Over the last 25 years, I’ve watched the evolution of advertising and how we produce art for commerce. Since digital marketing slid into light in the ’90s, I watched the shift in early 2000 from shooting film to digital and along with that a new attitude towards time and money when making ads. Come 2007 we had seen Facebook, Youtube, and the iPhone launch and suddenly our conversation in the production office was switching. Producing traditional content was changing and at a rapid rate and what were we going to do to evolve with it?
Come 2008 I was already talking to agencies trying to convince them that working with one production house to create motion and still content, was the way forward. It would have better savings and continuity.
“I think I even pushed the term ‘double capture’ onto the table. That name never stuck and I scrapped it after I knew my creation of a name was never going to work and I’d needed to wait for someone in the advertising industry to coin something that I’d have to adopt.”
Considering Keith Reinhart (Chairman of Emeritus of DDB worldwide and previously of AAAA), was one of the first to coin the concept and need for integrated marketing in the ’90s, I’d no doubt need to wait for a global marketing buzz name to filter into Aus marketers, agencies and the risk-takers, in order for me to talk about making integrated campaigns. Keith’s brainchild and the idea of aligning your brand with one voice are still of course key, but we are less twentieth century about it and more about Omni Channel and 360 that is both campaign and evergreen driven in content. Finally thirteen years after a terrible attempt to market us and build a name for making 360 campaigns for clients, we are doing just that! Great, well done for you I hear you say! But it has been great to be able to evolve, align and service the commercial world with our arts and make IMC under one roof, but it now goes way further than that.
I get briefed more often than not now to work on campaigns that fit every media and format into one production. But alongside that, I talk to Marketing Directors every week and I know first hand the pressure on them now to make more content, at scale and speed for multiple demographics and territories but for less than before. That pressure often leads to content waste and of course us at the production house feeling the horrible pointy end of the time and money demands. So here is where we come full circle and the point of talking about this. As an adapting producer I have always wanted to solve the evolution of making art and the demands of commerce, and I am convinced that right now the answer is marketeers and ad agencies working with a single production provider who can make the 360 campaigns. It’s more streamlined and economic when looking to solve marketing dilemmas with one single integrated supplier, including how even campaign work can bleed into evergreen content too, for that extra longevity where possible. Over the last couple of years, we have produced the TVC / VOD, content with multiple channels and platforms, stills/print, and the radio with the entire campaign having multiple formats, etc all under one roof, with one team. The original thought of cost and time savings is of course met allowing for the production house to allocate where they spend within the different mediums, rather than the marketeer or agency scratching over that role and providing to different production houses. But importantly it goes back to Keith’s marketing formula of continuity. Rather than the brand reining in the multiple outsourced suppliers, we can do it in the one. The next question is: can this also be the solution to the in-house or outsourced agency debate, with their thoughts on brand knowledge and continuity?
Integrated Campaign for IMB Bank by The Incredible Production Collective. Credits below.
Credits:
IMB ‘Right By You Since 1880’
Agency – Ext 77
Creative Directors – Graham Johnson and Oliver Devaris
Client – IMB Bank
Production Co – The Incredible Production Collective
Executive Producer – Sam Allison
Director – Gemma Lee
DOP – Simon Ozolins
Photographer – Adrian Cook