What gas station coffee and in-house production have in common

Okay, let’s be serious, I wouldn’t even drink the coffee in a gas station much less eat the food. I have a hard time even using the bathrooms.

There is a corporate mandate sweeping America to go “in house” with the sole idea of saving money. High-level professions from lawyers to doctors are seeing their industries changing, with professionals having the option of going “in house” today. While bringing specialties inside one company can help streamline efficiency across the company, it can also put less importance on creativity and focus too much on the business as an entity. While some of these measures have led businesses to saving and leading to new revenue streams, there are even better, more cost-efficient benefits for enlisting an independent company for your brand’s marketing campaigns and projects that aren’t dependent on the bottom line.

In my field, I continue to see advertising agencies take post-production “in-house” to create a “one-stop shop” that makes it convenient for art directors, copywriters and producers not to have to leave the agency. The model promotes increased revenue streams, where the agencies alone retain profits from allotted creative budgets rather than paying external vendors. But here’s the truth - editing in-house is like going to the gas station for coffee – a churned out after-thought, and not in their area of specialty.

Recently, the agencies have been under attack for purportedly rigging the bidding process for their clients’ contracts to steer them towards their in-house production facilities over independent shops. So the wars are on when it comes to agencies taking our specialties and expertise in-house where it can be viewed as our specialties not being valued as much as it is in independent shops, where post-production artists can explore creativity fully.

Advertising is built on the foundation of being extraordinary. We have extraordinary minds think of extraordinary strategies and solutions to sell products and brands. We hire extraordinary directors to fulfill this vision and give them carte blanche budgets to accomplish dazzling spectacles we see on television. So then why would you take the editing in-house when post-production is just as important in the process of making a commercial?

I accept there is a big push to the “New Normal” in this hyper-digital and profit-obsessed society and business model, but at what price, to be average? Take for example former extraordinary companies like Sears, US Airways, Radio Shack, JC Penny and Blackberry. While once thriving, they are now failing. Why? Because at some point, their new CEOs announced a shift to amp up “Profitability” instead of “Creativity.” This belief is reminiscent of the “stack fallacy,” or thinking a simple solution to something not quite working is just to build on top of it, rather than getting to the root of the problem and building up again. Nike, Apple and Google could easily be on this list but they never shifted. Instead, they stayed true their core mission by constantly investing in reinventing itself through creativity and passion.

In-house capabilities have become such a profit center and are (more often then not) motivated solely by the money or bottom line. But I would argue that most independent shops can produce great, creative work because a firm rate card does not motivate them.

In advertising, one of the most important things you can do is grow your relationship with your clients. A way to do this is by focusing on the creativity of that project together, making your client and, thus, your consumer, in love with the work. This way, they start cultivating trust in you as their partner because you truly want them and their business to thrive and succeed. They need to know that as an agency, production or post-production company, that you are in it with them – a true creative partner they could trust. That’s Creativity over Profitability.

Independent editorial companies will always produce better results because we are specialists in one thing. We get exposure to many varieties of styles of film projects with different challenges to solve. We grow and become more extraordinary from each and carry this growth into our next projects. If you are not getting an opportunity to work on diverse brands with a range of clientele, or don’t even need to leave the building, one might predict that you would soon become stale, bitter and tasteless. Much like bad coffee.

In-house divisions are on the wrong side of business history, so this is a cautionary tale: If you’re a gas station, stick to the gas.

JJ Lask is editor, partner & co-founder of post-production company PS260