🚨Trend/Rant/Insight Alert🚨 Across almost every sector and industry, content production is moving in-house. I’ve seen a marked shift towards building out small to mid-level production capabilities inside major brands and agencies in the last six to eight months. From full-time, production and post-production ready teams to Creator-minded TikTok and Reels specialists armed with nothing but an iPhone and a ring light, companies are finding the investment and overhead worth it to ramp up their content mills. I think there’s a few implications here. For one, the demand to increase speed and decrease the time between inception and publishing is real. Companies and marketing teams, especially for huge global brands, can see social trends come and fade before their processes and workflows can even be engaged, let alone capitalize on them. Smaller, faster teams, closer to the decision-makers give them a puncher’s chance at striking Trending gold. “Learn TikTok,” seems to be the “learn to code” for 2024 and if your marketing team isn’t hiring an in-house creator to be a TikTok machine, they’re one of the few. And secondly, and likely what I think is truly driving this, brands and agencies want to hold on to as much revenue and fee as possible. Instead of outsourcing specialist contractors, vendors or freelancers on a project-by-project basis, they want established, known-quantity teams with consistent workflows, fixed cost structures and to minimize OOPs. When advertising and marketing budgets get tight, it’s easy to look at production (which is basically *all* OOPs) and see an easy area to trim. I think there’s pros and cons to this approach. In-house teams can be fast, agile and will know your brand inside and out. They can also get stylistically stale and, at some point, cap out on capabilities and technical know-how. The upside of engaging a wide freelancer and vendor network is the ability to bring in new talent, exciting technologies and fresh perspectives regularly. Additionally, the vendor marketplace (hopefully) means there’s true competition on price and while revenue may be going out, it is (ideally) actually more efficient on a per project basis. I think the most successful brands will balance a well-rounded internal team for regular, drumbeat content with an extensive network of freelancers and vendors for must-win moments and big swings. Going forward, it’s important brands that build in in-house production continue to train, grow and invest in those resources and not see it as a one-time hit to this fiscal year’s numbers. And production vendors need to understand what role agencies and brands want content to play and continue to bring innovative, efficient offerings to the table. It's never been easier to make great content and tell great stories. But who you choose to make those stories will determine just how successful those stories get told.
Well put, Tom. As the owner of a production company who relies 100% on partnering with agencies and brands, I am realizing that our model needs to adapt to this new reality and be ready for a sliding scale of production briefs and requests that come our way. As many marketing budgets are increasingly unable to sustain the production costs of old, the rise of social video has required a new approach to film-making and we, as production houses, need to be able to offer new, creative and efficient ways to help agencies and brands reach and engage their audience. Thanks for the great conversation starter :)
Adapting in-house can harness creativity & speed, echoing Edison's belief in innovation's value. Balancing this with external talent enriches perspective 🌟 Keep evolving!
Tom, thanks for sharing your thoughts. The trend is real but not new. We have been suggesting this working relationship for years. Since 2017, as an independent video production vendor there is no way we can keep up with the social media demands required for a well balanced video content strategy. As you know, there are tiers of videos that need to be made in order to find your customer where they are in their journey. Any brand that wants to compete in the current, over saturated media space needs to embrace a certain volume of video while continuing to produce quality video that speaks to the brand's identity. This is how a strong internal team and a refined video vendor are able to work together.
Tom Shea becoming the thought leader he already was. Love it.
I agree with your position but I wonder if there is the opportunity for both. The social algorithms are demanding more and more video to have the opportunity see the audience you grew. Is there a place for internal video produced with daily needs in mind and leveraging specialists for medium and large projects? I feel like even the largest of corporations will struggle to have equivalent resources, network and skill-sets of an experienced production company.