With the proliferation of online video content and the dramatic fall in production costs, the barrier to entry for content creators has shattered, opening the flood gates to a multitude of minnow suppliers, nibbling away at the budgets and creative control of agency clients.

LOSS OF REVENUE

As clients pressure agencies for lower production costs, contracting external suppliers has become an unsustainable option. Reduced margins are insufficient to cover the creative hours required to brief, manage and supervise external production on smaller budgets, leading to frustration and stretched capacity.

To avoid this constant battle, the growing trend is simply for clients to commission work direct to suppliers, cutting the spend from agency budget allocation all together. 

In the Madmen heyday of advertising agencies through the 1950’s and 60’s, creatives still held strategic thinking and ideation as priority, but copywriters also had executional craft - they had to know the craft of copywriting. Art directors on the other hand, primarily ‘directed’ other professionals - photographers, designers, typographers.

The print production revolution of the 1990’s saw the democratisation of design through desktop publishing. Suddenly, agency art directors had to become more proficient in their executional craft. Type setting and typography were no longer something to brief a specialist on - they became part of your job - art directors had to become designers.

Now, we are in the middle of another production revolution. 

Not only does every creative professional have a video camera, every consumer who has a phone has one! Everyone can now ‘shoot’ content.

The problem is, very few people understand how to shoot TV commercials or video content. 

What’s lacking is the craft of directing.

LOSS OF CREATIVE CONTROL

With the agency removed from the development process, creative control is lost and brand consistency begins to erode. Many of the new “content creators” lack the creative experience to take on a brand’s strategic platform and develop work from script to screen with creative integrity.

They have a DSLR and a GoPro drone, but they lack the core strategic and creative skills that set agency creatives apart.

LOSS OF CLIENT RELATIONSHIP

More dangerous than the immediate threat of lost income and lower quality output, is the long term threat of external suppliers growing relationships direct with clients and constantly pushing for a larger slice of their marketing budget. 

The current trend is not only frustrating and inefficient, but fundamentally threatens long term agency sustainability.

The craft of directing is about how to get an idea from script to screen with clarity and power. 

It’s about understanding production techniques and processes to maximise budgets. It’s about understanding audiences and knowing how to hit their triggers and design a response.

No creative professional sits in a better position to harness and utilise this craft than passionate agency creatives.

THE ESSENTIAL CREATIVE CRAFT OF OUR TIME.

Every client produces video content now and virtually every brief has a video component to it. 

An agency’s ability to survive and thrive in the next decade will be directly related to their ability to keep this work in-house on every level. Not just in production & management, but from a position of creative control.

Over the next 5 years, the craft of directing will become the essential executional craft for all creative professionals. 

The agencies that commit to the new world and empower their creatives to direct will be the ones who increase their revenue, regain creative control and secure their client relationships.