How AIR’s 2 Initiatives Seek to Reform Briefs and Treatments

Since starting in 2020, the Alliance of Independent Representatives (AIR) has identified two key problem areas in the creative submission and treatment processes. They refer to these issues as: ‘A Mountain of Reels’ and ‘Titanic Treatments’.

In short, they say that all too often, creative briefs are incomplete or severely lacking in important details, and fail to clearly communicate the needs and priorities of the agency, brand and project itself. And from the treatment side of things, they say that bidders are creating huge, expensive and time-intensive treatments thanks to limited or inconsistent information.

Earlier this year, AIR held a virtual event where they presented two industry best practice solutions to an audience of US agency and brand production leads. These solutions are The ‘Creative Submission Checklist’ and the ‘Treatment Specs Form’.

The Creative Submission Checklist

This solution is aimed at improving the quantity and quality of information given by agency and brand producers in a brief. Inspired by pre-flight or pre-surgery checklists in the aviation and medical fields, the checklist has been workshopped with producers, reps, agents and other industry folk, resulting in an easy-to-fill PDF document.

Quick and efficient, the form asks relevant questions that cover creative, production preferences and logistics, and is an easily attached accompaniment to the other documents a producer would share with their trusted resources already - like creative information, a calendar, NDAs and so on.

As well as generating higher quality, more creatively appropriate submissions, the tool exists to democratise the process, with every submitter working with the same, most current information. This also saves time for producers, whom AIR believes will receive fewer follow-up questions and queries, and more importantly, fewer and more accurate submissions overall.

The Treatment Specs Form 

Akin to the AICP Bid Spec Form, this document outlines the expectations of a job on behalf of the agency creatives and client. Similarly democratic to the Submission Checklist, it ensures all bidders have the same relevant information by establishing parameters for the length, size, and scope of treatments. 

This, says AIR, will reduce costs, helping smaller companies with fewer resources and underrepresented talent stay afloat - not to mention, reduce time and effort for all parties by encouraging more relevant treatments focused on the creatives’ and brand’s priorities. 

AIR proposes that all shortlisted bidders would be given a treatment review call, establishing transparency and levelling the playing field. And transparency around in-house bidders and incumbents involved in the process would also allow potential bidders to opt-out, if they feel they are unlikely to be awarded.

Ultimately, AIR’s long term goal is to eventually standardise the treatment/bid process, and use these tools, in conjunction with the AICP BidForm. This is to realign the process with creative ideas and problem solving, rather than impressing with extravagant presentation or unnecessary and irrelevant information.

You can find both documents here.

Above: 'Titanic Treatments' - illustrations by Terry Brown

Why AIR?

Speaking on why the industry has seemingly allowed the process to spiral out of control, AIR president, Veronica Lombardo, says simply that “change is hard”, and shares that this change has been made even more difficult by a lack of education and awareness post-pandemic of what a good brief and treatment should be. A rep herself, she recounts that she’s recently had to submit ‘what she assumes agency producers are looking for’, as a result of a lack of information and communication.

“We are moving so quickly in this business and everyone is feeling the tightness and the pressure,” she says. “It’s like when you drive by an accident and go, ‘Somebody else is going to call 911’. I think that's really what it comes down to. It's a problem and no one is dealing with it. So we are seeking solutions for it.” 

“It’s inertia, really,” adds Corey Rogers, a veteran rep and AIR board secretary. “The biggest problem is that there's no centralised group of people who were going to or could [deal with it]. The only ones who were going to solve a granular process like this, in the end, were us. It needed to be a group, it wasn't going to be any one person to do this for the whole industry, it needed to be an organisation.”

Veronica says AIR is taking the lead as the issue affects them, as reps, and their production and post clients day-to-day. “We're the first line of defence when submitting a company or a director on a project. So it's our problem, first and foremost.”

“There are a lot of problems that we're not going to completely fix. But we're trying to work together, with our buyers, to solve as many as we possibly can with these two documents.” She continues, “It's not perfect but it is going to at least create guardrails and create the opportunity for the both of us to work a little bit more seamlessly. And to cut down on a couple things that the producers have said are the biggest problems: ‘I get too many reels’, ‘there are too many spots on the reel’, and ‘I get too many emails in response’.”

What will these initiatives solve?

Corey says that in the absence of information, a rep will err on the side of quantity, essentially providing more “guesses” at what a producer is looking for. “Now [a producer] is looking at these reels and most of them aren't right,” he explains. “But they aren't right because you didn't tell me what you wanted!” On top of that, the industry is now much more global with more freelancers and offshoring opportunities than ever. “The end result is: an agency producer sends out a brief, and they receive 300 reels.”

This encourages the producer to ‘scrub through’ rather than watch each reel, making each project “a lottery”, as Corey describes it. “The whole process is ludicrous but it all stems from this lack of information… I would like nothing better than to send one perfect reel rather than six reels that are maybe right.”

Turning their attention to the treatment process, the AIR team says that making treatments has become its own job - an unpaid job with no limits or focus. The incentive is to go above and beyond to win jobs, and while seemingly no one wants to rein people in or ‘restrict creativity’, Corey doubts that agency producers and creatives are actually interested in 70-page treatments with all the bells and whistles.

“Everybody's at cross purposes. They’re creating these giant, expensive, long, unfocused treatments, which they don't want to make, for people who don't want them. But there's nobody who’s jumped in to set limits and focus the process.”

This also introduces a significant financial barrier, especially for smaller companies looking to compete for jobs.

“You could pitch on four or five really complex jobs that involve intricate treatments where you end up spending 10 grand on a treatment - this isn’t unheard of, it's actually more common now - and now you're 40 or 50 grand out of pocket for nothing, if you didn't win any of those jobs,” explains Corey. “It’s not sustainable and companies are going to go out of business. Or it’s just going to ensure that the deep-pocketed companies are the only ones that are able to genuinely compete.”

With such an expensive barrier to entry, Veronica believes it’s also an impediment to the diversity discussion. “It’s a problem for a minority-owned company that doesn't have deep pockets and hasn't been in the industry a long time to have to float these concepts on behalf of the buyer.” She adds, “We have this conversation going on in the industry; we need to bring in more diverse talent behind the lens, more minority-owned companies, more opportunities for these companies, directors, editors… [But] how is it possible when the barrier for entry is so high?”

Implementing the initiatives

AIR is currently presenting the Submission Checklist and Treatment Spec Form to market, and has put together an advisory board of agency and brand producers who will be reviewing and interrogating the documents in order to make them the best versions possible. The board currently includes Lynn Louria, director of production at TRG; Brett Alexander, SVP, MD, head of production at The Martin Agency; Halle Griffee, freelance agency producer; Mary Hanifin, head of production at Draftkings; and Todd Aldridge, EP at Harley Davidson.

Keen to clarify that neither of the initiatives are mandates, Corey says, “Ultimately we're trying to improve the flow and quality of information and we'd be happy if producers at least used them as a guide… We don't need a regulatory body to make anybody do anything. It's not even really standardising them in the same way as an AICP bid form, because that's an actual transactional form. These are just tools to help the processes work better.”

Veronica adds, “Why are we trying to make the process better? Because we've been told by our buyers that the process is not working for them and it's not working for us. So if it's not working then how do we fix it? And these are a couple solutions to do that.”