Why Transparency Matters in the Advertising Production Bidding Process

The advertising industry's bidding process was designed to encourage competition in pricing and push boundaries on creativity. For video production, the competitive bidding process provides brands options to choose their desired talent, such as the Director, Editor, visual effects house, music composition company and other specialty companies to impact production of premium brand content and films. In the book, The Marketers Guide to Creative Production, Everything a Marketer Needs to Know about Film and Photography, Jillian writes about the best practices of competitive bidding. There are also various ways that brands engage with their production ecosystem – be it through preferred partner rosters, a consolidated approach, or a more independent supplier landscape. No matter the approach, one thing remains true: Transparency in the selection and bidding processes is needed now more than ever to avoid bias – and its associated impacts.

The Supplier Landscape

In advertising production, the supplier ecosystem is generally made up of three buckets:

• Agency Networks: Also known as holding companies, they are a cluster of agencies spanning a variety of creative, media, PR, digital, social, and production services across multiple P&L’s. This can also include management consultancies who offer creative services, usually under a singular P&L.
• Independent Creative Agencies & Production Houses: Privately owned agencies and production companies, editorial houses, music houses, etc.
• In-House Teams or Studios: Creative and production capabilities that exist within the four walls of a brand, client-side.
  

Advertisers rely on one, or sometimes a combination of all these models, to bring their creative ideas to life. Today, there are several factors at play that advertisers are experiencing:

• Brands need more content for less money. To achieve 20-50% savings, big changes must occur, and different production approaches to traditional advertising must be introduced.
• The cost of premium video production has gone up everywhere due to higher crew wages, travel costs, and materials (further threatened by potential tariffs and fluctuating exchange rates).
• There is a societal shift in content consumption habits that are shifting brand budgets from premium production to other channels and platforms such as influencer and experiential marketing, necessitating unique supplier capabilities.

Within these models exist considerations such as increased operational efficiencies, quality of talent and capabilities, cost considerations, technology, location, and more.

The Silent Impact on Creativity and Innovation

Directors, editors and other highly skilled talent are often represented by - and their capabilities matured - within independently owned specialty companies in the advertising industry. The ability to produce for a variety of brands, and in a highly competitive segment, is key to their development and competition breeds innovation and creative excellence.

Brands may find themselves at risk when considering a fully consolidated approach that may limit access to independent talent – especially when said talent are specialists in their niche. The result can be a narrowing of perspectives and ideas instead of opening the door to fresh, competitive approaches. Matt Miller, president and CEO of AICP (Association of Independent Commercial Producers) flagged this potential narrowing of the field in May of 2024, noting the benefit independent vendors offer, having “consistently delivered value, quality and accountability to clients.”

To address the shifting dynamic in accommodating for brand marketer needs, larger agency networks are investing in innovative technology to produce personalised content at scale and speed, while the smaller, specialty companies are investing in their talent and innovative approaches to premium content. The two models co-exist, overlap, and complement each other in the content creation eco-system.

What’s at Stake for Marketers and Procurement Teams

A transparent and fair approach to assigning work, selecting the suppliers, and managing the bidding process ultimately optimises brand marketing production, achieving both creative excellence and cost efficiency.

Procurement teams and CMOs understand the responsibility they hold in managing multimillion-dollar budgets. Yet, without a transparent and fair process, they might inadvertently reinforce negative outcomes where the potential impact goes far beyond creativity:

• Financial Inefficiency: Organisations risk overpaying for services when competitive, more cost-effective suppliers are left out of the bidding process.
• Supplier Pool & Quality Talent: Smaller, innovative companies feel discouraged from participating in biased selection systems that are often costly for them. Over time, may result in a smaller landscape of talent and suppliers.
• Innovation: Distinctive boutique companies play a vital role in driving innovation by fostering fresh ideas, agile thinking and unique skillsets.

“We’ve always believed that the best work comes from the right mix of people - not from where they sit. Whether we’re leading a job or teaming up with in-house or agency partners, what matters is the shared goal: enhance the creative vision” according to Mike Palmer, chief growth officer, Nice Shoes, a post-production house. “That’s why a transparent bidding process matters - it gives everyone a fair shot and gives brands the chance to tap into the deep, diverse talent out there. Studios like ours bring fresh ideas and hard-earned experience to the table - and when we’re invited in, we help solve tough problems and raise the bar for the whole team.”

In a world where production consolidation exists in some ecosystems, who is responsible for managing the competitive bidding process and who decides who is awarded the work? Can an agency managing the bidding process objectively evaluate the bids and award the work to a competitor? And even if they could, would their parent companies allow it? To facilitate transparency and minimise risk, a truly independent third party bid manager is needed – one who has no self-serving interest in who is selected and awarded the work.

Advertiser Perceptions US Ad Spending Forecast (Q3 2024) has shown holding company revenue in a decline for the last six years, with independent agencies maintaining steady – yet fluctuating – growth, while in-house teams are growing. Holding companies have been bringing more production and post-production work in-house to offset their revenue losses.

​According to APR’s 2025 annual trends, ACERO, APR’s proprietary content creation ecosystem data collection and analytics tool, suggests a notable 100% increase in the percentage of work being awarded to companies within the same agency network or holding company as the bidding agency. So far in 2025, about half of all photography, integrated, or video production estimates are being awarded internally, compared with previous years. And while the data for 2025 is still unfolding, according to our recent industry listening exercise, these decisions are having a financial impact on those independent specialty companies who pitch with multiple rounds of bids and revisions, but do not win. This also translates into unseen but significant costs for brands.

Redefining the Bidding Process

These considerations call into question who is best to manage the bidding and supplier selection process to keep it fair and equitable. To overcome these challenges, we must rethink the way the advertising supply chain operates. A transparent and strategically optimised bidding process can deliver not just value for money but also creativity, efficiency, and most of all, it helps to nurture the growth of our industry’s talent.

Five strategies to guide this transformation:

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1. Competitive Bidding Practices: Competition keeps rates competitive, but it also pushes creative boundaries. Best practices start with (1) defining what projects will be competitively bid and which will not, (2) transparently communicating the bid process to all involved, and (3) ensuring that all bids and/or RFPs are detailed and standardised, enabling apples-to-apples comparisons across bidding suppliers.

2. Transparency at All Levels: Marketing organisations and suppliers must demand full disclosure about ownership structures from bidding agencies or bid managers. This includes understanding which entities are owned by or affiliated with those managing the bid process in addition to bidding for the work. Transparency enables smarter, more informed decisions while guarding against any conflicts of interest or selection bias.

3. Independent Oversight: Engaging a third-party advisor, who is both expert and independent, introduces an impartial expert to manage the bidding process, eliminating any vested interest in the outcome. "A player can't call their own game - it takes an unbiased umpire to ensure fair play,” says Gibbs. This separation ensures that decisions are based on merit, quality, and value rather than allegiance or financial gains.

4. Supplier Variety and Enablement: Building a supplier base that fosters creative experimentation and innovation, is especially important for the origination of hero content, like with creative production and director-led projects. Consider offering opportunities to smaller, independent agencies or production companies that often bring niche expertise and unique talents to a project. Phony bids (or bids used to check a box that you have multiple bids) should be minimised or eliminated altogether.

5. Collaboration: The key to making today’s ecosystem of creative and production suppliers work is the attention given to integration. To integrate, establish frameworks where the creative ecosystem is truly interconnected and can deliver both high-quality content and content creation at speed, all while collecting data, managing costs and leveraging the great work across the brand’s eco-system.

When a well-oiled content supply chain is enabled to collaborate, the projects and production companies will be better equipped to create content, minimise waste, allow for reuse and optimise creative intelligence to determine what to produce.

The Transformational Opportunity

The consolidation of creative and production agencies inherently reshapes the competitive landscape.

“Client in-house, holdcos, and independents will coexist as they all have pros and cons and a reason to be,” says Sergio Lopez, global CEO at Omnicom Production. “For clients with complex content supply chains keeping agility, brand consistency and visibility with 100+ suppliers is a challenge. Independents should carry the flame of creativity and innovation while holdcos should focus on scale and the ability to respond to the brand’s needs quickly and effectively.”

By taking proactive steps to re-establish transparency and integrity in the bidding process, brands can break free from any closed-loop systems that may not align with their overall goals relative to creative outputs, cost containment and quality.

For procurement teams, CMOs, and advertisers, this transformation is an opportunity to elevate their marketing production strategies while strengthening stakeholder trust and build partnerships. With collaboration, transparency, and an unbiased third-party bid manager, a brand can achieve the perfect balance of creativity, cost efficiency, and operational excellence.

Authored by Jillian Gibbs, founder and CEO of APR and Edmond Handwerker, chief marketing and innovation Officer, APR