Steffen Gentis Heads Up BBDO Germany's CraftWork

Steffen Gentis Heads Up BBDO Germany's CraftWork

With the bold maxim "Crafting vision into reality", BBDO Germany launched its new production division CraftWork at the beginning of May. Headquartered in Düsseldorf, CraftWork builds on the extensive production experience of the TV Department at BBDO Proximity, expanding to serve all the agencies within BBDO's Germany Group.




Heading up CraftWork is Steffen Gentis, BBDO's Head of TV in Düsseldorf since 2004 and curator / presenter of the renowned 'Regielounge' (Directors Lounge) screening events. Filling the role of Chief Production Officer for the BBDO Germany group, Gentis hopes to respond to the needs of a growing and rapidly changing dynamic film and digital market by bringing massive production experience and creative competence – increasing efficiency and effectiveness and activating synergies across the BBDO Network in all areas of production.

We caught a moment with Steffen to quiz him on the new role and what the consolidation means for BBDO's productions.

What is CraftWork?

Basically, CraftWork crafts ideas into reality. We are driven to delivering the best possible execution, and will leave no stone unturned in telling the story, in the best possible way. We see ourselves as the benchmark in quality and efficiency; leading the way in producing copy across all advertising channels, and securing the work, in the most effective and sustainable manner.

What are the benefits of having a centralised department of this type for all of the German offices? What changes have you seen in commercial production in recent years?

By consolidating production expertise in one unit, while expanding to produce for a larger circle of agencies, we can significantly bring more value to the execution by better matching special skills and experience to different project needs. The production volume helps us negotiate and create robust efficient sustainable business relationships with our production partners.

But the market has changed – 5 years ago I said that we would be shifting from producing one TVC for 500 thousand, to producing 10 commercials for 50 thousand. I was only partially right: we are now shooting on commercial for 250 thousand AND producing a dozen different audio-visual assets for different screens and touchpoints for, say, another 250 thousand.
 

So the amount of work we are producing for the same amount of money has increased in volume and complexity. At the same time the amount of full-up TVC productions per year is decreasing as brands consolidate across markets and media. Against this background it's important to help our clients avoid replication across markets, and to explore synergies and explore potential efficiencies, particularly in the case of versioning and adaptation of master copy, which is a big part of the work.

There are more advantages in a crossmarket-interagency production: the QC aspect – ensuring that all execution is produced to the same standards of excellence and is compliant with increasingly extensive client guidelines. This is really important for global brands.

You're renowned for your popular Regielounge events. How do you see the curation of those feeding in to this new role?

It's interesting that with the Regielounge we have been able to prove that we can create value for everybody attending – it's the reason why it keeps growing. In a way it reflects what CraftWork will be all about too, created by the same people with same principles in mind. I imagine that CraftWork will help us redefine the relationships between production and agency, finding new ways, probably on a project-to-project basis to share responsibilities and to inspire each other to try out new ways of doing things.
 

In what ways do you think that the BBDO Network excels within production?

There's a lot of really excellent producers out there, in the networks as well as at the independent agencies, and BBDO is really fortunate to have a large share of these excellent people working to the same standards across all markets.

How do you expect the service to expand? Will we see CraftWork in other territories?

The idea of CraftWork is not really that new. What is new is that we are approaching agency production in a very agile "produce on demand" basis, while at the same time delivering significant additional production value, and ensuring the processes and reducing unnecessary cost through synergies and the reduction of unnecessary replication.

What are you working on at the moment? When can we see the next Regielounge?

The next Regielounge is in Düsseldorf on the 26th of September.

I won't reveal too much, too early, except that we will be introducing a slightly new concept in September that will probably expand the Regielounge internationally…

Posted on 16th May 2013