Episode Transcript
Rob Broadfoot 0:21
Alright, everybody. Welcome back to MOCK, the podcast. Today is episode 41. If you can believe it, and super excited today, to talk with a buddy of mine, and an outstanding industry professional, Mr. Matthew Mattingly.
Matthew Mattingly 0:37
Hello.
Rob Broadfoot 0:38
Matteo, because I affectionately referred him. And Matthew works for a consultancy or sort of a production consultancy called Hone based here in Atlanta and New York. Am I correct?
Matthew Mattingly 0:51
Just Atlanta, for now.
Rob Broadfoot 0:52
Very good. So, I thought it would be interesting to talk a little bit today about just furthering discussion on production and talk a little bit about Hone, and what you guys do and the kind of things that you’re working on. Sounds like a plan?
Matthew Mattingly 1:06
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 1:07
Cool.
Matthew Mattingly 1:07
Let’s do it.
Rob Broadfoot 1:07
Well, let’s talk a little bit Matt, about your background and sort of where you come from and all that good stuff.
Matthew Mattingly 1:13
Sure and great to join you guys and congrats on the podcast.
Rob Broadfoot 1:17
Thank you, sir.
Matthew Mattingly 1:18
Impressive, but impressive intro music as well. Is that a MOCK original?
Rob Broadfoot 1:21
That was an in house. That’s MOCK original, Mr. C, out there composed that. Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 1:27
Could be a side hustle for you guys.
Rob Broadfoot 1:29
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 1:29
Yeah, my background, I started kind of, just as a production assistant on the production company side. Did a little bit of reality TV, and then pretty quickly moved in to working with some of the bigger production shops in New York and moved from Atlanta and moved up to New York. And would PA for Hungry Man and Moxy and Radical Media. And kind of got my exposure to the ad industry that way. Just, working on the production side, also PA’d on Law and Order for a little while, had some Jerry Orbach time, which was pretty awesome.
Rob Broadfoot 2:12
Nice.
Matthew Mattingly 2:14
But, I had intended pretty quickly to move to the agency side, and that was sort of my goal and so PA’d for about two years, and then eventually got a job at JD Beatty in New York, as a production assistant. That’s kind of how they started you there. And the shop at the time was pretty unique and that they did have a impressive, like training.
Rob Broadfoot 2:41
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 2:41
Program.
Rob Broadfoot 2:42
What year was this be?
Matthew Mattingly 2:43
It probably been around 2004, 2005, something like that. So, we had these pods in the in the department at the time was pretty big. And they were developing an in house post production facility at the same time as well. So, it was really good training.
Rob Broadfoot 3:01
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 3:02
Territory and so I stayed on the agency side, kind of moving up, getting different promotions and moved over to BBDO. And then I joined a small boutique agency. Johannes Leonardo, was like the second or third employee there, so quite a big difference from.
Rob Broadfoot 3:24
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 3:25
JD Beatty and BBDO, which are these huge massive broadcasts production agencies. But, was very excited about the opportunity at Johannes Leonardo and those guys, Jan and Leo, we’re renowned for their creative work and in all the awards they had won. And so, was excited about that opportunity and just to kind of see how a small agency like that would operate and run and ended up being there for almost three years and it was a big learning experience and pretty intense as you can expect, but learned a lot and was really just kind of thrown into the fire on many different.
Rob Broadfoot 4:10
Employee number three, you ready? You’re running the production department all of a sudden.
Matthew Mattingly 4:13
Exactly. Basically, and it was like okay, you’re doing print. You’re doing experiential, you’re doing these activation, because anything that came in the door, just figure it out.
Rob Broadfoot 4:24
That’s the best way to learn.
Matthew Mattingly 4:26
So, was in and out, at the time when digital was becoming way more part of the campaign and campaigns and so you know, building microsites and in kind of the whole 360 integrated production world.
Rob Broadfoot 4:45
Sure.
Matthew Mattingly 4:46
Was really the thing of the day then. And so, I did that and then ended up taking a position over at a digital agency called Hello Monday. We had done several projects with them for Google, while I was at Johannes Leonardo, and really enjoyed the team there. And I learned a lot. I probably was only there for about nine months or so. It was a different type of role, then kind of typical content production for me, so kinda was having to play a little bit more into the account management space.
Rob Broadfoot 5:27
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 5:27
Which is not necessarily the space that I want to be in all the time. So, ended up leaving and going freelance, and worked that anomaly for a year. And then Wieden and Kennedy, New York for a year.
Rob Broadfoot 5:41
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 5:42
And did some really great work with both of those agencies. And then I’d been in New York for about 10 years at that point. So, moved back to Atlanta.
Rob Broadfoot 5:52
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 5:53
And while I had been working at Johannes Leonardo, had been exposed to, you know, we worked on Coca Cola, and that was kind of the first time I had seen or worked with an in house producer. Coke had producers and house that were sort of shepherd the projects along and worked directly with the agencies and kind of translate for the brand teams and just make sure everything was was running efficiently and kind of supervised the whole process. And so I was aware of that role at Coca Cola. And so, when I moved back to Atlanta, I talked to them pretty much right away.
Rob Broadfoot 6:35
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 6:35
And so, went in house at Coca Cola for about two years before I started.
Rob Broadfoot 6:41
What was the impetus for starting out, and I’m always curious, when people start businesses, what happens?
Matthew Mattingly 6:46
You know, I kind of had an entrepreneurial bug in me for a while and sort of had been talking to some people that I worked with, in the industry kind of about, what can we do? Maybe this idea would work or that idea would work. And Greg Tharp, who is a good friend of mine, and he was also a senior producer. Actually, I think he was an EP at that point at Deutsch. But, he also had run a production company, prior to getting on to the agency side. And so, he had some familiarity with starting his own shop. And so, he and I kind of talked a lot about what could we do, and part of part of the impetus was at Johannes Leonardo, it was difficult to kind of have people drop in at a moment’s notice, and start producing work, because clients would just, you know, they’d approve a creative, but they wouldn’t sign off on a budget, and it would take months.
Rob Broadfoot 7:50
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 7:50
And it was hard for, you know, honestly, Jan and Leo for them to kind of have producers with the experience level that they needed. And so, that I was oftentimes a bit over in over my head. So, the real sort of genesis of the idea was, let’s have some producers that are very experienced, and if we have multiple, and we’re kind of this collective, that’s all a part of Hone, then we can be tapped at sort of a moment’s notice. We could be involved as the creative development process, even during a pitch or what have you and so, we’re sort of a consistent thread.
Rob Broadfoot 8:36
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 8:37
And, you know, the real goal was, also some of these agencies really didn’t have a need for a production department.
Rob Broadfoot 8:46
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 8:47
So, we would sort of be that outside satellite production department for them.
Rob Broadfoot 8:51
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 8:52
And, you know, pretty quickly, we did play that role.
Rob Broadfoot 8:57
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 8:57
To some degree, and so agencies like Baldwin, and David Baldwin’s agency, they’ve, since hired, had some productions and things like that, but at the time, they didn’t necessarily need a full time, head of production.
Rob Broadfoot 9:13
What was the trend for a while? I mean, all agencies were starting, we’re starting in house production.
Matthew Mattingly 9:16
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 9:17
Just, all we need some cameras, and some people.
Matthew Mattingly 9:19
Yeah, yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 9:20
But that’s kind of that’s kind of depending on the size, I suppose that either that either works, or it doesn’t.
Matthew Mattingly 9:24
But, that was, that was a key part of our business model. But, also having worked at Coke for that time, and just seeing how Coke was working with a lot of different content partners. And, some of those were better at being able to handle a company like Coke and kind of, hey, you’re not a storied ad agency that’s worked with a huge corporation for years.
Rob Broadfoot 9:51
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 9:52
But by the way, we want you to make commercials that are living up to the level of what you do, what Weiden and Kennedy does. So, it was often a challenge in difficult in a lot of education on my part as the sort of Coke supervising producer with some of these content creators to kind of shepherd them through the process and teach them really sort of production one on one times. I think we didn’t, that didn’t really play out how we saw that in terms of working with some of these content creators as much as actually just working directly with the brands.
Rob Broadfoot 10:32
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 10:32
Because brands started to bring work more in house.
Rob Broadfoot 10:35
Yep.
Matthew Mattingly 10:36
Starting their own internal agencies, that’s where we sort of saw our role fit a little bit better. And I think some of the content creators, just liked the idea of, here’s a pool of money and or a bucket of money and go make it and figure it out on your own. And if it goes, well, it goes well, right? Mindsets.
Rob Broadfoot 10:36
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 10:36
So, we started working with a number of different brands in house, since they we’re developing that capability and wanting to create work in house.
Rob Broadfoot 11:10
Are you still seeing that? Like, because I know, you guys work with a ton of big brands? And are you still seeing that with most of the big brands that they keep it in house and then outsource production? Are they doing a little bit of both, just depending on what they’re developing, meaning media agencies or not, or how is that working?
Matthew Mattingly 11:25
I think it’s very dependent on the brand. A brand like Coke has so many smaller brands within the Coke trademark. They have Mellow Yellow, they have.
Rob Broadfoot 11:38
Sure.
Matthew Mattingly 11:38
You know, so I think, for a company like that, they’re going to have agencies always.
Rob Broadfoot 11:45
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 11:45
And always going to be involved in several agencies, working in such a huge global brand, but certain, a client, like, we worked with Etsy and Etsy wanted to do television for the first time.
Rob Broadfoot 12:01
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 12:01
And so, we, we jumped in there and kind of helped them through that process.
Rob Broadfoot 12:08
Wasn’t that, I think you were told me about that one, wasn’t that Like, 40? You were doing 40 spots or so?
Matthew Mattingly 12:13
That’s what that was more with MailChimp.
Rob Broadfoot 12:16
Okay. Okay.
Matthew Mattingly 12:17
Yeah, I mean, so I think Etsy is now shifted back. They’ve kind of done TV, and they’ve seen that it works, and really decided that’s what we want to do moving forward. And I think, they did some of the work in house, kind of got that experience.
Rob Broadfoot 12:36
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 12:36
That was sort of a lower risk approach to wait, let’s try this out and see how it goes. And now I believe, there was 72, and Sunny. And so it could go that way. But I do think there’s a lot of different permutations of how it can work.
Rob Broadfoot 12:52
Sure.
Matthew Mattingly 12:52
And I think it has a lot to do with how the brand advertises and their size and kind of their appetite for it. Because, as they, they may save on agency fees, or something like that, but it is obviously a lot of work.
Rob Broadfoot 13:05
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 13:06
Where we kind of fit in is, being some experts that can come in and in sort of say, you have this existing team that has a certain level of capability and experience, but they might not be the best fit. You might be stretching their capabilities a bit too much to be able to do work at this level.
Rob Broadfoot 13:31
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 13:31
So, you may need to bring outside consultants like Hone in to help support you as you guys want to do work at a higher level.
Rob Broadfoot 13:41
Right. Right. Well, so do you, regardless of brand, whether you’re working directly with the client, or whether you’re working with it through an agency, is it, I’m assuming holistically at this point. We’re just creating content on the whole, right? It’s not? I mean, how many are they coming to you often and going, we just need to shoot this spot or this campaign? Or is it just a holistic approach to, we’re gonna shoot a buttload of content, and we’re gonna slice and dice that a million different ways and distributed all over the place?
Matthew Mattingly 14:09
It really varies, you know, there’s no real consistency to it. I mean, I think what, how we’ve helped most brands, is when they are deciding to do something, like we want to do television for the first time.
Rob Broadfoot 14:22
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 14:22
Broadcast advertising, or we’ve done some social content in house or, banner ads in house, but now we want to do, bigger online video. I mean, it doesn’t have to be broadcast, but kind of taking it to the next level where so that’s more where we’ve been asked to kind of come in and help and they need that expertise. I think in terms of how much they they need, if it’s one or two spots, or if it’s 40.
Rob Broadfoot 14:22
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 14:41
That’s really kind of what the brand’s messaging is.
Rob Broadfoot 14:59
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 14:59
Yes, and it can vary quite a bit, but yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 15:06
What about any sort of consistent trends that you’re that you’re seeing as of late that might be new? Or is it just kind of we’re, just continue to up the level of production and production quality? Or what do we, what are we seeing?
Matthew Mattingly 15:19
Well, I would say, the trend of getting more, for less is in faster.
Rob Broadfoot 15:30
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 15:30
Is not really going away.
Rob Broadfoot 15:33
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 15:34
I mean, I think one trend, that’s a challenge, and especially as a producer is the amount of versions that we have to generate.
Rob Broadfoot 15:44
Oh, really?
Matthew Mattingly 15:45
For a campaign. I mean, just all the different sizes, all the different media platforms.
Rob Broadfoot 15:51
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 15:53
So, I mean, if we shoot 20 or 30 commercials, which is in itself, very challenging.
Rob Broadfoot 16:02
Beast. Sure.
Matthew Mattingly 16:03
But, those will then be, vertical, square or what have you.
Rob Broadfoot 16:08
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 16:08
You know, all kinds of different languages and things like that. So, you can very easily get to two or 300 assets.
Rob Broadfoot 16:15
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 16:16
So, that is a newer thing of the past few years, as marketers have just so many places they can put content, and so, it’s quite a lot to manage in almost as its own little separate, work stream that has to be. While it may be just a file conversion or cropping of an asset or something like that. It’s it’s easier said than done.
Rob Broadfoot 16:46
Well, and I think, I totally agree with you, and we see that on every scale. If it’s we just need a banner ad campaign? Okay, well, now you’ve got 23 mechanicals coming out.
Matthew Mattingly 16:57
Right.
Rob Broadfoot 16:57
I think clients also too, as technology evolves, there is absolutely a part of the job that is educating them that, I know your iPhone shoots great pictures and video. We need more than that. Right?
Matthew Mattingly 17:13
Yeah.
Rob Broadfoot 17:14
And I know, you think we just cropped this and resize it to a different thing. But so, there is I think a component, an educational component, certainly as technology just ramps up and ramps up.
And it takes time, you know, I mean, it’s.
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 16:58
It’s to make every one of those assets to make sure the headlines in the right position or what have you, like, and to QC it. That’s where we want more time to be able to do that, and it’s not really happening.
Rob Broadfoot 17:42
Right.
Matthew Mattingly 17:42
And so it’s okay, well, normally, we would give you two files, now you want 200?
Rob Broadfoot 17:49
But, they also want them faster.
Matthew Mattingly 17:50
Yes, of course.
Rob Broadfoot 17:50
Because the world is moving faster.
Matthew Mattingly 17:54
It’s, quite difficult.
Rob Broadfoot 17:55
Yeah.
Matthew Mattingly 17:56
And I don’t know. The best solution to make that, you know, people understand that it just, we need that, there’s a breaking point to some degree.
Rob Broadfoot 18:07
Right. Well, very good. Well, I’m gonna start to sort of wrap it up. We’re kind of running out of time. Great to have you. Tell the good people out there where they can find you guys.
Matthew Mattingly 18:14
We are at honeproduction.com. So, please come by the website and send us a note, or you can email us at hello@honeproduction.com.
Rob Broadfoot 18:25
Very good. I encourage everybody to go check it out. They’ve done some really great work over the years. So, congrats on the business.
Matthew Mattingly 18:31
Thanks.
Rob Broadfoot 18:31
And continued success and great chatting with you today. And where can you find me you ask?
Matthew Mattingly 18:36
Yes.
Rob Broadfoot 18:37
Well I’ll tell you, mocktheagency.com. Of course on the interwebs and then on the socials @mocktheagency. And that brings us to a close today. Thanks again Matt. Great to have you here. Appreciate the conversation and we’ll see you next time.
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