ABC launches in-house creative agency ABC Made, claims new centralised model is cheaper
Public broadcaster the ABC has launched its own in-house creative agency, ABC Made, arguing the move to one creative marketing division will bring cost savings.
The creative division has been built to service the broadcaster’s marketing needs across TV, radio, news, international, commercial and digital.
ABC Made is being led by former head of ABC TV marketing Diana Costantini, with ABC director of marketing and audience Leisa Bacon saying: “The in-house agency has been set up to maximise our creative staff across the organisation. It will deliver more efficiencies while keeping audiences front and centre.”
The ABC Made team will consist of radio and TV promo producers, digital and print designers, motion designers and conceptual writers.
Asked if the move to a dedicated in-house division meant a shift away from agencies the ABC said it only has relationships with agencies on a freelance basis, which will continue.
“The ABC does not have existing partnerships with agencies,” said an ABC spokesman. “We do use a range of freelance creatives on a project by project basis and we anticipate that those partnerships will continue.”
Costantini noted that in-house agencies were on the rise with the likes of Foxtel and Ten all launching their own and that a centralised model had also been created for other relevant parts of marketing.
“The in-house agency model is on the rise with many larger media organisations working this way,” said Costantini.
“The centralised model has also been applied to the ABC’s audience insights team and the media planning team, resulting in much tighter targeting, along with stronger creative output.
“The ABC will never have large production budgets so our aim is to build our in-house capabilities and attract the strongest creative staff we can find.”
Recent campaigns created by the ABC Made team include the recent Radio Player App campaign, “Hear Here”, which delivered a 20 per cent increase in daily users for the app with a 104 per cent increase in podcast plays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-Ak0eBJe6M
The team has also just completed creative concept and production of an ABC News Digital campaign, launched this week. The campaign covers TV, radio, digital and outdoor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB60gs4hk_I
Nic Christensen
Nice one Di
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why don’t all companies do this?? they would save tens of millions a year that agencies rip them off.
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Didn’t the Comm Bank do this back in 2000? Their in-house agency (360 I think) survived only until they changed Marketing Directors.
It might be different for media outlets but I do wonder how long it will last.
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methinks you’re right Joe P – it’s both the next right move and also one that will run its course before reverting to the outhouse model… the natural order of things
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Great! Saves the ABC a swag of money and uses the creative talents of in house staff who know the product. The Podcast app Hear,Here, was a winner.
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hi quality.
the abc are a media business and know how to make filmy things. its a bit different them doing it to unilever.
further as the abc is government owned its prudent on them to not be seen competing with the commercial stations (as weird as that is).
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