The Disadvantages of Centralised Production

There is not a universal answer for whether or not a marketer should decouple agency and production services. Advantages and disadvantages exist for coupled and decoupled approaches, so companies must look at their own resources, requirements and relationships with existing agencies. The decision also rests on the company’s internal culture and strategy, whether in-house talent is available and so on. Previously, we listed some of the benefits of production decoupling. Now, let’s take a look at some of the disadvantages:

”Ideation and production have different responsibilities, but they are still working within the confines of the same campaign strategy to reach a common goal.”

Managing multiple teams: When companies take a decoupling approach, they are transferring specific services to another supplier. Essentially, marketers would have to use their time and resources to manage and oversee a new team to make sure they are producing and executing effectively according to the brand’s needs.

Cross-agency collaboration issues: Ideation and production have different responsibilities, but they are still working within the confines of the same campaign strategy to reach a common goal. Marketers may find that agencies and production houses simply do not work well together, and even can compete for bigger portions of the campaign budget.

Communication problems: When multiple agencies and teams are responsible for creating and executing deliverables, communication can become complex. Clients must efficiently communicate with all teams involved in the campaign in order not to waste time and resources. Additionally, agencies must also communicate thoughtfully and effectively with each other to reach their goals in a timely manner.

Increased risk: There is a risk in depending on one production house to produce all campaign assets, especially on a global scale. For example, if specialised personnel decide to take other opportunities or centralised data libraries fail, clients must cope with the proverbial “eggs in one basket” issue.

Transitioning difficulties: Separating production from creative agencies, in most cases, is a time-consuming and involved process. In order to achieve a successful transition, a great deal of costly man hours, planning, coordination and must be expected.

While it may not take a lot of effort to change workflows, it does take a lot of energy to plan, develop and implement efficient processes. In order for production decoupling to be successful, all teams, agencies and production houses must work together to stay the course. Various production agencies are reshaping the way traditional approaches in advertising were handled and creating innovative models to develop creative content and distribution.