The Ad Industry Doesn’t Need Another Production Consultant

It’s no secret that the half-century old production consultant model is irrelevant in today’s advertising environment. As marketing finance and procurement have become increasingly involved in managing budget optimization, it's become even more obvious that scouring line items on a bid, hoping to squeeze out a few grand here and there, won’t solve a client’s ongoing production problems.  Yet, this is what production consultants have been doing since Bill Van Praag and John Ernst pioneered the practice in 1970.

By continuing to engage third-party interlopers who create chokepoints in the production process, clients risk undermining their relationship with their agencies and vendors, diluting the creative drive they’re counting on from these important partners.  

In a recent survey by Working Not Working, when agency creatives were asked where they think the most opportunity will be for creative work in the next five years, almost 90 percent believe it won’t be at ad agencies. It wouldn’t be surprising to find that an even greater percentage of agency producers and business managers feel this way, after years of being treated with suspicion. This should alarm any client.

It’s time to shift from finger pointing to bridge building, which is why I launched Lakehouse Partners, the first management consultancy specialising in production.

When Paul Mavis agreed to sell me Mavis & Co., it was because he shares my vision that content production management is a strategic business problem rather than a tactical afterthought. 

With our world class leadership team, we provide our clients the expertise, objectivity, and bandwidth to develop customised strategies that help them achieve their business goals while increasing their marketing budget’s ROI. 

We’re able to get under the hood and address issues that aren’t totally obvious, and often not that glamorous, but, when refined, can make their content engine run smoother and move everyone closer to a frictionless content production ecosystem.

Even though the ad industry doesn’t need a new production consultant, it definitely needs help, especially in content production. That’s why I started Lakehouse Partners.