5 Ways to Get the Best from In-House Production

As in-house production continues to gain a foothold in the industry, knowing how to get the best from in-house teams is more important than ever. Heads Up Production (HUP) – former advertising agency heads of production Jody Allison, Tim Page and Francine Linsey – has been helping brands do just that for over eight years, though their combined experience totals several decades. Under the banner of HUP, the team applies a dedicated client-first approach to all production problems to offer bespoke and scalable solutions that prioritise innovation, agility, and transparency for industry giants like Molson Coors, Dyson, Emirates, and Coca Cola, to name just a few.

Today, LBB spoke with HUP to get their insight on the five ways to get the best from in-house production. The team revealed a set of practical and strategic pointers, like the need to think short and long-term, engage in forward planning, be selective when choosing production partners, and master the ‘super shoot’. Below is the advice to commit to memory now…

1. Have a production strategy for the long-term and the short-term

Too often 'strategy' and 'production' are kept entirely separate, or are like ships passing in the night. But, in fact, a foundation for successful production (in-house or otherwise) should have a well thought through strategy.  For each individual job, HUP implements a bespoke structure and methodology that is fit for purpose, but on an annual plan basis, we like to look at four main areas:

1. Budget: how much do we have for the year/ optimising production spend and identifying cost avoidance and financial savings?

2. Time: how much time is available for each job to meet business needs and also split by internal resource (i.e. in-house staffers)? 

3. Output:  what is the dream in terms of deliverables/ how much content do we want to make?

4. Quality/ brand: what is 'good enough versus perfect', and what are the quality thresholds for our brand that we would never break?

Thinking in these areas, and where they cross over, will allow you to craft the optimum strategy for the year, and also job by job.

It will also influence decisions on key 'ingredients' like how and when to bring in various necessary resources, who the right production partners might be, what tech support will be needed  (e.g. generative AI), and the role of off-shoring for example, and how much volume can be handled by the in-house team versus outsourced partners.

2. Make planning ahead a mantra

All too often, production is at 'the end of the line' of the marketing chain but so much successful production is in de-risking by planning ahead. Collaboration and communication between all stakeholders is another HUP hallmark as we combine client management alongside production.

When it comes to in-house teams, stakeholder management and promoting production’s role is key, by ensuring it’s more integrated in project planning and more considered upstream. 

This includes ensuring that a production head attends key planning meetings that traditionally they wouldn’t have been invited to.

It also involves beating the drum of how much efficiency and effectiveness can be driven by planning ahead. Budget holders will always be receptive to this, and it only makes the whole marketing team look good. And for those involved in the day-to-day of production, it makes for a more enjoyable and less stressful work life since, with foresight, potential headaches on jobs are more easily avoided.

3. Be selective in choosing your external partners…

Don’t just reach for those who are closest to you. There's a bigger market of specialists out there than you might think, and choosing the best is how you’ll get the most standout work. If you don’t have the time or the knowledge or the network, find someone you trust who does. We often find that brands that are very used to working with full-service agencies are 100% dependent on those agencies for contacts in the industry. One of our key brand values at HUP is identifying innovations (and innovators) and ensuring we work with a broad cross section across the industry. We recommend building your own black book in the background; competition breeds fresh thinking and value for money.

4. …And then properly integrate them

In the time we’ve been working directly with brands, we have learnt an enormous amount about what makes these relationships strong and productive. Simply put, the more integrated we are, the more useful we are. Of course it takes time for this level of trust to build up, but we now handle a broad range of services for our clients as well as the more traditional production roles, from the very functional – like being a payment gateway that pays multiple suppliers new to the business (this can really help out procurement as well as marketing) – to mentoring and providing L&D to junior team members, helping them out with best practice in important things like budgeting and reconciliations.

5. Master the super-shoot

Super shoots – where in one production you can originate a vast swathe of assets in all channels and formats for use in more than one campaign, thereby driving significant cost efficiency – should be more straightforward to orchestrate for in-house teams as, in theory at least, all stakeholders are 'under one roof' (figuratively speaking).

Each element – TV, social, print, internal comms, etc. – often has a separate 'owner' in the business and this can make super shoots notoriously difficult for external agencies to manage. In-house teams should use the fact that everyone is on the same side of the fence as an advantage and set up dedicated Slack channels, hijack regular workflow meetings, doorstop people’s desks even, as a way of moulding these bigger productions into a slick machine throughout the production process.