Commercials 30
Rattling Stick had another standout 12 months creatively winning the BTAA production company of the year award for the third time in a row on the back of a host of top spots from its very small, but very high quality, roster of directors. Danny Kleinman shot the Plane Stupid Polar Bear spot along with the new Peter Kay John Smiths ad; Ringan Ledwidge directed the Department of Transport Eyes spot and the Virgin Media Backlot ad and Andy McLeod shot the Thinkbox Harvey spot. This year’s second placed company is Blink, up from fifth last time on the back of some great commercials including Dougal Wilson’s John Lewis Always a Woman and Heinz ketchup’s bottle ads. Gorgeous, in third place this time, also shone with spots including Barnardos Turn Around, Miss Chief for Hovis and Football Evolution for Visa. At the time of last year’s survey we were in the very midst of recession. This year, the recession’s officially over – right? Wrong, of course, but there have been a few slight glimmers of sunshine breaking through the gloom, especially in the latter half of the year it seems. RSA reports “autumn
bringing a sudden rush of scripts” and HLA comments that it’s been “tougher than ever for the first six months but easing over the past six months.” There’s “still a lack of creativity generally in the scripts but at least a desire to advertise again on the part of clients.” And that’s a feeling echoed by HSI: “There’s been a noticeable improvement in board flow since the beginning of the year with some months being the busiest on record. Creative quality, however, seems to have dropped off.” The slight upturn in business (though not necessarily creativity) felt by our respondents is reflected in the survey’s figures, with the average company making an average of 64 jobs compared to 60 from last year’s survey. The average production budget for a 30-second ad has improved slightly too, from a figure of £143k in last year’s survey to £167k this time, although even that has to be seen in a longer term context considering the average budget was £177k back in 2007. The average turnover of a commercials production company has, though, risen substantially to £9.7m from last year’s £7.6m with most of the bigger players reporting substantial turnover increases compared to a year ago. The average number of directors on the roster of the average production company has risen too to 22 from last year’s average of 17. Is this a symptom of the sector’s bigger fish getting bigger and gobbling up a lot of the smaller jobs that the industry’s minnows used feed on? And if clients and agencies are pushing more work towards the tried and tested big name directors at the big name companies that wouldn’t be a surprise. A distinct lack of risk taking is a complaint that runs through the responses of most of our survey senders. “The recession has clearly
time with Gorgeous. C
ongratulations to Rattling Stick, which spends another year at the top of the Commercials 30 after sharing the winners’ podium last
1rattling stick 2BLINK
3GORGEOUS 4PARTIZAN
5RSA 6STINK
7SONNY LONDON 8ROGUE
9INDEPENDENT 10KNUCKLEHEAD 11GREAT GUNS =12 nexus
=12 OUTSIDER With thanks to Finish
Many thanks to Cheryl Payne at Finish who designed the cover image for this month’s Televisual and the Commercials 30 survey itself
14MOXIE PICTURES 15STUDIO AKA
16SMUGGLER LONDON 17PASSION PICTURES 18BARE FILMS 19HUNGRY MAN
20ANOTHER FILM CO 21HSI LONDON
22MAD COW FILMS 23EPOCH FILMS 24home corp
25pulse films =26 2AM
=26HOTSPUR AND ARGYLE 28TH1NG
29HLA =30 LOVE =30SPACE CITY 2
www.televisual.com I November 10
The top 30 at a glance
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