-off leads that email; for a smaller request it's a quiet footnote under one more round of suggestions. Either way the seven-day email is the last one FOOH sends you about finding someone for that request — after it, we stop chasing. The only thing that ever follows is the one-question survey below, two weeks in.

Two weeks in: did you find someone?

Whatever came of your request — replies or silence — you may get one email, one question: did you find someone for your project? Two links answer it, Yes and Not yet, straight from your inbox. No login, no form; the click is the answer, and if you click the wrong one (or change your mind later), clicking the other simply corrects it.

• Yes takes you to a page where one more click credits the win — one of the creators you contacted, or someone else if you found them elsewhere. Creators here close deals off-platform all the time; this is how a great studio still gets the credit.
• Not yet offers two real ways forward instead of more questions: more creators who fit your brief, or handing the search to the Concierge team.

Below either answer sits an optional 1–5 rating and a comment box — answer as much or as little as you like; the one click is already a complete answer. This is the only question FOOH ever asks about a request, and it's asked once.

Your inbox

Messages lists every conversation, newest first. Each row shows who it's with, the last message, and a Project Request tag when the thread carries one. The chat icon in the top bar shows a dot when you have unread messages, and a quick dropdown of your latest threads.

Use the filter to switch between:

• All Messages — everything that isn't archived.
• Unread — threads with new messages you haven't read.
• Archive — conversations you've tucked away.
• Project Requests — only threads that include a project request.

Inside a thread

Open a conversation to read the full history, see the creator's profile card, and reply from the box at the bottom. Press Enter to send (Shift + Enter for a new line). Hit the smiley on the left of the reply box to open the emoji picker — search, browse by category, or grab one from your frequently used row. New replies appear automatically while the thread is open.

Read receipts

Once a conversation is going both ways — each of you has written at least once — a small Read label appears under the latest of your messages the other person has seen. A few things it deliberately doesn't do:

• It never appears on an unanswered request. Until the other person writes back, you can't tell whether they've opened your message — silence looks the same either way.
• The FOOH team account never shows read receipts. Our inbox is shared by the whole team, so an "opened" mark wouldn't mean what you'd expect.
• You can turn it off. Flip Show read receipts in your notification settings. It works both ways: hide your reads and you'll no longer see when others read yours.

If you don't reply

A first contact you never answer is easy to lose under a busy week, so FOOH sends you a reminder about it — a project request at 12 hours, 3 days and 7 days; a plain first message at 48 hours and 7 days. Then it stops: each reminder is sent once, and the ladder ends there.

A few things it deliberately never does:

• Only the first message in a conversation is ever chased. Once you've replied — even a single line — the reminders stop for good, and an ongoing conversation going quiet is never treated as a failure.
• A thread you archived or deleted is left alone. Filing something away is an answer in itself.
• The sender is never told. Whether you were reminded, and whether you replied afterwards, is between you and your inbox.

The reminders ride on the Messages & project requests switch on your Notifications page — turn it off and you get neither the original notification nor the reminders.

Saying no in one click

Not every request is one you can take, and silence is a poor answer — the person waiting can't tell "busy" from "not interested". So a first contact you haven't answered carries a Decline button, both in the reminder email and in the thread itself, just above the message box.

Pick a reason and we write a short reply into the box for you:

• No capacity right now — with an optional free again from line, so a buyer worth keeping knows when to come back ("…booked up until mid September").
• Not the right fit.
• Budget below my range.

Then it's yours. Edit it into your own words, add a line, or replace it completely — and nothing is sent until you press send. Close the tab or hit Cancel and the conversation is exactly as it was; the sender is never told you looked. What you do send is an ordinary message in the thread, and the reminders stop for good, because you've answered.

The button disappears once you've written anything in the conversation — it's an exit from silence, not a permanent fixture.

Answering is also worth something beyond good manners: how reliably you respond to first contacts feeds into how often FOOH suggests you to buyers — and a decline counts as an answer, exactly like any other reply. Only the positive is ever shown. Reply to most requests within a day and buyers see "Usually replies within a day" next to your name where they're choosing whom to contact; a slow month shows nothing, nowhere, and your profile never carries a response-time badge of any kind.

Stopping the reminders without replying

Some requests aren't worth an answer at all, and you should never have to write a reply to spam just to make the platform stop nagging. Next to Decline sits Stop reminding me — in the reminder email and in the thread itself.

One press and the reminders for that conversation end. That's all that happens:

• The sender is never told. From their side it looks exactly like silence — no notice, no status, nothing.
• The conversation stays put. It isn't archived, deleted or blocked; you can still open it, and even reply later if you change your mind.
• It covers that one request. A new request from the same person starts its own conversation, and its own reminders.
• It never counts against you. A request you dismissed is left out of your reply record entirely — junk you didn't answer can't dent how often you're suggested.

Press it on the same sender a second time and we offer the stronger option: never notify me about this person. That stops all notifications about them — new-message emails and reminders alike. They can still write to you and their messages still land in your inbox; you're just no longer notified, and they're never told. You'll find everyone you've muted under Muted members on your Notifications page, each with an Unmute button — change your mind any time.

Tidying up

• Archive a conversation (from the thread header or the ••• menu) to move it out of your main inbox without losing it — a new message brings it back.
• Delete removes the thread from your inbox. The other person keeps their copy.
• Use the select button at the top of the inbox to archive or delete several at once.