peer chatter

Business is supposedly getting better but business practices seem to be getting worse. Yesterday I wrote about GM's new "deliver now and we'll send you a check much later" payment policy. Of course this isn't an isolated occurrence. 

There have been two other issues of note. Imbev, the owner of Budweiser, has been rumored to be sending their American agency work to Canadian production companies. And, they aint looking for Canadian directors. 

They are looking for US directing talent that is represented by Canadian companies. I guess they don't know those deals are predominantly with the production companies not with the directors. I'm sure they don't care. They just want to get top US talent at a cheaper price via producing through Canada. For the great American beer company personifying the regular working man, this action doesn't seem very, well, American.

Once again it's the devaluation of producers and production companies. It isn't worth paying for our producing expertise but we make great suppliers of talent and, on occasion, pretty good interest free banks.

The other is the P&G preferred vendor list. P&G, or as they like to refer to themselves - the world's largest advertiser, asked production companies this summer to lock into pre-negotiated rates below market value. Prodco's provide documentation and agree up front. If it meets P&G's standards, your company would have the privilege of bidding on P&G commercial projects. If you didn't make the list or comply with their requests, you are ineligible. 

The majority of the top production companies refused to participate. This week P&G started kicking the ineligible out of the bid pools including these top companies. I give P&G credit for sticking to their guns. I wonder if the creative directors will too.

There's a silver lining. I learned about most of this from my peers. There was a very informative, open and often humorous dialog going on amongst a group of EP's and company owners this week. Gotta love the "reply all" button. They shared their current experiences, the most recent updates and their company stances on these subjects. I found this not only helpful but also wildly encouraging. 

Production companies, unlike many businesses, is built upon saying YES. We are problem solvers. We see a near impossible obstacle and want to figure a way around it, or over it, or under it, or just smashing through it. However, in these particular cases the solution is saying NO. It's against our natures. It's even more difficult to do it alone but a lot less so with community support.

In these times of transition a hint of unity, a little bit of trust and a lot of sharing goes along way especially amongst competitors. Although most of the conversations are still held privately (see the comments section on yesterday's posting), I'll take what I can get. 

Baby steps often turn into strides.