Crews that subcontract to the production companies are the real victims in the lack of transparency in advertising production
The sad fact is that the people that end up ultimately suffering in the lack of transparency in advertising production are the smallest, such as the crews that subcontract to the production companies, says Darren Woolley, founder of TrinityP3
Last year the ANA [in the US] responded to the investigation by the Department of Justice into Agency production practices and included this in their call for greater transparency in advertiser and agency relationships.
The concern was that agencies and especially the Holding Companies that own the agency groups, were competitively tendering for advertiser commercial productions against the independent production companies in an unfair and biased manner.
Effectively it was claimed that the agencies were lining their own coffers by under cutting the independent production companies by having them tender and then providing competitive services at a lower price, effectively and unfairly squeezing them in the market.
But from our perspective of more than 30 years of industry experience, this lack of transparency exists at every level of the production process in some form and in fact all parties, from the advertiser whales down to the smallest minnows could be more transparent in the process.
The sad fact is that the people that end up ultimately suffering in this process are the smallest such as the crews that subcontract to the production companies.
5 Comments
Not to mention the 45 days from the end of the month bullshit. We do a job on June 1st and we’ll get paid on August 15th! That’s 75 days interest free! How can that be allowed to continue?!
The hypocrisy of T3 running this on the WA blog is astounding. They are about to ship yet another major account out of WA – something that will do more to take work from local crews than any supposed action taken by agencies.
Daren, save your pathetic, poorly-written, hypocrisy for a market you aren’t actively trying to decimate.
You’re the problem; stop trying to dress yourself as the solution.
Definitely a strong resentment forming among the local crews towards agencies in this regard. You get told how long it will take you to complete the job and how much you will get paid (usually from a producer thats been in the job a few weeks) then get asked for a reduction in your price if you want the job and then to top it off have to wait months to be paid. Most of the time now the job is completed in house anyway!
TP3 pit businesses against each other to drive down price with no regard to quality and service, this can actually drive good people out of business. The advice of TP3 is divisive and hollow. If you engage these sort of arse covering monkeys then you deserve the process and results that they will deliver. Procurement agencies tend to erode trust, and without trust suppliers and purchasers are much less likely to collaborate on improving a product or service.
That subhead is an abomination.