Liz Miller-Gershfeld, VP, Sr. Art Producer at Energy BBDO, brings nearly 20 years of experience producing award-winning advertising to ASMP’s September 27th Symposium where she will serve as a panelist for the session “Current Distribution Models that Offer Compensation to Creators. Are these the answers?” In person attendees can registerhere. Registration is not required for the live stream presentation.
The meeting I entered the other day, while still a bit unnerving, was no longer atypical but rather represented the “new normal.”
At the table were creatives and account people from the agency side and a team from the digital end of things. On the phone were teams from the promotional agency, the PR agency and international marketing counterparts. There were a few more voices on the phone. I’m still not clear who they were, perhaps a wrong number, probably not… Today clients have multi-channel marketing plans and multiple agencies to accomplish them…and we all have to play nicely.
In the past we had layouts to produce and a single creative team to collaborate with a photographer. What we have now are the lead creatives, designers and asset managers. Teams who need assets for the internet, for in-store needs, for trade shows, brochures, projections, PR, broadcast billboards, etc. We have cost consultants who are interested in making sure we are being efficient and also optimizing our opportunities.
I, in turn, need a photographer who has deep human resources; resources who can show examples of their work. I need a photographer who can ask good questions; preemptive questions. I need a photographer who can simplify complexity and whose team is cohesive enough that although they cannot be in all places at all times as a team, a single creative voice comes through.
I need a photographer whose producer can, at any given time quantify (in terms of time and money) what the inevitable changes and additions mean. A photographer who is always thinking of the most efficient way to solve any problem and is able to articulate it from that perspective because I, in turn, have to be able to discuss it with clients in that way.
But perhaps most importantly, I need a photographer who can hold the idea that we brought to them – the one the creatives have spent the last few months and weekends developing, presenting, refining, presenting, selling, testing, presenting, resuscitating, presenting, refining and reselling… A photographer who can hold it like a torch, amidst all the chaos and needs, in their unique style; the reason we came to them.
VP and Senior Art Producer, Energy BBDO, Liz Miller–Gershfeld has been working in advertising for nearly 20 years. She has been producing award-winning art for clients such as Wrigley, Jim Beam Brands, Bayer Brands and many more as VP, Sr. Art Producer at Energy BBDO since 2000. Prior to that she worked on the production end of the process getting her start as a production assistant on small feature films. A frequent lecturer and panelist she lives in Chicago, where she is a year round bike commuter, with her husband and two sons.