Although production is typically seen as the last step to bringing creative to life, as producers we find ourselves at the center of the process, a connection point that brings the goals together from the brand teams, creatives, media and let’s not forget – procurement. This means we are constantly balancing creativity with speed, authenticity and cost, and while these goals might seem divergent, we do not see them as such.

It’s no secret that often creative and brand teams are at odds with procurement – we see it in every brief and every RFP, the struggle for balance between delivering amazing experiences without going over budget. Especially after COVID and in the face of major digital transformation, many of our clients are looking to do more with less. This requires us to be agile and employ even more creative ways to bring campaigns to life.

Production As The Connection Point     

Of all the metrics procurement, creative and marketing teams are looking for Production to deliver, the most important and consistent is “optimization.” But it can mean many things: optimization of budget, of the ability to bring many experiences to life for many audiences, and of the ability to make creative vision a reality in any platform. Being able to deliver against all of these expectations is key to enabling a digital-first campaign or strategy. This agility and efficiency is not only beneficial for the client budget but also the consumer experience.  

When our producers are connected to lots of regions and teams across the globe, we see what is happening market to market, how we can improve briefs, bundle similar asks, and more. Suddenly production is more than a one-way delivery phase and we are bringing all the right people into the room together. This is when procurement, marketing and creatives across the globe are listening to the other, communicating and finding shared challenges to tackle as an integrated team. It’s from these conversations that we unlock new areas of creative and budget efficiency and opportunity. 

How We Do It

There are four keys to driving optimization and visibility, and thus connecting the goals of procurement, marketing and creative teams:   

  • Automation – to enable even more interactions with creative and an authentic and meaningful experience for any audience, platform, language or culture around the globe.
  • Intelligent Briefing – to identify gaps in content needs before they occur and find opportunities to bundle content asks market to market.   
  • Integrated Reporting – to measure production investment against media performance, minimize content production wastage, and find real-time opportunities for improvement.   
  • Ways of working KPIs – to measure behaviors, time cycles and bring data to improve operations and encourage better ways of working in the whole ecosystem (not only on the production organization)   

By employing these four essential elements we are driving integration and truly serving as the connection point in the marketing ecosystem. Everyone loves breaking down silos, and we pride ourselves on our ability to do this and create tight connections between creatives, marketing and procurement all at once. This is what the market requires – one integrated agile team, that can make the best possible decisions about content investments to deliver the most impactful consumer experience.

 

The role of Production in a content-rich world  

Production is the Enabler. “Digital-first”, “content-rich” or “post-COVID” – however you prefer to describe the landscape marketers are adapting to, the core truth is that consumers expect amazing experiences, and there is more competition now than ever to win their loyalty and share of wallet. This means that at every point of the marketing ecosystem, all of the partners on brand or agency side need to be able to play multiple roles. Creatives need to understand data, media needs to understand creative and human-first data, and more. The same goes for production; we are moving into a new phase in which production can serve as place to cut-costs and drive efficiencies, but more importantly as a strategic marketing tool to get the right assets in front of the right person at the right moment in time – and do it again and again, in any language or platform.