Public service announcements are usually the type of work that advertising agencies get very enthusiastic about. The opportunity to generate unique ideas that aren’t impaired by strict marketing objectives definitely excites and challenges every creative group. Generally, the end product is a broadcast campaign highlighted by outstanding originality and the greatest production value.
Putting aside for a moment their benevolent and humane objectives, PSAs have been labeled as one of the most creative outlets for the ad agency, sometimes becoming vital components of their creative reel. Because of their pro-bono nature, the client normally does not edit or alter the original concept. This premise and attitude trickles down to the production and postproduction resources attached to these campaigns—a unique opportunity for collaborating to produce outstanding work, while stimulating the creative, personal and business relationships within the advertising and film communities, all for a good cause.
This summer, Manhattan Transfer Miami (MTM) and Deep Blue Sea (DBS), Miami, confirmed all this by producing and finishing a set of three 30-second television commercials: "Swimmer," "Runner" and "Soccer" for Campeon Group and their client Special Olympics Miami-Dade. Reaching out to the generous Miami film community and utilizing all of the company’s in-house production and available postproduction human and technological resources, MTM and DBS successfully completed this TV campaign as a one-stop shop.
There isn’t really anything innovative about this industrious strategy. Today, most of the production enterprises in the world house some kind of postproduction component within their business practice. Those firms that can’t afford it establish strategic alliances with other shops offering services that complement each other.
Nevertheless, agencies particularly appreciate having to deal with only one entity instead of having to creatively barter with several. From the director’s perspective, the benefits of housing both the production services and postproduction infrastructure are innumerable, particularly when all participants in the assignment work in unison under one roof, facilitating and expediting the overall artistic and logistic process—key to absolute creative integrity and control.
