Guest Article: Denny Joseph: Decoupling Creative and Production Services...

Not very long ago, advertising agencies provided their clients with three core services - coming up with ideas (creative ideation), producing them for media (production) and placing them (media buying). When media buying was taken out of the agency's ambit, it was a big deal. They lost control over where and how their idea would be viewed by the consumer. But, at the same time, it was a real game changer for clients and the industry as a whole, and announced the advent of the Media Agency.

Thankfully, for brand managers, that area of an agency, the 'production department' which is traditionally tucked away in the basement, hidden away from clients without a voice of influence, is roaring loud today. Today, there is a wave of emerging 'specialist production' companies that have risen above merely creating artworks, to now shouldering the responsibility of ensuring that all communication - print, broadcast, digital - for brands are deployed in target markets quickly, efficiently and with remarkable cost-effectiveness.

Historically, the process of decoupling creative from production services began in the 1990s in Europe and, initially, only involved print services. This has now grown to encompass digital and broadcast services and is gaining traction across the Americas, EMEA and even in the APAC region. These production houses act as additional brand guardians, which means they can walk any new creative team through the transition, providing brand assets, introducing them to brand specifics like imagery guidelines, colour palettes and sensitise them to the brand guidelines.

With clients demanding more control, efficiency and transparency over the production of every campaign creative, it makes perfect sense today to offer them an approach that gives them the freedom to hire any creative agency, irrespective of production capabilities, global footprint or media discipline, as well as to further explore development of their own in-house creative.

Contrary to popular notion, Creative Production agencies are much more than just a group of studio workers operating under a team lead. They function very much like a regular advertising agency, with dedicated art and copy leads ensuring that adaptations, while retaining the efficacy of the master creative, do justice to the communication in the target geographies. Great care is taken to craft the communication, taking the local cultural nuances into account. No wonder then that creative production agencies are attracting talent from mainline advertising agencies, because of the opportunity to work on global brands.

Many global brands have already reaped the benefits of 'decoupling'. Rather than leaving their lead agencies to control all creative and production elements of a campaign, these organisations are buying and managing their production separately (whether media, pre-press, print or digital). The proverbial 'pot of gold' at the end of the rainbow includes probable cost saving of up to 30 per cent. Decoupling the core creative function from production also allows marketers to monitor service levels and KPIs much more closely - leaving the creative experts to focus on their core functions, while the production providers ensure campaigns are delivered on time and on budget.

Some of the global biggies that have adopted this model and are happy to have done so include Pernod Ricard, Reebok, P&G, J&J and Hilton Worldwide, to name a few. These brands have their global creative agencies work on the central creative thought, along with production of the master creative for their global campaigns, and rely on the creative production agencies to ensure local implementation of the same. Increasingly, because of their nimble-footedness, these agencies also get called on by the local brand teams to devise creative for various festival campaigns during the marketing blitzkrieg that is seen during the Indian festival season.

Creative production agencies, with their specialised service offering and their sure-footed approach to creative amplification services, would prove to be the innocuous cog in the marketing machinery, driving efficiencies for brands in the years to come.

(The author is VP, Key Accounts, Magnon eg+, an Omnicom Group Company)