A talented copywriter can come up with campaign concepts, compose copy, proof and edit for grammar and spelling, lead creative reviews, and perform many job-related tasks. Although a copywriter can edit copy, you wouldn’t hire a copy editor to design campaign concepts. That’s because copy editing is one skill a good copywriter will have, but a copywriter brings much more to the table.
It’s the same thing when producing a campaign or advertising job. A talented agency producer can assist in evaluating potential new work with new business leads, provide scoping estimates for both time and budget, build and lead an appropriate team for an assignment, organize and run meetings, and so much more. A project manager can organize and run meetings, but you wouldn’t hire a project manager to help steer new business into profitable work (and away from bad work), nor would you hire one to sit in on a creative meeting to help shape a creative concept based upon the available resources.
There’s nothing wrong with project managers. They’re great to have on a team, and can serve you well. But they can’t do everything a talented and experienced producer can do, and it’s about time agencies stopped watering down their in-house production abilities – ESPECIALLY since most agencies are doing more video, app, and social media production work in-house.
Say your creative team comes up with a great idea to film a video with five chimpanzees in a hot air balloon, and you’d like the song “Take a Giant Step” to play in the background. Let’s take a look at what a project manager could offer to assist with this project, as opposed to a producer:
Project Manager: She will schedule the kickoff meeting for this project, and schedule regular meetings, as well as the creative and client reviews, suggested to her by the creative director based upon the information the contracted production house provided that creative director. Regular contact between the agency and the production house will be the responsibility of the creative director, and any changes to costs or timing will have to be explained to the project manager to update the schedule and budget. Most importantly, she’ll have no idea where to hire chimps or a hot air balloon, and probably will have little to no understanding of music rights.
Producer: She will work with the creative team to help them shape creative concepts, based upon her knowledge and experience with past video work, and suggest potential production houses to hire, if one is needed. She can offer multiple schedules and estimates for multiple production partners, as well as using in-house resources, and meet with the client to help explain the benefits a larger budget may offer, as well as explain details of the project, such as the rigging such a shoot may require. She will then serve as the single point of contact for all team members, all outsourced partners, and the account team. Likewise, she will utilize her well-worn black book to find the best options for hiring animals and animal handlers, hot air balloon operators and safety personnel, and be able to negotiate with artists or their rights management representatives to get a good price on music rights. If things change or emergencies arise, she will be able to solve problems in real-time, and offer options for the creative and account teams to present to the client.
She’ll tackle elements of a project that have never been done before by anyone at the agency – or even anyone ever.
If you want to save money for your agency by cutting back on what money you spend on outside partners and contractors, the first thing you need to do is invest more money in producers. Talented producers help save money across an agency. They offer efficiency on projects, but also help identify and stop less-profitable (or money-losing) projects before they get signed into work. They help project long-term growth plans, allowing your agency to hire talent wisely so that you’re not continually outsourcing work that would’ve been smarter and more profitable to do in-house.
Most importantly, producers create an in-house library of knowledge that can be taught to junior producers, and new talent in other departments. Many great producers are former teachers, or currently teach college or night classes. Institutional knowledge is gold, and paying hired guns for their knowledge is throwing good money after bad.
If agencies want to bring more work in-house, they absolutely have to build a production arm led by producers, not project managers.
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