be that someone

Last Wednesday night, a group of production company owners met with the AICP Executive Committee to discuss the major issues facing our businesses. Many of those issues have been well documented on this blog.

Each company in attendance spoke on their behalf. They discussed their concerns threatening their businesses and shared their thoughts on the AICP's role in our future. I'm not at liberty to discuss the specifics of what occurred in that room. If you read this blog regularly, you know I'm a huge proponent of openness and transparency. However, it is not my place to detail the policies debated or paraphrase what I believe certain people said. I am not a reporter. I am not a spokesperson. I am not an officer of the Association. As I've stated in the past, I'm just an industry blow hard with a laptop and wi-fi. 

I do feel I can share, without violating any trusts, my impressions from hearing fellow company owners and industry leaders, both past and present, express their opinions. 

Production companies are a service business. We do not own IP or any patents. We don't own factories or any means of production. We have a very specific expertise serving one very specific industry sector, television advertising. Like every industry, there is a time of birth, a time of growth, a time of stability, and a time of transition. I believe we are unquestionably in transition. 

For the better part of the last 5 decades TV was the dominant medium. Three major networks ruled the landscape. The broadcast model evolved with the entrance of a few cable stations. A few cable stations evolved into 500 channels. With more stations, the demand for more programming increased. More programming naturally led to more advertising opportunities. The TV medium was booming and production companies along with them. Those in early made lots of money. They set the standards and built the models. But as in all growth industries, it attracted competition. 

Competition ushered in the rise of more production companies, more directors and global markets. This was good for many reasons. For the clients and agencies it led to lower mark-ups. For production companies it led to the entrance of young innovative talent. The information age and the recession has brought a new reality. We can debate the many challenges facing our business today and all the strategies and tactics to combat them. And, in that room we did. It was a good thing. A healthy thing. But, what I saw underneath the debate was a cold hard reality. There are too many companies. Not enough work. There seems little we, as a community or the AICP as a trade association, can do to change that fact.

I learned a lot by listening to my peers speak of their experiences and their perceptions. Someone in the room said, we need to lower our operating expenses. Expect to make less. Run leaner and meaner companies. Essentially accept operating on the downside while we all fight over the crumbs. This is not the answer.  

Just like the agencies we work for, our business model developed over the last 25 years has peaked. It is no longer sustainable at the same rate. The good news is advertising and communicating brand messaging is not going away. It is arguably in more demand than ever. That is the one fact we can rely upon. 

Someone out there will develop a model to service brand communications in a way that effectively addresses future media consumption, develops and manages creative talent, produces smartly and efficiently and generates profits to justify the risk and the liability of running that business. I don't know yet what that model looks like or who that someone is but I'm sure going to try like hell to have that someone be me. I'd suggest my peers do the same.