2021 Creativity Outlook

Where We Were Despite the advertising industry's love of embracing technology, there's one thing that really hasn't changed in decades: how ads get shot. Oh sure, the process of filming a spot became more digital and higher-definition over the years, but if you time-traveled from a shoot in 1989 to a shoot in 2019, you'd probably be able to jump right in without much disorientation. Then came 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic brought global ad production to a grinding halt and forced the marketing triumvirate of agencies, clients and production to rewrite all the rules for how work can be produced. Now, as the ad industry looks ahead to a post-pandemic future, the question is not whether anything has changed. The question is if everything has changed. Where We Are Now Some changes definitely won't be popular among those who've seen shoots as a much-needed escape from the monotony of marketing life. Leaner teams. Less travel. More Zooms. But other shifts are being met with optimism: broader networks of diverse talent, closer partnerships with directors and fewer questionably necessary visitors hovering about. To understand where the industry is headed, though, we must first get our heads around just how complicated, difficult and unforgiving 2020 was for those working in the industry. "Production during a pandemic is like running a marathon in bondage gear while chain smoking," says Jason Kreher, a creative director at Wieden+Kennedy Portland. "You're proud of yourself once it's over, but the conditions are not ideal and your husband says if you do it again, he’ll divorce you." An industry that had subsisted for decades on team dynamics and in-person production suddenly became a sprawling constellation of separate parts all scrambling to come together as a unified whole. Kreher's team had no less than seven video projects in production concurrently for mobile game Brawl Stars. The secret to making it happen remotely? Letting go of the rigid roles of centralized creativity: "Designers writing copy, planning and account pitching ideas, clients punching up jokes," he remembers. "This way of working let people show up in places they hadn’t before." Good producers have always been the beloved sorcerers who turn impossible concepts into actual ads, but even their broad job descriptions proved far too narrow for the needs of 2020. "As chief production officer," DDB Chicago's Diane Jackson says, "my role now includes risk analysis and insurance expert, state and federal health and safety policy implementation officer, and production capabilities and feasibility clairvoyant." That's … not sustainable. But now that we've escaped 2020, there's reason to believe production will normalize in a way that's streamlined and manageable—but also substantially different from what came before the pandemic. Where We're Going Fully remote production forced ad agencies to rethink how they sourced everything from their content to their directors. And what they found, other than new logistical headaches, is that there's a phenomenal range of talent out there beyond the usual pantheon of commercial directors and studios. When the first lockdowns hit in March 2020, agency WorkInProgress turned to LinkedIn to see who might be available to produce content due to stalled projects. "The response was overwhelming and introduced us to so much new talent with an arsenal of equipment and capabilities across the country," says director of video production Molly Schaaf. They called the initiative "Homemade Content," and she credits it with helping uncover a wider, deeper pool of talent. Agency Humanaut took a similar approach with "Homemade by Humanaut," which quickly attracted more than 200 creators. "Thinking of our talent pool as a connected creative community has changed the way we work," says agency founder and chief creative director David Littlejohn. The network, now with 350 creatives, was recently rebranded as "The Humanaut MotherBrain," and Littlejohn expects that someday soon, "all our work at Humanaut will likely be created and funneled through the MotherBrain platform." The end of the Video Village era You know what sounds truly unappealing, mid-pandemic? Having a bunch of people crowd together just to stare at a screen and say things like, "Hmm, I'm not really sure I buy that she's experiencing a flavor journey here." Video Village, the makeshift area where clients, producers and agency folks mill around to watch a spot's progress, was an obvious sacrifice when production went remote. With almost everyone, including directors, often watching a shoot from a great distance, Video Village became a video chat with footage being streamed for all to watch from home. Thinking of our talent pool as a connected creative community has changed the way we work.David Littlejohn, founder, chief creative director, Humanaut It seems like a small, somewhat obvious shift, but it's one that could result in more savings than almost any change experienced by production during the pandemic. If clients, creatives and other observers don't need to be on set, your travel budget drops considerably. Veteran freelance producer Michael LaGattuta says lockdowns showed that travel isn't always as necessary as the industry has long assumed, and he expects that to be a key budget consideration moving forward: "If we were on a tight budget and we needed to find $10,000, my recommendation would be minimal client and agency on set. They can be on Zoom." Newfound appreciation for human contact There are a lot of successful stories of adaptation from 2020, but you're not going to find many people claiming that their final takeaway was, "Everything can be remote!" While Video Village makes sense as a video call, some creative leaders say concepting and problem-solving still can benefit from the energy and candor of in-person conversation. For Wieden+Kennedy's Kreher, it's a practical issue of cutting through civility to get real with each other: "People are more polite in a Zoom square, and we all had to work twice as hard to get to the point where ideas were building on each other. The energy that happens when you’re in a room with creative people doesn’t translate through a screen. I miss that feeling." But the value of personal contact goes far beyond creative concepting. It's intangible and definitely not quantifiable, but it's something everyone will have a newfound appreciation for once we're all together again. "We are in the people business," says DDB Chicago production chief Jackson. "We create content that makes people feel something. We need to be around people to do this. That’s the magic sauce." Check out all of our 2021 Outlook coverage here.

Magazine

What to Expect in Post-Pandemic Production After a Year That Altered Almost Everything

The industry may normalize in 2021, but it's likely to look very different from what came before

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David Griner

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David Griner