Two weeks into his new job and Simon Wells is breathless. ’I’m
chasing instead of being chased,’ he tells me before rushing off to
another meeting. ’And it’s great.’
Until the end of October, Wells was a confirmed agency producer and
former head of TV at WCRS. But when the Guardian Media Group asked him
to set up Initial Commercials, he jumped at the chance.
And he is not alone in swapping sides, with Bruce Macrae leaving his job
as head of TV at DMB&B at the start of October to steer Little Bird in
London. Other recent, senior appointments of former agency staff within
production companies in the past couple of months have included the
former BMP DDB creative director, Graham Collis, who wound up Genie
Films to become the creative director of Tony Kaye and Partners.
A second ex-BMP staffer, Paul Rothwell, a producer, has just joined the
two former agency partners of Gorgeous Enterprises, Frank Budgen and
Chris Palmers. Rothwell became the joint managing director there, after
five years at Paul Weiland Films and a year-long stint at RSA.
Agency producers moving to production companies is nothing new in an
industry where experience of both sides of ad production is an
advantage.
But the new generation of crossovers, and the large number of existing
ex-agency staff in senior positions, puts the spotlight on why they move
over - and why they do so well.
In many ways, it is not an easy jump to make. In the first few months,
movers swap a steady salary for work-related pay, are forced to chase
business rather than wait for it to come to them, and relinquish control
of the total production process. But the benefits are such that most
agree the move is essential for any commercials producer, the vast
majority of whom never go back.
For some, money is an incentive. While an average agency producer makes
pounds 35,000 a year, someone producing for a popular director can make
anything up to pounds 4,000 per shoot day. Performance-related income is
also an attraction.
More important appears to be the desire to find out more about filming,
that part of the production process an agency producer usually never
gets to see. Rothwell says: ’In a production company, you are more
involved in filming rather than co-ordinating and that was the bit I
preferred.’ Macrae adds: ’I wanted to learn the nitty gritty like
negotiating with the crew, sorting out briefs for the art department and
finding out what camera equipment allows you to do what camera
moves.’
For a few others, the mysteries of producing a shoot takes second place
to the fascination of steering a company’s development - a role many
feel is easier in smaller, creative organisations. Part of Wells’ job
will be to develop Initial Commercials’ advertiser-funded programming
expertise, while Collis is overseeing the K Media Group’s
diversification into areas including movie development and interactive
media.
Collis explains: ’Production companies are well placed to explore all
forms of communication and will become a crossover point for people from
all sides of the business. It’s much easier to work here than it is in
an agency, where you have to persuade 50 people to go with an idea and
spend a lot of time worrying about long-standing clients.’
The list of ex-agency staff - particularly heads of TV - who leave their
departments only to stay indefinitely at production companies is proof
of these attractions, but the fact that many also rise to the very top
says something about the qualities they bring.
Mark Hanrahan, now head of television at Saatchi & Saatchi but formerly
a producer at BMP and the Production Company, points to the success of
ex-agency names such as Barnaby Spurrier at Spirit and Martha Green at
Stark Films. ’Moving to a production company is a natural progression
for the best agency producers and they are often given the
responsibility of managing the business relationship with agencies
because they understand their problems so well,’ he says.
’There is a correlation between the success of a production company and
a head with an agency background, because they understand the whole
advertising process and make sure they get their product right.’
More cynically, there may also be an element of pragmatism in the
decisions of ex-agency people to stay put in production companies. Since
agencies rarely choose their managing directors from their TV
departments, production companies are the natural - possibly the only -
home for ambitious producers wanting to run their own operations.
Few producers seem quick to return to agency jobs and those who do say
the experience was worthwhile. Sandy Watson has been the head of TV at
M&C Saatchi since 1995 but co-founded Lewin & Watson and ran it for more
than a decade. She concludes: ’If you want to be a head of TV, you have
to know all aspects of the business and it’s sensible to spend time in a
production company. I can’t understand people who don’t want to see life
on the other side.’
