What brands need from production companies
Alex Walker-Sage was commissioned by the Advertising Producers Association (APA) to research the production needs of marketers and in-house agency leaders. He shares some of the key insights from his report.
Earlier this year, Steve Davies, CEO of the APA, asked me to produce a report designed to help its members – senior figures at production companies of all shapes and sizes responsible for producing audio visual marketing content and campaigns – navigate the changing production landscape.
We wanted to hear direct from clients – senior marketing and communications people at brands – about their approach to commissioning marketing output and, in doing so, bring what I hoped would prove to be a fresh, unfiltered perspective to the production community.
The end result – ‘What Clients Want From Advertising Production Today… And How They Can Get It’ – can be found here. In this piece, I’ve outlined some of the key takeaways.
Firstly, just a point on the respondents. Through a series of 15-30 minute video call conversations, I spoke to 27 senior marketing professionals from 25 brands within the UK and EMEA. Among them were chief marketing officers, heads of campaigns, creative operations leads and other decision makers at brands including Booking.com and Tesco, to John Lewis, Virgin Atlantic, Vodafone, Specsavers, Nike, and McDonald’s among others. Throughout, I kept their comments anonymised.
Evolving needs and relationships
It won’t come as a surprise to hear that the responses underlined the increasing amount of marketing campaign content being created in-house at brands, but also how vital trusted, external expert production partners are, with the growing requirement for a greater number of bespoke, versatile production solutions. Clients, in general, want to have more connection with independent production outfits, and also want to play a role in helping develop ways of ensuring a transparent, clear, concise bidding format remains an essential part of the process.
The creation by brands of their ‘own’ content, is happening in parallel with an often well-established relationship with a lead creative agency which still, in the main, is tasked with the headline creative campaigns. This approach is having a knock-on effect on the way production partners are being engaged across the content ecosystem.
In order to give this some shape, I took a look at the relationships in place and work being produced across the brands I spoke to, and set this against the four stage in-house capability model used by IHALC.
Whilst varying dramatically in size, remit and sophistication – from a production studio executing adapts from existing master creative at one end of the spectrum, to a lead agency devising brand strategy and developing big campaign ideas at the other – all of the brands I spoke to had some sort of internal marketing content operation in place.
Understanding the shape of these, and the varying forms they take, is vital if independent, external production partners are to ensure they’re best set for success. My conversations revealed there’s definitely the potential for production companies to open up new and different ways into briefs through the development of deeper, direct relationships and a greater understanding of what’s actually needed:
Perspectives on the triple bid
The main takeout regarding the triple bid – long seen as a vital component in ensuring a production competitive bidding process – is that it’s in pretty good health, albeit with room for improvement, particularly around the way both external and in-house agencies can, at times, hold back information on prospective production partners during a competitive process, or block their involvement at key production meetings further down the line.
There was recognition on the whole that, while engaging in a triple bid process might not be the lowest cost option, it tended to drive creative quality and help the respondents find the best partners for creative innovation. And there was positive news to report around how each project and set of outputs demanded a bespoke approach to how creative and production partners were engaged, together with comments around how they looked to do the ‘right’ thing in the way they engaged partner agencies and production companies.
The promotion of Production
Throughout the majority of the conversations, there was a real sense of clients wanting there to be a closer connection and understanding between them and production companies.
They’re keen to know who’s produced what work to a greater extent (in the same way they do creative agencies, for example), and encourage the dissemination of production-focussed information throughout their teams, seeing it as “a crucial part of how good marketing comes to life.”
But the point was also made on more than one occasion that production companies can add real value, and ensure they stand out from the crowd, by being more considered in the industry-focussed communication they put out and the manner in which they develop their client relationships; crucially, through showing how they can help solve the creative problems modern marketers have.
Alex Walker-Sage is an independent marketer and consultant. He’s worked client side at the BBC and Channel 4, agency side at BBH and Revolt, in-house at Specsavers Creative and, as some of you will know, has also been part of the WDC and IHALC teams.
