Can We Really Do Everything Everywhere All at Once?

While competition is seeing brands, agencies and production companies stepping on each others’ toes - a panel discussion in Cannes today pondered how we can work better together amid the scramble.

Competition is king in the marketing and advertising worlds. Competition for talent, for attention, for eyeballs and, at Cannes Lions, competition for creative dominance. 

And as technology accelerates and economies around the world wobble, that competition is fiercer than ever. It’s seeing businesses expanding into new areas - brands taking creative and media in-house, holding companies expanding their production scope, and production companies hiring creatives and strategists.

But this industry that we gather on the French Riviera to celebrate has always thrived on collaboration too. On the Little Black Book & Friends Beach, a group of leaders from different corners of the industry leant their thoughts on how we garner better collaboration - and in turn better work for clients - at times such as these. 

Moderated by LBB’s CEO Matt Cooper, panellists included Ali Brown, president at the production company Prettybird, Andy Bird, founding partner and CCO at Le Truc, a creative collective within Publicis Groupe, Dan Dawson, chief creative officer at out of home specialists Grand Visual, Katie Potochney, executive creative director at Intuit Mailchimp, the marketing platform’s in-house agency, and Lucia Grillo, whose role as DDB North America’s chief integration officer is to foster great collaboration. 

The question to kick off the panel was straightforward: “How do you choose the best partners?” But the answer is of course not so. As Andy said, it depends on the project, what resources are available in house and who you have in your network that you trust – a word that would become a refrain for this discussion throughout. “Personal connection is something I hold as very important,” said Andy.

And that’s not just because it’s nice to work with your friends. It’s because, without trusted partners, risky creative decisions feel all the more risky. 

Katie noted that as an in-house agency, her team having “seen behind the curtain how the sausage is made,” helps other parts of the Intuit Mailchimp team trust her department.

Le Truc had to build trust within Publicis Groupe to begin with, said Andy. There was “suspicion that we were going to steal everybody’s clients,” he said. That didn’t last when the agencies in the Groupe saw the value of a collective of talented creatives who can work across a suite of clients across agencies.

That said, Lucia insisted that even though DDB North America has impressive in-house production, “we can’t let where the revenue goes be the deciding factor.” Trusting the agency’s production department to engage the right partners is the key to making these decisions, she said.

While brands and their creative collaborators are making more stuff than ever, the panel took some time to stress the importance of production departments in agencies. In particular, Lucia praised good heads of production for their “intense problem solving and partnership,” paired with knowing the client and the creative department well.

Dan, who at Grand Visual works on a lot of campaigns driven by out-of-home technology, agreed that producers are often the “glue” that brings together specialist expertise from different areas. 

Another searching question of this panel: “Are we making too much stuff?” The panel agreed that it does make it hard to find the right suite of creative and production partners. “We’re bombarded now with spaces to do things,” said Dan, recognising that with more channels demanding content, budgets and time to choose the right collaborators take a hit. “Production certainly gets hit,” agreed Andy, adding that with so many channels, it’s “difficult to keep track” of the production partners an agency needs. 

“Sometimes I feel like we’re making way too much,” said Katie, reminding the audience that long-term brand building is about more than pushing out hundreds of pieces of content on dozens of channels.

At the other end of the line, Ali at Prettybird said they “try to be a place to call” for those agency production departments, ensuring they have a pool of talent that can address different kinds of briefs. For example, the company has been looking for directors with writing chops, so she noted it is in fact becoming more of a “generalist company.” It is also curating its director to always have an incoming class – “freshmen, sophomore, senior” as she put it. The Daniels, now Oscar winners for ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, are definitely in the senior class and of course, every agency wants to work with them. “I get four boards a day for the Daniels,” she said. “Do you know how long it took me to get them to do one job!?” When that happens, agencies that trust her will listen when Ali tells them a newer director is “the next Daniels.” She added, too, that younger directors are keener and often more efficient as they have so much more to lose if they mess up.

That said, it’s not only directing talent that leads to greatness. When choosing any creative partners, it’s key to look at the ecosystem around someone whose creativity excites you. Speaking of directors, Ali said “judge it as a whole. Not six spots on a reel.” She suggested that while it might be reassuring to an agency if she took a new “the next Daniels” director and paired them up with a seasoned commercially-proven team, that’s not how the Daniels got to be such a phenomenon. For Prettybird, the priority is “building a talent pool, not plucking talent away.”

Knowing the right trusted specialists is key, especially when the atmosphere in agencies means if anything goes wrong it’s the agency producer’s responsibility, said Lucia. Young producers are scared of taking risks, she noted, especially when “wide-eyed younger creatives” want to go with a name, Andy recognised.

“Risk-taking is super important. Otherwise, the creative product isn’t going to move forward,” says Lucia. When she worked at production company Psyop their favourite thing was when they had no idea how they were going to do, she said. With trust and transparency, they were able to push the limits for their clients and partners. It’s about a grown-up attitude and, she says, “not trying to fake that you know what you’re doing the whole time.” Different specialisms should be embraced and combined, and trusting relationships are built with those who are clear about what is and isn’t possible.