Talks

Working Direct-to-Brand

17th May 2023

Shiny and the In-House Agency Leaders Club joined forces for an evening of inspiration and debate, hosted by draftLine Europe, in-house agency for the brand AB InBev.

The event started with a screening of work from draftLine, MassiveMusic, Makers and a selection of winners from recent Shiny Awards.
The following panel explored the fascinating subject of working direct to brand and how that disintermediation relates to the current production landscape and new directors.

PANELLISTS
Sophie Chapman-Andrews, Executive Producer @Makers
Jimena Seone, Head of Production @draftLine
Hannah Crawford, Creative Development Director @MassiveMusic
Mali Okoi Obuli, Global Exec Producer / Head of Production @adidas
Pranav Arya, Founder/ EP @HouseBand, EP @POCC productions
chair: Patrick Burgoyne, Host @In House Agency Leaders Club

Some of the many, many insights from across the evening included:
- Brand production involves servicing a huge range of marketing requirements, encompassing experiential to retail photography & social media content. Bigger budget video production is usually a small part of many brand’s content needs, ie there are many production opportunities alongside traditional TVC production.
- Each brand’s content production needs and processes are usually very different from one another, ie every brand has to be dealt with differently.
- For non-TVC work, brands are interested in production partners just as much as they are interested in directors/ creative directors, (who are usually decided on later down the line), ie to explore new opportunities, working with brands is a producer-first relationship.
- The nature of content is changing - marketing campaigns are including fewer big budget video centrepieces and more diverse, platform-driven content formats, ie producers need constantly updated skillsets
- During networking some production-side attendees reported working direct to brand is more profitable for them, as the ad agency intermediary is out of the picture, plus they get access to more work.
- Because of brands’ size and organisational complexity there are many things they find difficult to do, which can be resolved by working with production partners, ie talk to brands and find out where their pain points exist.
- There are huge opportunities for new directors, but because of the complex and wide ranging needs inside brands, they need knowledgeable and capable support from production.

All these are hot subjects, forcing fairly dramatic change onto traditional production models.
There was a lot of debate during networking, covering perspectives from many sides of the industry.

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