How To... Manage Relations with Brands if You're a Production Company

As a creative studio built on delivering both thinking and making to brands, we see first-hand the value in being able to work directly and collaboratively across the production process. 

As the requirements of the relationship between brands and their partners evolves, there’s an opportunity for those who can deliver production to take a new role, working directly with brands. However, it’s not just business as usual, for production companies looking to make the move, there has to be an essential willingness to adapt your business. 

What roles do you need to fill? What skills do you require? Which people on your team fit the bill and who might you need to bring in? You also have to decide what sort of relationships you want to have. 

Cultivating a brand relationship requires a different mind and skill set, and it’s also more of a needs-driven model. To properly fill the space that the traditional agency relationship has occupied you need to be committed to solving brands’ business problems. People fail when they simplify or ignore this requisite. There also isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Different brands have different needs and those that can solve these needs through the right products and services will be extremely valuable to brands. 

In this new environment we have to be not only reactive, but relevant. The complexity of modern marketing means that this is more key than ever. Market conditions have forced clients to shift their approach. 

We see brands turning to networks of specialist partners, to bring in the right people for the right project. The traditional ‘full service’ model will struggle to remain relevant, because you simply can’t credibly know everything about everything, especially with the proliferation of new media and technology evolving at the rate it currently is.

In this world there’s new opportunities for production companies, reimagining the services they provide and the types of relationships they want to build with brands.

Traditionally brands have briefed agencies to help answer their business problems, but more and more we are finding that we are evolving ideas and taking them to brands proactively. This stems from good relationships; understanding the brand’s needs and knowing the kind of solutions that would solve these needs. 

A great example of this is our recent work with Red Bull.  Through our Real Story Network, we heard about John McAvoy, an incredible former convict, who is now a record breaking and Nike sponsored athlete.  We worked with John for a year, before approaching Red Bull with his and three other unlikely heroes' stories.

This became Red Bull’s Way of the Wildcard series, appealing to a younger demographic with an accessible message.  It’s a great example of how when you understand the challenges facing a brand, you can use your expertise to develop the right solutions that fit with your own values and point of view. It's the new era of proactive production, one that’s putting brands’ needs at the heart of the solution.