Creative direction is the newest offering from Mile 80. We began as a post-production studio, and grew into offering animated and live-action production. More recently, our clients (especially our return clients) have increasingly asked for concept and writing support. Our founder, Ryan Sheffer, has written two feature films and many short scripts and concepts in the commercial space. We also employ a number of creative directors who work hand-in-hand with our founder on the concept and ideation phase of projects.
Often a client has a rough idea or story they want told, but struggle to ideate the best way to express it. In this case, Mile 80 will often come in as a creative agency and put together concepts and ideas for how to best tell the brand’s story. There are even times where the brand has a new product, but no idea how they want to sell it. We’re happy to jump right in, start to ask questions during an exploratory call, and work to put ourselves within the minds of the brand’s creative team - helping to discover the narrative that puts the brand on the best path forward.
Whereas many of our services have a clear layout of costs and timeline - creative direction is more amorphous. It often makes sense to discuss what budget the brand has allocated towards the project, and back into the best way to service the story within that budget’s confines. If the budget itself is unclear, we’re happy to make suggestions.
At the end of the day, creative direction is about entering into the brand narrative conversation as early as possible. Finding a path forward in collaboration that lifts up all of the best parts of a new product, service, or idea - and ties these ideas to production methods that not only service the end goal, but fit within the client’s schedule and budget.
While most big brands separate their creative agency and production company engagements - one of the biggest benefits of working with the same agency for both is to ensure that the concepts that come out of the creative direction process are achievable within the schedule and budget. We cannot express how often we’ve received ideas from a creative agency that are simply not realistic for a client’s budget. Our decades of experience on the production end ensures that we never make creative suggestions that we’re not sure can be pulled off. Working with Mile 80 on creative direction means knowing from day one that any concept can be fully realized by our team.
You and us. No third-party needed to bring your creative to life
And that is why we call ourselves 'The Easy Button'. If you come to Mile 80, you can get any and every part of content creation completed with a single company. We pride ourselves on being a 'set it and forget it' type of solution.
While creative direction is a new service offering from Mile 80, it’s the most exciting for us. It means that we get to spend more time developing ideas from the ground up and really working with brands to show them that we fully understand how to tell their stories, and promote their products and messages better than anyone else they could hire.
If you’re looking to hit the easy button - reach out below!
