Shifts in the Consolidation Model

Over the last decade, consolidation of production has been championed as the efficient answer to ever-growing marketing demands. Fewer suppliers. Faster workflows. Lower costs. At least, that’s the promise that underpins many consolidation strategies today.

But as brands scale content, introduce AI, expand channels, and ask their teams to do more with less, limitations of this promise should be explored. Across thousands of creative production engagements a year, I see a consistent truth:consolidation can be effective when applied with precision, but not as the default operating model. (Note: Consolidation here is defined as a single production supplier for execution).

When applied indiscriminately, consolidation can reduce creative quality, restrict access to specialist talent, stall innovation, and even increase costs. The opportunity for marketers and their creative ops teams is not to abandon production consolidation, but to get smarter about where it works and when it undermines the very creativity brands rely on.

The real issue, as we’ve observed, isn’t how consolidation is applied, but who manages the system when it exists.

Where Consolidation Delivers Value

Some parts of the content ecosystem truly benefit from scale and systemization. These are the areas where consolidation can—and often does—deliver measurable value:

As per Tomasz Pawlikowski recent article in LBB, “Two scenarios are both unfolding in parallel (in the advertising industry). The first is the super-integrator: two or three global groups remain, truly building a shared system of data, technology, production, and distribution, while agency brands serve mainly as a front-end for conflict management. The second is a modular world, in which the client (marketer/brand) keeps the“operating system” in-house and selects partners by task: brand strategy, creativity, media, retail, influencer, studio, analytics. In both cases, the era in which the holding (company/agency network) was the natural centre of gravity is coming to an end.” Worth noting is that consolidation is valued and incorporated into both of these parallel models. More on this shortly.

1. Tech Infrastructure & Content-at-Scale
   • Automation, personalization, adaptation, versioning, and transcreation can thrive in consolidated environments that standardize tooling, usage rights, governance, workflow, andfacilitate speed to market.
2. Operational Efficiency of Creative Production
   • Central coordination of creative production, production hubs, and preferred supplier rosters can expedite supplier onboarding time, streamline data rights and reuse, and strengthen brand consistency across markets through the collaboration that often accompanies these relationships to help them succeed.
3. Repeatable Formats
   
   • High-volume ecommerce content (social, ecommerce, market adaptations, always-on assets) is where shared resources and templates outperform bespoke models. In these contexts, consolidation isn't just efficient; it's strategic and effective to optimize content for social platforms and use the learnings to create smarter, better content.

Where Consolidation Can Backfire

The challenge begins when consolidation is applied as a blanket solution across all content types.

1. Creative Quality at Risk
   • Without consistent external competition, even strong suppliers can become insulated from the market signals that keep quality, pricing, and innovation sharp.
2. The “False Economy” Problem
   • The assumption that consolidation brings efficiencies can quickly become a false economy. Efficiencies that are asserted rather than independently benchmarked are difficult to validate and even harder to sustain.
   • One of the trends APR is seeing is that brands who consolidate to one supplier agency often run a new pitch or open their supplier ecosystem to more of a flexible (modular)framework within a year or so because expectations are not met, usually, some combination of the following:
     • Promised savings don’t fully materialize,
     • Quality declines, and
     • Speed to innovation slows.
3. Preferred Suppliers & Roster AreNot A Fix It And Forget It Solution
   • Without periodic re-testing against the open market, even well-designed rosters risk becoming static cost centers rather than dynamic value drivers.
   • When fewer suppliers are invited to compete, costs can creep upward and creative quality can be affected.
   • Hero films, experiential, large-scale video campaign productions, and fast-evolving formats (like AI-assisted or real-timecontent) require specialist talent. Consolidation can work here but not without careful, unbiased evaluation of the bids and approaches to production. These projects thrive in competitive, open bidding - and rarely succeed under a single-sourced model.

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What the Numbers Reveal

Across APR’s ACERO™ dataset, we see aclear pattern indicating that fewer companies are getting most of the project work:

Since 2020, APR is seeing a 25% decline in the number of high-value video campaigns over $250k, and yet, asset volume per project has risen and the number of shoot days has grown to accommodate the ever growing need for fresh content, and extend the lifespan of a successful campaign"..

With fewer brand campaign productions, each creative production has become ever so much more important to succeed. The stakes are higher for highly effective content.

APR is also seeing a marked increase in “performative bids.”

• This can occur when the same organization oversees the bidding process also competes for the work.
• This creates a structural conflict of interest. Even with the best intentions, it places pressure on transparency, benchmarking, and fair comparison.
• This has the potential of becoming a conflict of interest because the bid facilitator can manipulate the process and award themselves the work.

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When Consolidation Becomes Dependency: A Governance Question

As consolidation expands, the most important question for brands is no longer who executes the work, but who manages the system.

When the execution model, bid facilitation, and performance measurement sit within the same organization, procurement influence can erode without anyone intending it to. This is not a question of ethics or bad actors. It is a question of system design.

Consolidation becomes problematic not when suppliers are large, but when competition is constrained, benchmarking disappears, and procurement loses independent line of sight into pricing, quality, and market alternatives.

In these environments, consolidation stops functioning as an efficiency strategy and starts becoming a dependency.

The role of marketing procurement is not to dismantle consolidated models, but to ensure they operate within clear guardrails: transparency of process, separation of roles, periodic market analysis, and independent oversight by a neutral third-party where production value or brand risk is at stake.

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A Better Bidding Model: Unbiased, Fair, and Competitive

High-value work demands a truly competitive process. That means:

• Separating the roles of Bid Facilitator/Manager and Bidder.
• Rotating suppliers to keep competition healthy.
• Using transparent, multi-dimensional evaluation criteria.
• Avoiding unnecessary requirements for four or five bids that put strain on suppliers without improving outcomes.

When the bid process is fair, brand scan gain access to specialists who elevate the work - and innovation can accelerate, and the pricing improves.

A Practical Framework: Three Buckets, Three Strategies to Creative Production

To avoid misapplied efficiency to creative production, marketing procurement could think about categorizing the creative workinto three core buckets:

1. Craft - Major Campaign Productions& Events: High-stakes, high-visibility work. May require specialist talent.
   • Consolidation may or may not make sense here.
2. Creators, Makers & Influencers: This space thrives on diversity.
   • Consolidation may limit the creativity brands seek.
3. Content Factory: Automation, adaptation, localization, and personalization-at-scale.
   • Consolidation and systemization can shine.

Strategic clarity begins with placing each project in the right bucket with the appropriate approach.

"The mistake is automatically applying one model across all three buckets. The key is matching the production model to the type of work." — Jillian Gibbs

Marketing Procurement as the Tailor & Enabler

As AI, automation, global toolkits, and in-house studios reshape the landscape, success depends not only on who executes the work but on how the ecosystem connects.

The value lies in:

• Thoughtful orchestration connecting the teams across the ecosystem,
• Definition of a licensing/rights and reuse strategies,
• Clearly defined ways of working for all stakeholders (internal and external),
• Transparent governance and reporting,
• And, strong supplier relationship management.

Marketing procurement becomes the tailor of the ecosystem, stitching together a variety of partners and specialist to create value rather than lose it in operational gaps.

"I always say the value is in the seams. That's where the efficiencies are enhanced." — Jillian Gibbs

Procurement’s Role as an Influencer

Procurement isn’t expected to be a subject-matter expert in every aspect of creative production. Instead, their power lies in influencing outcomes, suppliers choices, and orchestration of the processes:

1. Define clear strategies per content bucket.
2. Establish rules of engagement that protect fairness.
3. Set unbiased governance for onboarding, rights, licensing, feedback, and asset ownership.
4. Measure what matters, including cycle time (speed to market), cost value, revision rates, and quality indicators.

"In working with our clients, their production processes are centralized and coordinated—and that's what makes the difference." — Erin Wilhoite‍

Rules of Engagement are critical here and is something that APR has been working on.

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Don’t Go It Alone

The most resilient governance operating model resembles a coordinated effort between marketing, marketing procurement, agency management (where it exists), and suppliers (agencies and production companies.)

The coordination and orchestration of the structure strengthen alignment, activates shared accountability, and brings real-time learnings into decision-making.  

In-house brand studios also benefit when treated as part of the creative and production ecosystem—with transparency, clear expectations, and ownership of roles and responsibilities.

Selecting the right solutions for the right needs at the right time requires knowledge of the supplier landscape, rules of engagement, and standard operating procedures that lead to productive and efficient outcomes allowing for competition of craft when and where it matters most.