Agency vs. Direct

As a commercial production company WANTED works on all types of projects for all types of Clients – direct and agency. Direct Clients are often smaller organisations that don’t have a formal advertising agency relationship and want me to come up with concepts and scripts, as well as produce the completed video or commercial. Other projects come from advertising agencies where concepts and scripts have usually already been developed and the agency needs WANTED to bring it all to life.

It’s important to clarify – I keep these two types of Client completely separate.

I never approach an organisation that has an affiliation to an advertising agency, even if we don’t have a relationship with that agency.

In fact, I don’t really approach direct Clients at all – they tend to come to WANTED through other media industry introductions, for which I’m very grateful.

Occasionally a Client that I have worked with via an agency connection will contact me and ask if I would work directly with them on a project. I always advise them that I wouldn’t undertake any work without first getting permission from their advertising agency. To me, it’s just proper business protocols to respect where work has come from, which personal connections are involved, and acknowledge long-term friendships and professional allegiances.

I have needed to discuss this type of situation with one or two advertising agencies over the years. They’ve been extremely grateful for my professional ethics in consulting with them, and have, in fact, always given me the go-ahead to proceed. But if they had said they preferred me not to work with the Client I would certainly have accepted that and bowed out of the opportunity.

I am keen to see all Clients get the benefit of working with WANTED but equally, I’m respectful of Client – Agency – Production Company relationships. I understand other production houses might not always be so ‘squeaky clean’ when it comes to Client relationships, but I’m not interested in being just another production company.

Cheers.

B L U