How Love for the Work Overcame a Minuscule Budget
A Production Company Reminds Me How Much Fun This Can Be
Posted by Bart Cleveland on 08.20.09 @ 02:58 PM
I am working on a commercial with a minuscule budget. It's a very simple idea, so we should be able to pull it off with a little help from the right production company. We bid it out and get enthused responses. This gives me hope that this micro-budgeted creation will live up to its potential. Then a new contender emerges. Someone not previously on our radar, recommended by a friend. I look at the reel and think they have too much high-budget work to be interested in my little job.
To my surprise they bid the job. When we review the storyboard with them they are so enthusiastic and so full of ideas. I believe the budget can't support most of what they say they want to do (they insist they can do it), but their enthusiasm blows me away. We wait for the number, supposing it will be much higher than the range we gave them. To our surprise, the bid came in line with the budget. So they get the job and we meet face-to-face. The enthusiasm continues with even more ideas to enhance the concept. All of this attention prompts me to ask one of the company's partners why they are willing to go all out on such a small job. He said, "Your budget is your budget, but your idea is an opportunity and the timing is right. It will be a great spot." This is too good to be true. These guys really can't be about the work first. Maybe they're just desperate? I'm confident that there will be a call for more money. It always happens that way. It didn't.
The final pre-production meeting with my client begins. The director is showing the shooting storyboard and costumes, skillfully describing the final spot. His energy is infectious. My client is ecstatic. My creative team is more excited than ever. I lay in my hotel bed that night thinking how long it's been since I've had this much fun.
The next day we shoot the commercial. I'm feeling a little uneasy. When will the disappointment come? When will the façade fall? It doesn't.
Passion gets permission to come out and play. Though we're on a tight schedule, we are able to polish the work because the crew is running like a Swiss watch.
It's been a while since I've worked with a company so on fire about a job. Granted, with my small budgets it's understandable. But this company obviously loves what they do. They are successful, so it's also obvious they know getting paid is important. But maybe to them the thought of being paid well for bad work leaves an unpleasant taste in their mouths? Maybe making great work is just too much fun to pass on? No matter what the reason, I'm grateful to be the recipient of such good fortune.
Just when I thought the passion to do work for the work's sake was all but dead, these guys prove that the belief in the importance of quality work is alive and well. They made me look in the mirror and ask myself if I'm giving the same effort to my clients.
Who am I talking about? Zoic Studios in L.A. Check them out. You'll count your blessings if you get the chance to do something with them. They make creating fun again.
ORRIS COMMENTS:
Dear Bart,
Fun? Or is what really happen is that you let a competitive agency get its foot in your client’s door?
I’d say the latter. It is smart business in a down time to underbid and win business. The opportunity to show your effectiveness is critical in winning new business.
This astute (agency) executive saw your agency as a conduit to your client and to eventually win that business – or to get experience within that business segment. Once armed with examples of work done for your category one can go to category competitors for work.
Bart, there is no doubt that you cleared this article with your client first. Giving the agency even more credibility and more opportunity to displace you.
In thirty years of business I never obtained a business relationship with a new client without first displacing an existing agency. Until I created my own product and company. It is the way our business works. Everyone is looking for an in, and everyone believes they can do better then you can.
I also have never heard of a production house without creative. They need you to get to your client. Sure an agency is a client, but so are your clients, you are a middleman to them.
This is a cutthroat business, worse in economic downturns.
So Bart, you gave these nice fellows an entrée to your client, and to the business you have. That’s the way it works. If they are not ambitious enough to go after your client, they’ll go after your competitors who will in turn go after your clients. Every production house takes your work and shows it as their own. They show it to your competitors, to your client, to your client's competitors, and to anyone who can belly-up with money. And your part in the work is not mentioned unless push comes to shove, then they reveal what you did and they did. But that rarely happens. What you see is what you get.
I was amazed when several prospects said they’d seen the work I was showing them and said we didn’t do it. I would have to go back to our files and dig out all of the work that went into developing the spot to prove who did what, and then get the client to prove it. Although on the dozen or so occasions that I had to do this, I won business as a result. It was a great sell to go through the creative development of a project from the first client meeting to the final product, which obviously they like because they remembered it. And best of all you did it and now they know how you can do it for them.
Just who does what in our business is becoming more blurred as desktop publishing tools and peripherals are improving along with software so that the need for high-end production dissipates as a result. By finding a sound studios to rent, and then a few freelance film and sound guys with their equipment, where you put together a team is the only way around that - or do it yourself. Production houses are pitching economy by cutting out the agency and telling the client to work directly with them. There is no contractual agreement that I know of where an agency can get a sub-contractor or supplier to keep their hands off your client and business with them. When it is all said and done it is the creative that did everything, not the production - at least that is what we'd like to believe.
Here Bart did everything he could to open that door to the client. I would tell clients who were impressed with a production house or photographer that of all of the people we use, we selected them because of this project and would tell them we could have selected several less expensive, but that our Art Director felt these people couple get his ideas across on film. I would bring clients to shots and introduce them to my Art Directors, who in turn introduced the production people and then take charge of the sets. It was always clear to my clients that WE were in charge and we were making everything happen. That was discussed with the production people prior to any client showing up. We are the stars, and they (the client) are to be happy and have fun. We encouraged clients to join in and make comments. To take ownership in the process. After all they are paying for it.
I would always get a minimum of three bids on every project and talk about our decision with the client and let them know that each had different strengths and weaknesses – and most importantly costs. It seemed monotonous but our estimates were guaranteed up or down, plus or minus 10%. As an agency we were never known as cheap, but we always came in on budget.
We took all the credit for our work, and of course thanked our various suppliers. But always let the client know where the creative came from as well as the expertise to produce the finished product.
When I was pitching new business with Fortune 100 Clients, I was amazed at how much of our work was in the client’s files already, supplied to them by production houses after work.
There is no distinction between a production house and an agency to a client if there is no long-term relationship. My former partner said ‘what you see is what you get.’ Meaning that people look at the end product and the people who show it to them. Every client wants to cut out the costly agency if possible. And if they get the idea that the production house can do the job just as well, well, it’s curtains for the agency.
I remember when the Pillsbury VP of Advertising called me in to tell me that we won agency of record for Pillsbury Microwave and for Green Giant. Wow, that’s great. But there was a catch. He said we have started our own media-buying agency, in-house. Meaning that Viking Creative Concepts gets to do the creative and production, sans media placement and commissions. We went from an agency that had 90% of its billings in media advertising to one that ended up with 10% from media advertising. Pillsbury had turned us into their production house. Albeit, they also tossed Leo Burnett and several other high-end agencies out the door, leaving us to fight for scraps.
Clients undercut agencies all of the time. Agencies undercut production houses all of the time and they in turn do the same. “There is no honor among thieves,” is true. Zoic Studios I am sure are as good or better then you state. But your advertisement for them just lost you a production source. Now you probably won’t be able to get booked next time you need them. And what business do we get that can wait - or where we get to create the schedule and deadline?
But the upshot of my comments to you Bart is that you never ever do what you did. Publicly acknowledge a singe supplier. Agencies have to take the credit always. You thank the production house privately and reward them with more work.
When it is all said and done, it was your agency that did the creative and put this whole deal together. Creative is all that we sell, and how we produce it taking mark-ups along the way. Clients understand these mark-ups and of course if they eliminate them they reduce their costs and extend there promotional budgets.
Now to the “fun” part of what you wrote. That is the way this is suppose to work. I always told my employees and students: “If you are not having fun in Advertising and Public Relations, then you are doing something wrong. Because this is suppose to be fun.” When it is done right it is fun, how can a creative enterprise be otherwise?
You saw an organization that was doing what everyone in our business should be doing, being professional and having fun doing it. Where People can hardly wait for tomorrow and the next project. That’s the way it is suppose to be. Or they staged this production for your benefit.
Marcus Aurelius (121-180), said: “The Happiness of Your Life depends upon the Quality of Your Thoughts.” It sounds to me that these guys have figured that out. Now, if you could bottle it, and give a dose of it to your agency and to others …
How many times have we heard people say, it stopped being fun? When they say that they usually quit and move on. Is fun what it is all about? I think so. Put together the right team and they have fun doing what they do best, like Zoic.
Back to business. Zoic made the experience of hiring them fun for you. We are in the “Fun” business. We make stuff. Fun stuff. Whether it was an act staged for the client, or genuine, it worked on you.
I would sit with all of my new employees and tell them that most PR coming from agencies comes from you. Talk us up, and improve you job and this agency. I would impress upon everyone at our meetings that we want our clients to be happy, to do what they want and then give them even more to be happy about. 90% of the time we would come in under-budget. And that was no accident. We do our own PR and the PR that comes from you is called word-of-mouth, it is the best PR there is, so do it. In time we all believed it too.
Zoic is practicing good agency PR. If you have to stage it for your clients do it. Tell the agency that we may be putting on an act now, but in time it won’t be an act, we will be having fun. In time it works that way. Be flexible and listen to your people.
Many of the suppliers we had told me candidly after many years of working together just that, you guys have fun, and are the best. It was once an act for the clients, but in time it became our reality. Just like Marcus Aurelius, 121-180, said: “The Happiness of Your Life depends upon the Quality of Your Thoughts.” Think happy and be happy. Think fun, and have fun.
It’s a big part of agency management, and client relationships – and building business. It's contagious if you give it a chance.
©2009 Daryl Orris
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