There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the agency world is going “horizontal.” Sir Martin Sorrell used the term “horizontalism” recently at the ANA conference to describe the centralized adoption of services across agency networks.  He was specifically referring to advertising production and we were proud that he praised Deliver and Hogarth as prime examples of this trend.

We have already seen horizontalism occur with media services across agency networks and we see the same trend occurring in production services.  The benefits for both agencies and marketers are simply too attractive to ignore.

We all win when we play to our strengths

Strategy and creative thinking have always been attributes that differentiate both agencies and brands. Shifting production to centralized specialists within the same holding company allows agencies to focus on what they do best. This translates to a net win for both agency and marketer in both quality of thinking and integrity of deliverables.

An increase to the bottom line

Perhaps the most significant and tangible benefit is cost savings.  The allocation of production services to in-network resources in emerging markets can generate remarkable efficiencies. At Deliver, clients consistently realize savings between 25-50%.

Like Sir Martin, we believe that “horizontalism” is the new reality in agency delivery. Becoming a part of this increasing trend may hold the strategic key to keeping marketing revenue moving in a vertical direction as the global economy continues to remain horizontal.

As the economy continues to put the squeeze on production budgets in the US, the search for cost effective solutions has extended into the sphere of animation production. This specific area has experienced a noted increase in demand; particularly in 3D.

The larger entertainment companies have been taking advantage of lower cost offshore animation resources for years. But tight deadlines and revision cycles inherent to marketing have made it more challenging for corporate clients and creative agencies to leverage the talents of their offshore 3D animation production providers. The best providers have reacted to this obstacle by creating collaborative tools similar to the ones used for standard digital production workflow for websites, banners and application designs for overall development.

When we first saw the opportunities in 3D animation, we realized that the primary limiter for adoption would be the creative aspect. Animation is a dynamic high-energy team sport by nature, so we realized that we needed to create a production platform that would provide creative agency talent with an even greater level of access than our existing digital production clients enjoy.

The resulting solution provides “screen sharing” and markup capabilities that allow creative teams to collaborate and comment on complex motion and modeling work as it is being created. This paired with the existing asset and project management features of our DEPP platform now provides a very satisfying experience for hands on creative partners in the States. It all works the same as it always has: agencies submit storyboards, scripts and sketches to direct our team to execute their vision.  Our agency partners love the fact that they don’t have to sacrifice creativity and quality for cost savings.

Our production hub in Colombia has built a stellar team of 3D modelers and animators that have been delivering high-end projects for one client for over a year.  This partnership has yielded some amazing work and we have seen client savings of up to 40% vs. the standard service pricing in the States.

We are very proud of this new offering and our stellar animation group in Colombia.  They provide an awesome compliment to our global network of digital designers and developers.

*Courtesy of “The Cursor’s Curse” animation short

More and more global brands are making the shift to offshoring digital production, and realizing tremendous efficiencies in the process. At Deliver, we help global brands everyday successfully implement and manage global digital production solutions.

We believe there are five best practices for getting digital production right on a global scale.

1. Invest in a dedicated and focused team that’s working toward executing your creative strategies. An experienced production partner will design a production solution that provides talent in the locations and time zones that best meet each client’s individual business objectives and production goals.
2. Develop a global rollout plan to streamline the transition to offshoring. At Deliver, we recommend clients develop an incremental rollout plan to perfect their production process and quality control measures. A proven, repeatable production process can then be rolled out globally, allowing brands to execute swiftly and with confidence.
3. Establish clear roles and responsibilities between creative agencies, local marketing teams and the production partner. Establish upfront what needs to be approved by global creative and marketing teams, and what your production partner can manage with local marketing resources. This enables global teams to stay focused on priorities that revolve around strategy, and allows local marketing teams to execute regional campaigns in a timely manner.
4. Engage local marketing resources to ensure success. Leverage local team expertise to understand the cultural variances that impact local campaign production. With this insight, you can ensure campaigns meet global standards, yet allow for local market flexibility. By involving local marketing teams in the process, brands get the buy-in they need to deliver high-quality campaigns globally.
5. Create a global repository of creative assets for local market adaptation to maximize reuse and minimize unnecessary effort. This approach empowers brands to produce more assets, tailor them with more precision to local markets, while launching campaigns more efficiently and with greater speed-to-market.

By following these five steps brands can accelerate the performance of their marketing initiatives on a global scale.

Joe Zhou is a production coordinator with Deliver.