Taking the Lead on Ad Production

By Jillian Gibbs, ANA Faculty

It is imperative that marketing leaders understand their role in driving change toward a new content production strategy. To succeed in the face of today’s content production needs, marketers need to be able to answer the following questions:

•     How is senior marketing implicated in the new production models?
•     What are the skill sets needed for a marketing team to work in this new way?
•     How should marketers organize their teams internally to work differently?
•     What expectations should marketers place on their partners?
•     How can I plan to produce in an integrated fashion?

Furthermore, marketers must be creative when determining the right budget and what content to produce. Today’s marketing teams must be more than just creative thinkers. They also must be technology driven with a keen understanding of 3D, 360-degree, virtual reality, and augmented reality production applications and how to use them effectively while adhering to today’s evolving best practices.

A good content production strategy is more than just understanding if and when to decouple production in new media or emerging production disciplines. It’s developing alternative approaches that help to achieve content goals without compromising existing budgets or quality. It’s knowing when to bring something in house versus when to use your creative agencies.

Content production strategy is understanding what’s happening on the edges of the advertising production community, and what will work for those in the middle, with the hope that all marketing stakeholders will be nudged into thinking differently. Often it’s the partners within the supply chain that marketers must ask to change or to work differently. More than anything though, it’s knowing how to bring marketing and procurement together to work in synergy.

Jillian Gibbs is the founder and CEO of APR, a global ad production consultancy. Using an in-depth, collaborative approach to ad production spend, Jillian has helped define new standards within the ad production industry. She’ll share her wisdom at her upcoming workshop.