Punching Above

Local TV Creative Departments are getting rarer these days. We hear of their being shuttered by major broadcasters each year, as production companies and ad agencies bid to create higher-concept multi-platform creative. I’m not particularly educated about the economic viability regarding TV Creative departments versus independent production companies, but my best guess is that in the bygone era in which video production was prohibitively expensive, the number of options for getting your commercial created were few, and a TV station that was already stocked with equipment to shoot video and the systems to process it made for a compelling offer. Coupled with the advantage that producing the ad wasn’t the main service, commercial production could serve as a loss-leader, being sold below-cost to incentivize the client to spend more on the real money maker: airtime.

So, if we can undercharge like this, why would anyone get their commercial produced anywhere else? As the barriers to video production and filmmaking keep lifting, small and big suppliers alike enter this industry with the need to compete to stand out. Without the near-oligopoly that TV stations enjoyed in the tape era, production companies of today had to reinvent a lot of wheels and create increasingly excellent work to catch the eye of a potential advertiser. This can allow for some very well thought out concepts and (expensively) beautiful execution that the client values; not so viable for a business model that is incentivised to save time and money in favour of quantity of ads to push the bigger product of airtime. While we pride ourselves on being able to turn around a 30 second commercial in as little as a day, a brand may work with a freelancer or production company for months on their advertisement.

CV