Opinion

Are the big bucks worth it?

Each fortnight in Encore Adam Ferrier poses a question related to the media, marketing and entertainment industry. Adam Ferrier

Production budgets bore me. I’ve had so many conversations about wanting to bust the production model open and find a new way to reconcile the speed, quality, cost trade off – but often find myself looking down the traditional tunnel, or a kaleidoscope of confusion and uncertainty.

I look at the amazing work of West Australian content makers Aaron and Henry and compare that to the latest big budget piece of gloop from whoever and I get annoyed.

But the real reason I get annoyed is that I think they might be right. There may be something in paying a crap load of money for production and ensuring a better result. For even though strapping a Go Pro on to the head of the office junior who has a great eye can turn an amazing result, it’s nothing like the impact that a big production budget can have.

Further, so much of advertising is not what you say, but how you say it. Therefore being the biggest, best, most expensive production says, at some level, this brand knows about quality, and the implication is if they spend this much on their advertising then everything else they do must be done to a very high standard too. Carry this argument forward and consumers want high-quality, big-production advertising.

Some of the most creative and effective work we have done has had budgets between $400 and $50,000 for production – most of it turned out well. Would it have been better if the production budgets were higher, or would it have taken us into bland?

So my question is this is. Have traditional advertising agencies been taking the piss with their enviously high production budgets for 30 seconds of content, or have they been right all along? Could the million or so spent on the latest big ad be better deployed elsewhere?

Adam Ferrier is a consumer psychologist and the founder of Naked Communications. 

 

Encore Issue 9This story first appeared in the weekly edition of Encore available for iPad and Android tablets. Visit encore.com.au for a preview of the app or click below to download.

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