True Food Kitchen Marketing Associate interview questions

They asked me to do an assignment before any interview was done. I was debating whether or not to do it because that seemed odd before even being interviewed and also that would mean I would be essentially doing work for free. The email claimed they would not use my ideas and this was simply to see my style of work. Well, I reached the following week after turning in this 4-part assignment to see if there were any updates, and the recruiter told me they were going in a different direction. Why are you wasting applicants' time to do assignments before they even speak to a recruiter or hiring manager? The recruiter wrote a generic email saying while the Director was impressed with my work they are going in a different direction. It does not make sense. If they were impressed, why didn't I get a single interview. It was a complete waste of my time and showed a lack of respect, in my opinion. Maybe they should have the hiring manager review and speak to the applicants before asking them to do a 4 part assignment.