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I was under creative for many, many years.
It was good for me at first, but then I realized my role was never going to carry the same weight as the creatives. I eventually jumped ship to work at agency with a legit HOP and production department and haven’t looked back.
I love the creative team by the way, and always feel like one of them still, I just needed a separate department to ensure I could push back on the creatives when I needed to without feeling like my ECD/CCO boss would fire me or see it as a knock on the work, etc.
I had that at my last agency (small shop) and it was tough. GCD didn’t always loop me in - especially when he wanted to avoid processes. Ultimately it was never going to be a place for production to grow.
Yeah, sorry.
👋
I think it comes from a place where brands didn’t know what producers did or didn’t see a need for an entire department dedicated to it. Oftentimes they would just bring in freelancers when it was time to actually make something that couldn’t be done with the in-house resources. They’re getting savvy now and hiring us as full time employees but keeping us within creative because honestly, where else would I fit?
This!
This is the situation for me but it’s also a newer position within the creative team and the long term goal is to have a dedicated production team.
Yep, our producers and in-house post facility were in the creative department.
This is my life. ECD and I are looking to make a case to build production as a separate department /create an arm of the agency that runs like a production company. Has anyone ever been at an agency that’s successfully done this?
Do your research on this and especially the profit margins this endeavor would bring. At multiple agencies I’ve been at, we’ve wound up in a pickle because (1) the in house team can’t be bid against outside vendors and (2) unless you have enough work to keep a team busy year long, it’s hard to justify the cost of a full time salary.
It usually ends with leadership mandating that projects are run through the in house production team in order for the agency to make money and hit their goals in Q4. Creatives come to resent the in house production arm because you don’t get the creature comforts that you would at a vendor (after all, any frills cut into the agency’s profits). Producers come to resent the them too because our jobs go from not only standard producing, but then also having to be line producers and post producers.
Because so many projects get funneled through the in house team they get burnt out quickly. You try and bring freelancers in but, again, this becomes less a creative/talent discussion and all comes down to dollars/profits.