Maybe we’re solving the wrong problem
By Pete Verster-Cohen
“How the hell are we supposed to deliver this level of creative ambition with this budget and this timeline?” If you’ve spent any time in advertising or production, you’ve had this conversation.
The client has it. The agency has it. The production company definitely has it. And if you haven’t had it, well, you haven’t been in production for very long.
We’ve all been asking some version of that question for the better part of twenty years, yet it feels like it’s only getting worse.
I don’t want to get into why. We all know the reasons. Platforms have multiplied, deliverables are endless, timelines have shrunk and budgets, well, let’s just say they haven’t exactly kept up.
What interests me is something else. I think we’ve been trying to solve this the wrong way.
This is not a creative problem. It’s a simple problem of economics.
Brands aren’t making one hero commercial every six months anymore. They’re running content operations. The question isn’t simply, “How do we make a great piece of work?” It’s, “How do we consistently make great work, on time and on budget, over and over again?” That’s a systems question.
Perhaps we’ve become so focused on optimising individual projects that we’ve stopped asking whether the production model itself could be better. They’re different questions. One asks how we make today’s project better. The other asks how we make the next hundred projects better.
Why the model hasn’t caught up
A brief goes out. Three directors pitch. One treatment gets chosen and, almost by default, you’ve also chosen the production company that comes with that director. Every project starts with a new team, new workflows, new suppliers and a new way of working. You may argue that the production process is the same no matter which production company you work with, but this just isn’t true, and worse, you (the agency or brand) don’t get to benefit from the learnings that come with repeat work.
By choosing a new production team every time, it’s like you’re starting from the beginning.
So what if we flipped it?
What if we choose the production capability first? Find the people who understand your business, your agency, your standards and the way you like to work. The people who get better every time they work with you because they accumulate knowledge, not just credits.
Then, together, find the right director for that particular job.
Ten years ago this wasn’t really possible because directors were exclusively represented by production companies. Today, directors work more fluidly across companies, markets and production models. You can still find the best creative fit. The difference is that you’re already optimising the time and the money. So yes, I’m suggesting that you can have your cake and eat it.
The Springboks
The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of the Springboks. Rassie Erasmus hasn’t built one of the best rugby teams in the world by relying on one player. Players come and go. Some retire. Some get injured. New talent arrives.
The constant isn’t the individual. It’s the system.
The coaching philosophy. The preparation. The analysis. The culture. The environment that consistently helps great players perform. Nobody would suggest the players aren’t important. Of course they are. They’re the ones scoring the tries. But they’re performing inside a system that has been deliberately designed to get the very best out of them.
Production should work the same way.
The next competitive advantage
Great directors will always matter. Great creative will always matter. But if we’re serious about delivering better work with less time and less money, perhaps the next competitive advantage isn’t another brilliant treatment.
It’s building a production system that gets smarter every time you use it.
Maybe we’ve spent the last twenty years trying to solve an operational problem with only creative in mind. It might be time to start paying more attention to the system.
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