“Evolve or Die”: Changing Production Business Models

As social platforms proliferate, new kinds of directors and creators start to emerge and brands evolve, many traditional roster-led independent production companies are starting to change things up. On one hand, producer-led versus director-led has become a recurring conversation in the production world. On the other, there are those leaning into the creator economy, while others find ways to tap into the opportunities presented by platforms, always-on brands and data. Elsewhere, agencies and holding companies are ramping up their production units and brands are opening up their own content production studios. What does this all mean and what should the world expect from the production business evolution that is happening in real time?

It’s clear  that an industry led by innovation and creativity is no stranger to change, so none of this should  come as a surprise. Chris Page, founder of Jelly knows that the only constant is change. “The clients, business models and craft are constantly being updated and goalposts are moving,” he reminds. “Any urge to stand still normally means that you are going backwards.”

This is why Jelly’s business model has always been slightly ahead of the curve, with a specialisation in two different areas - it acts as both a high-level illustration agent and an animation production company. This leads to having two very different rosters that Jelly has the duty to care for. “We can’t just focus our sales and marketing outreach in one area, our studio must turn over a lot of client-shaped rocks in the hunt for varied opportunities, and our favourite types of work are usually hybrid or cross-media.”

The best place to find that type of work, at least for Jelly, is by going direct to brand and decoupling early on from being dependent on commissions and scripts from agencies. “Not making this our sole source of revenue turned out to be the best decision we ever made,” says Chris. “Not only in terms of broadening the scope of the work available for our talent, but also the depth of each opportunity for us as a business.”

Working alongside clients such as sportswear brand On also gave Jelly the opportunity to work with more varied freelance talent, from planners to art directors, who the company could engage with before introducing their core craft and production offering. Mia Powell, head of business and strategy at PRETTYBIRD believes that in a space where creativity and craft is always king, having access and seeking out diverse talent is the only way to propel yourself forward.

But back to working directly with brands - Chris knows that the best way to identify their challenges and demonstrate the creative routes that would solve them is by coming in early in the production cycle. “But production wings can spread further than that,” he explains. “We’ve found great success having our artists collaborate with brands such as H&M on clothing ranges, merchandise and supporting marketing material, as well as in the world of interactive gaming - all projects that have evolved from our desire to not rely on third parties to provide us and our talent with income.”

He continues, “There seem to be fewer ‘high level’ TVC scripts emerging from traditional routes, and too many companies are chasing those few opportunities. The big agency networks are risk averse, but brands seem to be more confident of their identity and purpose when they work with production companies directly. Concentrate your sales efforts on direct brands, tech or other areas that suit your talent, and then market what you’ve done to the ad industry, if you still hanker for that work - that’s the right way round to do it.”

And what kind of work talent wants to do is directly related to what kind of talent you harness. “Whether the creativity is coming from directors who have established themselves in their field or the production ecosystems they surround themselves with, or even a new kid on the block who has been making clips in their bedroom, agencies and brands both want to know you can deliver, no matter what format,” says PRETTYBIRD’s Mia. “As formats change, so must we.”

PRETTYBIRD has spent over a decade now proving how it can turn scripts into gold, and that history and knowledge is what the team there leverages when working with new talent or directors from ‘unconventional’ backgrounds. By always having a grassroots approach to signing directing talent from all walks of life, from animation to investigative journalism, PRETTYBIRD is able to sink its teeth into the new creator economy when searching for its next voice.

Recently, it has developed ‘The Nest’ - a space for directors on the precipice of breaking into the commercial landscape. Mia breaks it down: “Most of the directors are already award-winning and well adept in their craft, having a common thread across music video, short form and commercial. Creators such as Jade Ang Jackman, who has a serious addiction to sport and runs a magazine called ‘Babes with Blades’. Elliott Gonzo has just directed his second narrative short ‘Hard Times’. Kelvin Jones who’s Aitch’s creative director and Joseph Wilson, a supreme drag performance artist. These are just some of our new signings and a great example of talent that can be found in The Nest.”

Part of the zeitgeist, these directors, as much of PRETTYBIRD’s roster, are medium agnostic and heavily multidisciplinary. Here, fluency in multiple disciplines is key, especially when going direct to brands, as they are the ones that are evolving with the speed of light, as they try to make their customer dialogue multi-dimensional. “For some brands that means social first, for others, finding a way to sink deeper into branded entertainment and narrative-led stories - these guys are living and breathing it!”

And for the directors versus producer conversation, Mia gives an alternative: “We are doing something a little bit different and we’re adopting a model where top-tier directors like Melina Matsoukas come onboard as an EP to help support other directors within the ecosystem. So directors as producers, fun hey?” She continues, “We’re shaking things up in big ways whilst staying true to our core values, continuing to encourage agencies and brands to invite new voices into the fold whilst leveraging the creative nous and backing of well established contributors in our field and network.”

Similarly, production company Lief is also built on the spirit of innovation and imagination. For founder Margo Mars, getting bogged down in data and endless slide decks is the biggest enemy imagination can face. This is why she, similarly to Mia, spends a lot of her time imagining the visions of brilliant new voices for brands who will ultimately connect them with global audiences longing for “something magical.” These new voices, according to Margo, are defining today’s culture and are not the long-established commercial directors - “they are the artists, the unconstrained creators and the filmmakers that create across all mediums.”

Lief is putting effort into not only harnessing these new unique voices, but also creating artistic partnerships for their clients as much as acting as a trusted production company. “Within these partnerships, we can act as a curator of talent, be a production consultant specialising in premium entertainment, and join forces tailoring a distribution plan for true viewership and engagement,” says Margo. For her, Lief’s main goal is to cultivate the joy of ‘doing together’ and the company sees its clients as partners, inviting them to feel the same.

“We believe in openness, passion, expression and uniqueness: an honest singular vision will always be in demand, for the right project and the right partnership.The kind of advertising content that absolutely requires partners like Lief is committed to doing good - to creating a positive impact on society, the environment, or the arts.”

Going back to the proliferation of platforms and the ways in which brands should look to engage with that, Margo believes that bonding in a meaningful way means creating unforgettable content, by not just paying for eyeballs, but earning them. “Through tailored artistic partnerships, the news and rapidly evolving business models of agencies, holding companies and brands can fully support premium content creation and our beautiful industry can remain a healthy, sustainable and flourishing place for all,” she concludes. “Magic.”

For Avocados and Coconuts, the magic began twelve years ago, with their establishment and the promise of always staying nimble, reactive and most of all - effective. At the time, says EP and founder Dalia Burde, the company was still competing with traditional production houses for talent, so they strategically made the decision not to focus on a director-led approach, but create a producer-led shop - an anomaly 10 years ago.

But even then, collecting your talent from all walks of life was paramount - everybody could wear many hats and got their hands dirty in the pursuit of cool work. Though this approach still stays at the core of Avocados and Coconuts, today they have cultivated a strong roster of directors. “We focus on talent that can break through the saturated world of content with something that stands out,” say Dalia and creative director Amani King.

Another pillar on which the team there is structured is collaboration with internal agencies. “Our creatives, directors, editors, and producers enhance the strengths of internal creative teams and seek to elevate rather than isolate the creative credits.” And while they also often work direct-to-client, they’re not always leading the full creative charge. “We bring deep knowledge of production, problem-solving, and fresh creative direction to the table and work in step with the brand to find the most creative route within the prescribed financial and time constraints.” And those constraints seem to have become the only constants on every project.

These days, Avocados and Coconuts characterises itself as a ‘creative production agency’ - “Full creative chops that are grounded in production reality. This approach has led to a more collaborative, effective, and engaged creative process for all involved.”

A company that had the fortuitous timing of forming just at the cusp of brands dipping their toe into the water with platforms like TikTok is Sliced Studio. At the time, co-founder and director Tobias Rothwell says that the air was heavy with change, especially when it came to the mindsets of clients and agencies about how they allocate their budgets. Traditional media started taking a step back to social platforms, so as a production company that specialised in producing premium social content, Sliced Studio was lucky to form a strong relationship with TikTok’s creative lab early on, even before it had a UK office set up.

“We believe TikTok as a platform has really shaken up the industry, as it’s proven to brands that it’s no longer acceptable to simply reformat your TVC content to distribute across channels,” says Tobias. With this realisation comes the transformation of audiences - data that showed no-sound content preferences across the board has completely changed within two years of TikTok’s existence, with today’s scrollers keeping their sound on. 

“As a result of TikTok’s success, audiences now expect to see a bespoke approach to their content with ads needing to appear native to the platform. Sliced Studio learned this lesson early on, which led to us actively referencing viral trends into our work, to ensure it came across in a natural way,” explains Tobias. “With all this in mind, we believe the business model of Sliced Studio is quite a unique one. We bridge the gap between smaller production companies who deliver high quantity at low budget social content and the more traditional ones who produce low quantity on high budget TVCs.”

So far we’ve seen, unsurprisingly, that production companies have been trying to reinvent the wheel ever since the wheel came into existence. But are network agencies really as ‘risk averse’ as one might think, or are things there being shaken up as well? Chris Myers, managing director of Wunderman Thompson Studios will be the first to admit that 2023 has brought its fair share of change in the production business. He, like others, has been witness to the merging and integration of creative, data, tech and in-house production businesses like Wunderman Thompson Studios have pivoted to become dedicated content studios to support that merging.

Here, the talk of data is much heavier. “We are becoming specialists in platform and template-based content production whilst working more and more alongside consultancies and data specialists as well as creative agencies,” says Chris. “This includes design, transcreation and localisation of content within templatised and automation production.” Wunderman Thompson Studios are becoming experts and centres of excellence for CRM and data-based content production - this includes creative content within templates and automation, which has opened the door to collaboration with holding company networks.

Of course it also leads to the ‘AI revolution’, as Chris puts it, where Wunderman Thompson is working with partners to provide AI content production solutions from governance asset scanning tools to translation and voice command asset updates. “We’re also bracing ourselves for the video AI revolution, which we expect to hit in early 2024, with a whole new suite of video AI tools that will push video and its associated production into a whole new universe.” 

So is magic or tech king in the production world - we are yet to see. Or perhaps it’s both. But one thing’s for sure - “The world has changed,” says Margo. Content is becoming better one way or another, and production companies are ramping up on every level along with agencies and brands, becoming part of a more rippled but perhaps more creatively-structured production ecosystem. As Mia Powell puts it: “Basically, EVOLVE OR DIE.”