The new agency model and in-house production

Transcript

00:04

Welcome to the Brand Runner podcast, where we discuss marketing trends and tech. I’m your host Fabien. Let’s get started.

00:14

Today I want to talk about the new agency model and in-house production and why it is disrupting the advertising industry.

00:22

When I meet people that are not asset production professionals and I describe what I do, they are often a little bit puzzled. I am met with confusion and I see interrogation marks appearing on their foreheads. This is because the advertising industry model is changing and what I do is not a traditional corporate rule.

00:44

Let’s do a quick experience. I will present you what I do in an elevator pitch style and you will take a moment to see if you understand what it means. Here we go. I am currently the Senior Creative Producer for the Brand awareness team at monday.com. I deal with producing any assets from audio ads, video ads, out-of-home campaigns, 360 support online assets, TV ads, and even a big ad that was broadcast during the Super Bowl game. So was it clear to you what I do?

01:14

If you are not a production asset professional, then you might not understand what is a producer at all. If you are a marketing or advertising professional, you might know what a producer is, but a producer can take many shapes or forms, especially within the new online creator paradigm. Truth is, in the traditional corporate world, it is a little bit of a new position. That’s because it’s part of a bigger picture. The advertising industry is changing.

01:44

the advertising industry was divided as a follow.

01:48

the clients have a need to promote and sell their products. The advertising agency coming up with the strategy, creatives, partnerships, and assets that need to be produced. They also source the creative partners, let them be graphic designers, production companies, directors, copywriters, etc. They also used to be much more involved in the media by part before it got heavily regulated.

02:14

Then the production company if needed to execute the logistic and physical aspect of the production. For instance, in the case of producing a TV commercial or an audio ad, and give a final asset to broadcast ready specifications, meaning ready to air. And finally, the media agency, from which the advertising agency buys media space where the final asset will be released. But in the past few years, this has changed drastically for a few reasons.

02:44

Shows like “Mad Men” perfectly depict what is known as the golden age of advertising. That’s because prior to the late 90s, Media By was generally carried out by the media department of an advertising agency. This was done in a not-so-transparent fashion and resulted in advertising agencies often charging huge premiums and therefore the ad industry became famous for the extravagant lifestyle this period was known for.

03:12

Then there is something else, which is the digitalization of the ad industry. For X amount of billboards you see on the street, how many more banners do you see on the internet? Today, most companies invest mainly in digital advertising over traditional advertising. It makes sense that companies decided to internalize creative asset production at scale. This is why we see many big companies creating in-house asset production teams, such as Red Bull or Snapchat.

03:42

Creative asset production and content have become more core activities within many marketing departments. Eventually a lot of companies today have become the client, the advertising agency, the production company, and even sometimes the media agency as well when it comes to online media. So why do companies take production in-house? There is obviously a cost factor. If you do it every day or need to publish a specific asset, it makes sense to hire someone to do it full-time. By doing so, the employee tells us to develop his or her skills specifically for the company aligning with brand guidelines and needs. Knowing what is needed becomes second nature. This allows it to be more efficient and the company has more control and flexibility over the final asset and the creative team can optimize the asset while the company is still running.

04:42

and that is the future of advertising and creative productions tech stacks, the ensemble of the tech tools you use for dedicated positions, are increasingly growing and changing. We need to produce more and faster. These tools are made to make our life easier and more efficient. But with the rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we see the emergence of new tools that can automate creative asset production as well.

05:12

like Copy.io or Jasper.ai, automatized block creation requiring only minimum editing. It allows for being optimized for SEO instantly. Dali is a platform that automagically generates a network based on a sentence we give such as teddy bears shopping groceries in ancient Egypt. This poses the question of how asset production will be produced in the near future and how it will shift the structure of our current marketing teams.

05:42

This takes us to the end of this episode. We hope this episode on the new ad agency model and in-house productions was beneficial to you. Thanks for listening to BrandRunner. Please give us a 5-star review on Apple Podcast or the podcast app of your choice. It really helps the show to be heard. This was BrandRunner.

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