These are tough times for the advertising industry, and nearly everyone is feeling the squeeze. Budgets are shrinking, agencies are writing more ‘high-concept/low-budget’ material and production companies are routinely doing favors just to win jobs. One would think that a production consultant involved in the process would be a good thing, and many (especially on the client end) would suggest they are. However, many producers, and even some on the agency side, wholeheartedly disagree.

As an agent of the client, the production consultant’s job is to analyze the costs of making a television commercial, suggest ways to reduce these costs and rule whether expenditures suggested by the agency and production house are fair.

The problem begins when consultants suggest cost cuts because such actions are often viewed by agencies and production houses as interference and draw accusations that consultants are acting in their own self-interest, damaging the creative, and taking over the financial troubleshooting roles traditionally assigned to producers.

There are many stigmas attached to the position, and in researching this article it became apparent that many people with such titles – whether operating on contract or in-house with large clients – are not interested in discussing them.

Consultants David Channing of Channing Communications and Johanna Tuer with Proctor & Gamble, both told On The Spot that it is against company policy to discuss production consultation.

It’s no wonder. Consultants are often reviled by producers, who resent the fact that the client should require an outsider to assure that producers are doing what they are paid to do: make commercials as economically as possible and with the client’s best interests always in mind.

‘What they seem to be doing is justifying their existence by knocking enough money out of the budget,’ says one executive producer.

One who did come forward is Toronto-based consultant Peter Anastasoff.

One prevalent argument against consultants focuses on credentials. Some feel that consultants do not have the necessary financial, production or creative backgrounds to make important financial decisions for their clients. No one can argue, however, with Anastasoff’s CV. A 30-year veteran of the business, Anastasoff started as a ‘screening-room boy’ at Leo Burnett and left 15 years later as VP, production. He also ran his own commercial production company for three years before making himself available to clients as a production consultant.

‘I think the production consultant’s role is to be used by the client not just for the cost situation, but as an adjunct to the agency’s services,’ says Anastasoff. ‘When I sign on with a client, I sign on not only with the client, but also to the agency.’

He says there are some in the industry with misconceptions about what he does.

‘Anybody can chop numbers… anyone can get you a cheaper price – that’s a no-brainer,’ he says. ‘What’s important is that you assess the costs given to the client. I never go to an agency and say this is $20 or $100,000 too much when I know I can get it cheaper. That satisfies no one. Whenever I do an analysis or assessment, I am well aware of what the agency’s position is and what they’re trying to achieve. What I try to do is bring everything together, and sometimes we save a lot of money, and sometimes a commercial costs what a commercial costs.’

Perhaps the biggest objection from producers and agencies is that a good deal of the money-saving cuts demanded ultimately compromises the creative.

‘If the industry [always used] these people, it would kill it,’ says Sylvain Archabault, a partner and director at Montreal’s Jet Films. ‘It’s one thing to reduce the cost, but if the product pays the price and if the quality is totally jeopardized, then who’s winning? It’s certainly not the client.’ He goes on to say, however, that his experiences with production consultants have varied, depending who the client has hired for the job.

‘There are two kinds of production consultants,’ says Derek Sewell, executive producer at The Players Film Company in Toronto. ‘There are those who ask questions about what you’re trying to achieve, and try to figure out the process and the creative that you’re trying to get done and how you’re doing it. Then you have other kinds of guys who never ask one question about what you’re trying to do, or why you’re trying to do it that way, and they just say ‘Lose $20,000.’ That relationship puts us, and the agency, at risk of delivering to the client less than what they expected, and that’s nerve-racking.’

Anastasoff says a good production consultant should most certainly be the former. He sees himself as a mediator whose main purpose is ‘to get my client the best possible job at the best possible price, and get the agency the freedom they demand.’

‘People are in this business to make a profit. I’ve tried to maintain as level a perspective as I can so that everybody makes something reasonable, and everyone comes away satisfied.’

One agency producer, who wished to remain anonymous, is rarely satisfied when production consultants are brought in and believes that such interferences have ruined the relationship between the agency and at least one client.

‘Our clients second guess us because [a cost consultant] painted us in a way that all we care about is working with this big, top-name director,’ says the producer. ‘It’s damaged our reputation with one client to the point where they just go to the consultant with everything. What’s the agency there for? We’ve become irrelevant at times.’

Not all agency personnel feel the same way. Martin Shewchuk, EVP and executive creative director at J. Walter Thompson, Toronto, says now that he’s back on the agency side after a successful second career as a full-time commercial director, his relationship with production consultants ‘is very collaborative.’

‘We both have our client’s best interest at heart and my experience on the production side has really given me some insight into what things really cost. I think the production houses feel we deal with them fairly.’

He also once referred to production consultants as the Canadian commercial director’s ‘best friend.’

‘They are the first to point out that a local director is always more cost efficient,’ says Shewchuk. ‘Most of them are more than willing to take a chance on a new Canadian director.’

Others, however, argue that using Canadian directors does not always serve the client’s best interest.

‘It’s a global market and as a producer my job is to find the best person for the job – not the best Canadian for the job,’ says one agency producer. ‘If there is someone locally, of course we’ll consider the director, but we’ve also worked with most of the local people and we know what they’re capable of and what they’re not.’

Anastasoff admits that when he suggests using a Canadian director for a spot it is often in the spirit of preserving the local industry, however, he says he will not stand in the way of any agency that wants to bring in a foreign talent.

‘Agencies do a lot of research and they work very hard trying to find the right director for the right spot,’ says Anastasoff. ‘I don’t think it’s my place to say you shouldn’t be using this guy.’

Some suggest that a clarification of roles and education can clear up what can be called dissention between production consultants and their naysayers.

But according to Scott Mackenzie, co-chair of the Commercial Production Association of Toronto, perhaps the problems are not entirely linked to production consultants themselves, but rather the budgets they are presumably cutting.

‘I think the challenge is that we’re recognized as one of the most efficient, low-cost producers in the world, and yet on the local work we’re so hammered we’re having a hard time making it work,’ says Mackenzie, also an executive producer at Radke Films. ‘I think specifically it’s not just a cost-consultant issue, but a broader issue. You can always do a job cheaper, but can you do it at a level where everyone is happy and you can all move forward together? I think it has gotten pretty tight here recently.’

With files from Laura Bracken