Direct To Client: When Clients De-couple

Frances Royle, head of production partnerships and partner at BBH London talks about the evolving role of agencies and how all the work is up for grabs

The whole production landscape has changed dramatically over the last two years. Media has fragmented into many channels, the majority of which require film content, therefore introducing more opportunities for the production community.

Production companies are working with clients, agencies are expanding their production capability, making more work in-house. There are clients hiring their own producers and agencies being de-coupled and re-coupled. It’s all up for grabs.

If clients don’t believe they’re getting value for money from their agencies then they have a right to de-couple them. It’s up to agencies to demonstrate that they’re delivering great work at the right price via the most efficient process.

Agencies, clients and production companies should have the freedom to try different approaches, however in an attempt to save money some clients are trying to take on the production process themselves which could end up costing them more because of the complexity involved.

We have no problem with production companies working directly with clients. But the way agencies are set up is to work in an integrated way, with creatives and strategists getting under the skin of a client’s brand in order to understand how the business works and what its challenges are. Also this approach strives to produce long-term campaigns rather than ideas for a one-off project.

We liken our producers to a third creative. Not only do they have to deliver fantastic value but we expect them to contribute massively to the end result. They’re very much a part of the creative process, helping to bring magic to it.

It’s so important for the agency producer to be client-facing from an early stage these days. So they can lead production conversations and therefore demonstrate their value. We’ve introduced an integrated producer role. They can work across most aspects of production for multi-media 360 campaigns. However, it is still essential that we have specialist skills in order to produce the best work.

At BBH we’re trying to build more innovative production partnerships to enable us to bring some areas of production in-house. I’m sure other agencies are implementing similar initiatives. We now have in-house editing and a sound studio allowing us to work faster, with the same quality and offering great value for our clients and that’s what it’s all about. We need to be flexible, adaptable and constantly improving our offering, otherwise clients will look at alternative ways to produce work faster and cheaper. We have to be proactive and lead innovation that will continue to deliver quality and value.