I think it’s you, not me…
By Robert McCulloch
If you’ve worked in advertising or production, you’ve probably had this conversation:
“How the hell are we supposed to deliver this level of creative ambition with this budget and this timeline?”
Platforms have multiplied. Deliverables are endless. Timelines have shrunk and budgets haven’t exactly kept up.
But I have a strong suspicion we’re not thinking about the problem correctly.
This isn’t really a creative problem. There is no shortage of talented people or good ideas.
It’s an economic problem.
Brands aren’t making one hero commercial every six months anymore. They’re running content operations. The challenge is no longer simply how to make one great piece of work. It’s how to make great work consistently, on time and on budget.
Yet production is still largely awarded and assembled one project at a time.
A brief goes out. Directors pitch. A treatment is chosen and, almost by default, so is the production company attached to that director.
The next project begins with a different team, different relationships and a different way of working. Whatever was learned on the previous production often leaves with the people who worked on it.
The agency or brand keeps starting again.
So what if we changed the order?
Choose the production partner first.
Find a partner who understands the business, the standards, the budgets and how the team likes to work. Then find the right director and specialists for each brief together.
Ten years ago, that would have been difficult. Directors were tied much more exclusively to particular production companies and markets.
That world has changed.
Talent now works fluidly across companies, countries and disciplines. It has never been easier to find and assemble exceptional people around a project. Choosing a production partner first doesn’t limit creative choice. It creates a consistent system through which more of that talent can be accessed.
The partner becomes the constant. The creative team can still change according to the work.
That continuity has economic value.
A good production partner learns the business and carries experience from one project to the next. It knows which processes create friction, where the money is best spent and which people are right for a particular challenge.
The next production doesn’t begin at zero.
This is the part I think we sometimes miss. The value of a production partner isn’t simply that it can execute the next job. It is that the system becomes more informed and more efficient each time you use it.
Better information. Fewer unnecessary layers. Less time rebuilding relationships and explaining the same things again. More of the budget reaching the work itself.
I’ve had versions of this conversation with a number of agencies. Not simply about shrinking budgets, but about changing the order in which the work is awarded.
Most people don’t disagree. Many get genuinely excited.
Then the meeting ends and the next job is awarded in exactly the same way.
I understand why. The existing workflow is familiar. Briefs arrive that way. Directors pitch that way. Budgets are approved that way. Everyone is under pressure to deliver the next project, so very few people have the time or incentive to reconsider the system producing all of them.
But familiarity doesn’t mean the model is still working.
If the current process is creating friction, losing experience between jobs and making it harder to deliver the quality everyone expects, then perhaps making small efficiencies inside it isn’t enough.
Perhaps the people deciding how production is awarded need to try something different.
Not a fixed creative team for every project. Not a commitment to one style or one director.
A consistent production partner capable of finding and supporting the right talent for every brief.
The creative ambition doesn’t have to change.
The order does.
