The Future of Advertising 2024: Powerful Production Partnerships

How can the industry create more productive production partnerships? Advertising is a team game and good advertising is created only when supported by a web of strong collaborations, sometimes spanning years and turning into great friendships. But what underlines these relationships and more importantly, what sparks them and keeps them intact? 

To answer these questions and more, Dude London’s ECD Curro Piqueras Parra, managing director at thenetworkone Helen Anderson and Tamara Lover, co-founder at Production Works, all took to The Future of Advertising (TFOA) stage.

Kicking off with examining the relationship between production houses and agencies specifically, Tamara zoomed in on the critical role of the producer when it comes to the success of any given project and the quality of its output. 

“There are two components here,” she said. “Having a great producer is worth their weight in gold - they are the people that make anything happen. But that only takes place if there is trust. And you need to allow the experts to do what they do best, you can’t micromanage the process.”

She continued, “I like to think of the creative as the composer of the music and the producer as the maestro who’s responsible for bringing all the pieces together and bringing the project to life.” And of course, when you have a great maestro who’s able to delve into the process, they can inject personality into the music that the original composer, Tamara said, “didn’t even dream of.”

Curro, as a representative of independent agencies on the stage, added that another reason to try to find producers that you really trust and respect is that you can share challenges. “I think a lot of independent agencies love when production houses share challenges with us,” he added. “We acknowledge that the path ahead might be very difficult and there might be loss, and when we are pitching for our project we want the production house to be super transparent and say ‘This thing you want to do might not look as well’ or ‘The editor you want us to put you together with might not be the best one’. So, honesty and sharing challenges is really, really good.”

Tamara spoke more about the ‘decoupled’ production model, to which she explained various pros and cons. “Decoupled models only work if all the parties involved want to be involved. You can’t force this upon a creative agency that doesn’t want it because the results will show in the final product.”

Being equals in these types of production models is what ultimately helps them succeed. But why would both sides want it? Tamara said that from a client’s perspective, having various partners producing independently ends up with a lot of duplication and/or inconsistency. 

“But,” she reminded, “Where I’ve seen it work incredibly well where there is a joint partnership between the creative agency and the production partner. In these, neither partner feels like the other partner is eating their lunch or fighting over cash. If those problems can be neutralised through an agreement, work is better for everyone.”

This, combined with true collaboration, importantly, from the very start, can prevent disaster. Involving production only when it’s actually time to start producing is not best practice, according to both Curro and Tamara - if you have waited until that moment, you have risked losing out on different approaches towards making an idea better. This could be seen as one of the downfalls of decoupled production - decoupling at the wrong moment. “So it’s all about making sure that the production team and the creative team are aligned from the earliest stages possible,” added Tamara.

From an agency’s perspective, Curro said that a lot of the time agencies are worried to “bother” production houses or “waste their time,” which is sometimes the culprit behind involving them too late in.

Speaking about client demands and how productions and agencies come together to meet them as best as they can, Helen asked what producers can learn from agencies and vice versa when it comes to efficient and good work.

“The first thing is that we have the same struggles,” said Curro. “We want the same. We want pitches to be paid and treatments to be paid. Besides wanting the same things, we also have the same problems - we receive impossible deadlines to present and approve ideas. It is a very similar job that we are doing and we’re coming from the same place.”

From the production perspective, Tamara spoke about transparency being something that agencies also need to apply. “As I said earlier, letting specialists do what they’re good at and giving them a little freedom is key. I know that is so tricky when it comes to managing clients, but ultimately, clients get the work they deserve.”

“The two teams are hand in hand, and that’s how the model has always been. Even though decoupled production has thrown some spanners in the works, ultimately, it’s still creative and production working together to create what the client wants. And when that trust is there, transparency is what can bring it to the next level.”