This is part 2 of a mini-series on managing advertising production spend. Here’s part 1.

When it comes to advertising production, it’s no secret that today’s procurement and marketing leaders are facing pressures to do more with less. 

They’re expected to get more content for more channels, which means more workstreams and more personnel on set and in post-production. And yet, budgets aren’t expanding accordingly. For example, World Advertising Research Center research  found that 42% of marketers anticipated lower budgets in 2026 — nearly double the number who did in 2025. 

So, if you’re a procurement or marketing professional looking to shrink your advertising production budget, we get it. The stresses are real, and saving money is always a reasonable goal. But you have to be smart in how you go about it. 

As Cheryl Ward, President of BBS Worldwide, put it, “You want responsible spend. Efficient spend. Not ‘take a chunk out and see if we can make it work.’”

Auditing the agency relationship

Evaluating your advertising production budget starts with evaluating your agency relationships. Whether you want to stick with your current agency or are looking for a new one, be sure to consider certain factors that can impact pricing, such as: 

SAG signatory match: Let’s say your organization isn’t an SAG signatory. Partnering with an agency that is a SAG signatory could carry burdensome costs associated with reuse fees. And if you are a SAG signatory? You should partner with an agency that is as well, since they will be well-versed in SAG rules and requirements. Plus, it will allow you to take advantage of the Low Budget Digital Waiver for your social- and digital-only campaigns. 

Agency size/structure: Is the agency independent or part of a larger network that includes in-house production and post-production partners? If the latter, the agency may tout the cost advantages of keeping everything in-house.

“That’s what they want you to think, but it’s not always the reality,” Cheryl cautions. “Having all these in-house arms may be a way to make more money to make up for where they’re being squeezed on agency fees. So, rather than bidding independent editors, they might say they can do it all in-house at a reduced rate. However, that might force them to make up any shortfalls elsewhere.” 

Hidden cost migration: In negotiating terms with a new agency, procurement and marketing leaders should build the services of an agency producer (and, if applicable, a business affairs manager) into the annual agency fee. And if you don’t do that, then you should make it clear to the brand teams that these services will need to be covered by the out-of-pocket (OOP) budget. 

Failing to take one of these steps will leave the brand teams hanging out to dry. That’s because brands have a set budget for each production along with a set OOP budget for the year. If an agency producer and perhaps a business affairs manager need to come on board once the production phase begins, those fees will be OOP expenses. 

In this case, you’ll have two choices: a) keep the current production’s budget the same, knowing that fewer dollars are going toward the shooting cost, or b) increase your budget to accommodate the labor and reduce or eliminate future projects. Not an ideal situation. 

Take a close look at the brief

Another way to be smart with your advertising production spend is to make a candid assessment of your team’s creative briefs. 

The fact is, creative minds usually aren’t financial minds. And that’s okay. During the brainstorming phase, creative folks should be thinking big rather than limiting their vision in accordance with perceived financial restraints. 

At some point in the process, though, an expert should review the creative brief to ensure it at least roughly aligns with the budget. An advertising production consultant like BBS can fill that role. 

“I can look at the brief and gauge whether or not it’s going to fly,” Cheryl says. “I may end up telling you, ‘You need to pivot on your ask because you don’t have the funds to achieve it.’” 

Importantly, this back-and-forth should occur before sending the brief to an agency. That will help prevent the delays and compromises that inevitably follow if the agency feels the budget is insufficient to execute on the brief. Plus, it will give the agency a realistic budget so it can begin approaching prospective directors, editors, music houses and others right away. 

Social-only shoots, refreshing existing assets and more

In part 1 of this mini-series, we mentioned how an advertising shoot today may involve capturing video for broadcast, social media and other outlets along with stills for print and digital out-of-home ads. The problem is, cramming all this work into a single production can compromise the creative. 

Rightsizing the scope may present a better option. For instance, some of our clients have begun asking agencies for social-only shoots. 

“They’re looking for it to be a more cost-efficient production that’s a little looser on things like props and wardrobe,” Cheryl says. “That can take away the pressure of overstuffing a shoot and trying to ensure no one gets slighted, as there’s no debate about what the priority is.

“Separating things out a bit allows for better focus and can help you get more content for that specific media buy because you’re not borrowing locations, talent or even crew members from another team.” 

If your budget is stretched to the point that you can’t afford a new production, try instead to make the most of existing assets. With a broadcast ad, for example, you could renew talent usage and music rights for an additional year, change the order of shots and update the messaging in the end card. It costs a lot less than starting from scratch. 

Other strategies for increasing cost efficiency without sacrificing quality include: 

·       Negotiating a rate card directly with a vendor for repeatable work, such as animatics or boardomatics for test spots

·       Having a smaller vendor — rather than the main agency — work on lower-level assets from a larger campaign, such as end-card updates 

·       Shooting in states that offer generous film tax incentives, which involves filling out some paperwork in exchange for what could be major cost savings

Lastly, a note about what we’ll call the “benchmarking fallacy”: One might assume the costs for two seemingly similar shoots should be the same. But it’s not so simple because every job is unique. That’s why BBS discourages benchmarking exercises. 

“You can’t say, ‘We previously shot on a stage for one day here, so I expect the same cost when I shoot on another stage for one day.’ It’s rarely an apples-to-apples comparison,” Cheryl says. “Maybe last time you had two actors on a stage against a green screen, and now you have a stage that’s three times bigger and four different set builds. The discrepancies in costs are hidden in details like these.” 

Responsible cost discipline pays off

Approaching your advertising production spend with an eye toward responsible cost discipline rather than unconditional cost cutting can pay off in a variety of ways. You give the agency or production partner more margin for error, so they can pivot in the face of unexpected developments. You end up with higher-quality creative. And you build stronger relationships with those agencies and vendors that you want to work with again. 

Cheryl emphasizes that while planning for, executing and delivering final assets, the scope inevitably will change — as will the costs. Brands already account for that.

“It’s the unaccounted costs that stretch a project’s limits,” she adds. “Advertisers looking to approach content production with cost efficiencies in mind should look at the big picture of their advertising spend and weigh the needs of each stage upfront, not as they occur.”