Agencies have always hired specialists. A production house shoots the film and a post house finishes it. Nobody thinks the agency lost the idea because someone else held the camera. AI production is the newest name on that list, and the logic is the same.
iklipse is often the AI production partner for agencies such as VML and BPG, so I see this arrangement from the partner’s side of the table. Here is how I think it works best.
The agency keeps the idea and the client.
The agency owns the strategy, the creative idea and the relationship. It knows what the brand approved last year, which words legal will strike and who in the room actually decides. A production partner should never try to take any of that. Its job is to build what the idea needs when a shoot cannot deliver it on the timeline or the budget.
On the Schweppes product launch we worked alongside VML and the Egyptian production house ASAP Productions. Our part was a series of AI shots built to capture the new product, sitting inside the broader campaign. That is a healthy shape: a defined piece of the work, with a clear owner on each side.
Split the roles before the first frame.
Most friction comes from roles nobody wrote down. Before work starts, agree who does what:
- The agency owns the brief, the script and every conversation with the brand.
- The AI partner owns look development, generation, compositing and the technical finish of its shots.
- Both agree who directs. Sometimes the agency’s creative director directs and the partner executes. Sometimes the partner directs the AI sequences inside the agency’s idea.
- One person on the agency side consolidates feedback before it reaches the production team.
- Both sides fix the formats and languages up front.
For Bank of Muscat, working with BPG, we handled the complete AI production of a campaign delivered in vertical and horizontal formats, in English and Arabic. A scope that wide depends on a fixed brief and a fixed version list. Without them, every new format turns into a fresh negotiation.
Decide who presents.
There is no single right answer, and we have worked all three ways. Sometimes we are front facing and present the work ourselves. Sometimes we are white label, and the client never hears our name. Often we sit in the middle: visible to the client and there to support, while the agency stays the one they hired. That is how it ran with VML and BPG.
Any of the three works. What matters is agreeing which one it is before the first meeting. When the agency leads, the partner can join to answer technical questions, explain what a revision involves or walk through how a shot was built. It should never turn up as a surprise guest who undermines the agency in front of its own client.
If the brand wants to meet the production team, whoever leads should arrange it and set the agenda. Clients respect a tidy chain more than a crowded call where nobody knows who speaks for whom.
Feedback follows the same setup. If the partner hears one thing from the agency and another from the brand, the work slows down and trust goes with it. Route every comment through whoever leads, even when that feels slower. It beats redoing shots for whoever spoke last.
Agree credits in writing.
Credits cause more awkwardness than they should, so settle them at the start. Who is credited for production? Can the partner show the work in its portfolio, and from when? Does the agency approve the case study first? Does the brand? Put the answers in the agreement so nobody has to guess after launch.
Our work with VML Egypt on Citystars Park St. in New Cairo sits on our site under VML’s name, which is how it should be. The agency made the work possible and the production partner made it buildable. Both deserve to be named.
Done well, the arrangement looks boring from the outside. The agency sells the idea and the partner builds it. Keep the drama on screen, where the client paid for it.