Navigating The Impact of Shrinking Budgets and Scaled-Down Productions

As a consumer, I despise ads. The majority is all glib drivel.

However, as a director of photography, the medium genuinely excites me. The potential for creative expression is seemingly endless in this medium. So long as you also please your client.

There's something magical when the right budget and resources are given to the right team with a dream, and a dazzling work of art is formed. To name a few that have personally inspired me:

"I Am You" S7 Airlines

"Open Spaces" for Burberry

"SEEK BEYOND" for Audemars Piguet

"Our Hands" for Patron Tequila

Are beautifully photographed skies the key to my cinematographer heart?

(yes.) No. The story is.

Back when social media wasn't dominating the video advertising medium, a time when P&A marketing agencies had yet to offer "motion" alongside their client packages, before influencers and one-man-bands began to take advantage of cheaper democratized video production, there was...the TV commercial.

Growing up, there was always a part of me that kinda liked TV commercials, the good ones at least. The TV commercial could be anything. It could be a little story, it could focus on humor, it could be a big choreographed song and dance, it could be an audio visual texture piece. The medium was and still is a blank canvas for any idea imaginable--there's no rules. And that really gets the anarchist in me going.

You might notice the commercials I listed must have been not only well imagined, but well funded. Similarly, some of our world's most iconic works of art were commissioned by the powers that be of their time, rather than purely inspired and executed as many of us idealists like to think the best art is made. The Sistine chapel, Beethoven's symphonies, Statue of David, all commissioned. Often times the feature film is put on a pedestal as the ultimate and purest form of filmmaking, which I generally agree with. But there's something really exciting about the creative possibility of commercials as an art form too.

It seems only these premier brands, corporations effectively acting as their own monarchies, with the right audiences, can afford to shoot for the stars with their creative concepts. And most consumers have probably never even seen these advertisements because they're too long to work effectively on social platforms. It really boggles my mind how much money gets spent on these huge ad campaigns that rarely get the viewership I think they deserve.

Does this mean the masses are being deprived of marketing and advertising content that could move and emotionally nourish people? If people were able to see them, wouldn't that be a win-win for the majority of society that skip ads if possible and the corporations that are selling trying to be culturally relevant? If we're going to be inundated with advertising for the foreseeable future, can it not at least be inspired and of a beautiful quality that can potentially inspire people?

Well that fact that the above commercials exist is proof that it can be done, but what about the majority of the industry that's not working with the top 1% of budgets, resources, and talent?

Whether it was then or now, my favorite commercials always involved a talented cast and skilled crew contributing to a sum greater than its parts that would not be possible if attempted alone. The good stuff, the most memorable to me, was always made by a community contributing to a singular vision. But with the current trend of shrinking budgets and smaller scale production, is that still a possibility? Can something great still be made? Am I just romanticizing the past?

I have conversations about this kind of thing with other creatives and not so much with marketing and agency folks. So I'd like to hear from their perspective, as someone dealing directly with the client, the statistics, the ROI, etc.

With these same sentiments, I sat down with a few agency producers over coffee here in Atlanta to get their thoughts:

Questions for the interviewee's:

What is currently valuable in video marketing for your clients specifically and why?

Are you noticing shrinking budgets and smaller scale production? If so, why do you think that's happening?

What are some of the most effective and successful branded video content your agency has produced?

For those of us not working with huge brands and budgets, how can we attempt to make something great given a $10-$50k budget? (The same budget some well-known influencers are paid to take a picture of a bang energy drink between their cheeks.)

Are long form (2+ minutes) commercials no longer as effective as they used to be?

Vertical iPhone footage is more relatable, users skip it less. Do you think there's potential here for creative expression or do TikTok and Instagram reel users just not want to watch produced content on their phones?

Interest rates on loans were near zero during COVID times which propelled a lot of commercial production. Since then, those loans have run out and the interest rates have gone up, causing corporations to spend less. Do you think spending will increase again, or do you feel as if your clients don't see as much of an ROI on longer form professional advertisements as much as they used to? (This question is based purely on sentiment from several professionals and murmurings, I don't have any inside sources from corporate America to back this up.