HONE: The On-Call Experts Elevating How Content Is Made
Honing in on a production-first mentality, this Atlanta-based agency has all bases covered when it comes to content creation. Implementing a hybrid model - creative and production consultancy meets production company - HONE has been partnering with brands and agencies to deliver first-rate content since 2014.
Designed to remedy common issues facing members of the content production pipeline, Matt Mattingly founded HONE with his then business partner Greg Tharp, creating a unique offering that would act as “a warm blanket for clients who are jumping into the ‘chilly waters’ of production for the first time.” Looking for talented professionals with ad agency and client side experience, as well as a past building in-house teams, Matt successfully built a company made up of likeminded visionaries, all of whom share his vision for providing solutions to marketing challenges. Having worked on award-winning productions, big and small, the multifaceted backgrounds of each team member has helped catapult the company to success.
HONE operates as extended members of their clients’ teams across in-house brand marketing departments and external creative agencies. Time and again, this reliable staff augmentation has proven to offer a dependable, low-risk alternative to relying on ad-hoc freelancers, minimising the risk of inconsistencies and helping clients save on overheads too. After eight years of incredible achievements and substantial growth, LBB sits down with HONE founder Matt, and managing director and partner, Heather Bell, to learn more about the team’s production expertise and pioneering approach to content creation.
LBB> Matt, you founded HONE in 2014 – what were you doing before then?
Matt> I started in the industry on the production side, but early on I had a goal to switch to the agency world, if I could find a position. I appreciated that agency producers were involved throughout the creative process and all aspects of production, so that was where I hoped to land and eventually got a position at JWT New York.
LBB> How did the idea for HONE come about?
Matt> The genesis of HONE was influenced by two main factors: working at small boutique agencies (like Johannes Leonardo and Cliff Freeman) and our experience working with in-house teams at Google Creative Lab and The Coca-Cola Company.
On the boutique side, we were seeing a number of shops that were opening with amazing creative leadership, but lacked full-time producers on staff that possessed the level of experience required for a big integrated campaign. As a result, the creative development phase could take months and having a consistent freelance producer available was often a financial challenge. HONE's model is to provide a consistent thread of production expertise for the agency starting at the briefing stage, as they sell work through, and when needed to be their outside production department, to help save on overheads as they grow.
On the client side, we were noticing that brands were becoming very interested in starting in-house agency departments to produce work, especially in the tech sector. They were often challenged with every aspect of growing a new department and having production talent was low on the list of immediate staffing decisions. HONE could not only be a resource to help with staff augmentation to produce assets for the brand, but also assist operationally as well. Similar to the boutique agencies, the in-house teams were often small, with staff playing hybrid roles that could quickly be overextended to assume roles beyond their experience level. HONE could be the on-call experts to elevate their capabilities and embed with their teams as needed.
LBB> Can you tell us about the early years of the company?
Matt> We were fortunate to prove out our business model early in the founding of the company, working with The Coca-Cola Company’s in-house team essentially from day one. Within our first couple of years we became the outside production department for David Baldwin’s growing agency, Baldwin&, for a one year stint, and for the content department at Rokkan New York for two plus years. We also took on more traditional staff augmentation engagements with many of the agencies we had freelanced for prior to HONE, such as Barton F. Graff, BBDO, 72 & Sunny among others.
LBB> How would you explain HONE’s offering to someone that is unaware of your work?
Heather> HONE is made up of consultants that can also do the work. Production expertise is at the core of who we are, but our production-first mindset infuses a unique strategic approach during the entire creative process, from initial briefing to final delivery. This allows us to help our agency partners deliver their ideas on time and on budget, growing trust for their own client relationships. This way of working also enables our direct-to-brand clients to make content successfully, often for the first time in the brand’s history.
LBB> In what ways has HONE evolved as a company in the last 8 years?
Matt> We quickly established a hybrid model for select projects, which saw our producers take on the role of both the agency producer and line producer, with HONE operating as the production company, utilising independent directors, photographers, and content makers as needed. This proved to be an efficient way to make content in our often time and budget constrained reality.
LBB> While production and campaign management is at the core of HONE, you also operate as an agency and create bespoke teams for clients. How does this varied expertise make you a valuable strategic partner?
Heather> Our industry is commanding everyone to “create more with less” and our model has proven a successful way to deliver on that ask. The evolution of HONE providing hybrid line producer + agency producer roles was the beginning of how to work efficiently with tricky budgets. We continue to rethink and tweak how best to make content but also in the upstream part of the process as well.
LBB> What do you mean when you say HONE will “influence the industry for the better”?
Heather> Throughout our careers, we have all fallen victim to the creative work, the process, and thus the entire experience suffers due to hidden agendas from partners. The best creative work has an opportunity to become a reality when partnerships are rooted in trust. HONE's operating principles - which are applied to everything we do - all support this goal and we believe if we can change how we make content, we can create a positive ripple effect that results in better work, leading to better business results for the brands we serve and providing a more enjoyable experience overall.
LBB> What work are you most proud of?
Matt> In our industry, producing work for the Super Bowl is often seen as the highest stakes so, by that standard, HONE producing two spots for Super Bowl LI was a pretty big achievement. It was also a major accomplishment for us as both spots saw us working directly with brands to produce broadcast work in-house for the first time.
LBB> Speaking of the team, 2022 was a year of growth for HONE, welcoming Heather as managing director and partner, and Kevin Wilson as co-head of production. What does this mean for the growth and development of the team?
Matt> Kevin brings the highest level of production experience possible to HONE. He has run a production company and worked at both big and boutique agencies as head of production. His most recent role, before joining HONE, required him to stretch his thinking as challenging budgets were coupled with big, complicated tasks, something which our clients ask us to do on a daily basis. He adds resources to our deep rolodex of expertise which clients benefit greatly from. Kevin’s entrepreneurial way of thinking and doing will help us pave the path for HONE's future growth, by providing new ways of working and recreating the content model based on our clients’ business objectives.
LBB> Can you tell me a bit more about the new Creative Campaign Manager role? How will this person work with EPs?
Heather> The role of creative campaign manager organically came about as a way to address our client needs head-on. The new role provides a hybrid of skills that complement what our clients already have - usually part account person, integrator, and operations. The creative campaign manager functions as the glue between cross-functional teams in complicated, big organisations or smaller, more lean structures for both our agency and brand clients.
LBB> Matt, what has been your proudest moment since founding the company?
Matt> Our success is 100% based on the people we have on our team so I am immensely proud to have established a company that can attract some of the best talent in our business. Our team has won many awards from both the work they have done with HONE, and in their career prior, with multiple gold film, radio and interactive Lions, Clios, Addys, and One Show Pencils. We are past the start-up uncertainty, and I love hearing new staff express their intention of making HONE the last place they will work before they retire. It is an honour and humbling to hear this when our team has a lot of other opportunities available to them.
LBB> What is HONE focusing on in 2023?
Heather > 2023 will continue to be a year of uncertainty – being flexible and nimble will not only be key, it will be mandatory. We thrive at navigating the unknown and pivoting as needed so we will focus on new ways of facilitating our clients’ business goals while budgets continue to tighten up.
