| Collaboration is the Keyword at AICP Conference
Industry panels examine range of topical issues from procurement
to digital production models at day-long event in New York.
By Anthony Vagnoni
Over 300 members of the advertising and production industries met at the Times Center in New York City on Tuesday, October 26, for the first-ever AICP Conference. At the day-long session they got to hear a diverse range of speakers address key issues facing not just the production of advertising content, but the very nature of what that content will look and feel like.
(To check out our photo gallery from the event, click here.)
The predominant concept that resonated through almost all of the sessions was the increased need for collaboration across the board in the making of advertising content, regardless of media, genre or platform. This included collaboration between production companies and agencies, as well as calls for increased collaboration within agency departments and between traditional ‘brand’ agencies and digital or interactive shops.
The conference included panels that examined the procurement issue from the client, agency and production company perspectives, as well as the use of preferred vendor lists on the part of major advertisers; an examination of the makeup of various digital creative models, seen from both the agency and production company sides; and the increasing amount of in-house production and editorial on the part of agencies, coupled with the shift towards more client-direct work on the part of production and post houses.Additional panels examined legal issues facing the production community, the surge in mobile advertising and what it holds for producers and how best to market creative talent.
The keynote address was delivered by Jeff Goodby, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. In a wide-ranging talk, Goodby commented on how he sees the role of producers and the role of creatives within the agency structure as merging into one unit. “I see us all in the same business,” he said. “Producers are on a parallel path with creatives.”
Goodby commented on the transition of his highly regarded agency from a traditional print and TV powerhouse to a shop that now sees seventy to eighty percent of its work produced in the digital space. He noted that as the agency’s work transitioned, its staff did not—and so the shop undertook a major effort to move its skill sets into digital strategy, digital creative and digital technology and production.
In a follow-up session, Goodby interviewed former JWT/New York Chief Creative Officer Ty Montague of newly formed Co:, and former TBWA\Chiat\Day, New York and Saatchi & Saatchi New York Chief Creative Officer Gerry Graf of the forthcoming Barton F. Graf 9000, on the trend towards starting small, creatively-focused boutique companies.
A key comment that came out of Goodby’s chat with Montague and Graff was the view that, to some extent, the production industry is “its own worst enemy, because you work miracles,” as Montague commented. “You do things so quickly and so well that clients don’t value it enough.” Both he and Goodby warned that the seeming ease with which production houses pull off complex jobs in short time frames has lead clients to more or less expect this level of proficiency all the time, while simultaneously discounting the degree of difficulty required to pull it off. “It’s incumbent on everyone in this room to explain just how all these things are made,” Goodby said.
Montague also commented on the perception of agencies as being big versus small, and that it was somewhat outdated. To illustrate this point, he recalled that when he was at JWT, he would tell prospective clients “you should go with a small agency like us, instead of a big agency like Crispin,” since his office at the time has only 750 employees, as compared to CP+B’s 1200. The line drew a big laugh.
For a full list of sessions and panelists from the conference, click here.
Keynote speaker Jeff Goodby (left) with the AICP's Matt Miller.
Lora Schulson of Y&R with Gerry Graf.
Tanya Cohen of Digital Domain with Goodby's Mike Geiger.
Vin Farrell of R/GA and Jonathan Shipman of McCann.
Paul Babb of Rhythm + Hues and Kathy DiToro of Campbell Mithun.
Joann Diglio of DDB, Bob Nelson of Eyeball and Ellizabeth Kiehner of Thornberg & Forester.
Panel moderator Jerry Solomon of Epoch with Roopak Saluja of Bang Bang Films in Mumbai.
Kerstin Emhoff of Prettybird with Roxanne Artesona of Roxanne & Co.
Valerie Petrusson of Beast and Tom Duff of Optimus.
Michelle Curran of Amber and Ray Foote of Big Foote.
Kamila Prokop of Maven Label and Diane McCarter of Furlined.
Pamela Maythenyi of SourceEcreative and Rich Carter of
GARTNER, who served as the conference MC.
Pete Christy of Rascal, Carolyn Hill of Carolyn's Office, Rick Lopes of
The Lopes Film Co. and Mary Knox of Curious Pictures.
Burke Moody of AICE and Tim McGuire of Cutters.
Don McNeill of Digital Kitchen and Ed Ulbrich of Mothership and Digital Domain.
Bethany MacMillan of Barrie Isaacson Mgmt. and Amy Zale of Spontaneous.
Charles Salice and Tim Case of Supply + Demand.
Published 28 October, 2010
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