Let's Talk About Production 🎥
+ Here's What An A.I. Producer/Content Creator Job Description Looks Like + Why People Are Going Crazy Over This Creator's Brand Pivot
The GOAT perk of being an independent company is freedom.
Freedom of the smallest things (like launching and writing a newsletter without content approval from 81,000 layers), to the biggest things (like the ability to scale our agency at a pace that makes sense for us).
There is no growth for the sake of growth—which has been key for guarding culture, because you answer to that instead of shareholders. Instead, growth comes in the form of client needs. Mischief partners were asking for a media service, so we launched one. And when they expressed a desire for quick-turn production needs, and a newly-signed 25,000 sqft office space came into play, it made sense to house one.
The Candy Factory’s arrival comes at a pinnacle moment for production and creativity at large.
An impressive quality hike of A.I. tools, coupled with its mass democratization, means it’s never been faster, easier and cheaper to make content. It’s also never been faster, easier and cheaper to be mediocre (to quote Mischief founding partner and ECD Kevin Mulroy).
Our studio is A.I.-native. But not A.I.-first. As Mischief Co-Founder and CCO Greg Hahn said: “There are parts of the process A.I. can free up our people to do what the technology will never be able to do, which is connect to humanity and bring that creative spark A.I. isn’t trained to do. A.I. is based on rules, and we like the discovery of what happens when you break the rules.”
A.I. won’t replace idea generation, just like this new studio won’t change the way we work with our incredible production partners.
We officially launched The Candy Factory this week in an exclusive story with Ad Age. Read the full story here. And below is the press release, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Also below:
📝 Here’s what an A.I. producer/content creator job description looks like
🗣🌪️ Why people are going crazy over this creator’s brand pivot
🗞️ Production’s not the only thing changing. Can we talk about the trade press?
👂🍬 If you listen to one thing today, make it this tasty piece of inspiration from e.l.f’s CMO
🎥 Mischief Unveils The Candy Factory Production Studio
The service, which includes A.I. expertise, is part of Mischief’s evolving suite of capabilities that answers growing client needs.
Hey. Hi chum.
Guess what?
Mischief is unveiling a new production studio: The Candy Factory.
The service, part of a growing suite of capabilities at the creative agency, is born from a client need for agile, quick-turn, high-efficiency production—but with executional excellence and tight creative integration supercharged by the unignorable work Mischief is known for.
Outside of IRL capabilities such as photography, videography, and editing, artificial intelligence is playing a critical role. The team includes A.I.-specific creator hires to lead content generation, implementation, research, and experimentation, while ensuring best practices are being followed surrounding the A.I. offering.
“Lightning-speed reactive moments in culture, small-to-mid-sized shoots, stills and product shots, creator activations, A.I.-generated content and implementation—these are just some of the needs we hear from client partners that The Candy Factory can now answer,” explained Will Dempster, EVP head of production & partner at Mischief, who is leading the shop.
“The Candy Factory is for marketers who want to move at speed but may not have the ability to do so within their own teams—or to complement in-house team capabilities—and for those who want to be at the forefront of production’s rapidly-evolving landscape. We built this in anticipation of the industry’s unprecedented transformation. It has never been more important for brands to know how and when to use technology like A.I. tools to balance creativity and problem-solving with efficiency and budget. ”
Requests for this sort of nimble production have always been there and are only growing. But up until recently, Mischief didn’t have the space. With the agency’s monumental scale has come a brand spanking new office in New York City. When Mischief moved in at the start of this year, it got to work converting a healthy portion of its 24,000sqft into The Candy Factory.
Its goal is to bridge the gap between top tier, full-up productions, and smaller scale or more social-first content projects that are on the rise from marketers. The service offers live-action, videography, quick-turn social, photography/photoshoots, creator space, post-production, editing, and A.I. content.
Dempster will oversee the service alongside a team of content producers, editors & A.I. focussed creators.
He continued: “There have been so many times in the past where we’ve seen opportunities for us to execute elements of campaigns—or entire campaigns—inside the agency in a fast and budget-friendly way, but physical space held us back. It’s exciting that we’ve answered this client need with Mischief’s scale.”
Mischief’s new capability will work in partnership with current agency clients as well as a standalone solution.
The Candy Factory has already worked with a number of brands on Mischief-led ideas. This includes VFX for Capri Sun on the release of its longest pouch for the longest day of the year, helping execute a Goldfish brand act that cleaned cracker crumbs from the family cars of Fourth of July roadtrippers, bringing to life Tinder’s RelationChips product packaging with a studio shoot, and leading A.I. content generation with a funeral for Mischief’s fifth birthday.
The Candy Factory’s branding has been developed by Mischief’s in-house design team, led by Robyn Makinson.
The move comes just a few months after Mischief revealed it had been quietly disrupting media planning and buying with a new practice over the past year.
Greg Hahn, Co-Founder and CCO at Mischief, said: "As we look at Mischief's growth, it's always through the lens of, how can we make the most impact. How can we spread more Mischief? Production and media felt like natural answers to that. We see The Candy Factory as a natural extension of Mischief’s strengths. Jumping into and creating culture at speed with smart strategy and unignorable creative."
END
📝 Ever Seen a Job Description for an A.I. Producer/Content Creator? Now You Have.
Note: This position has been filled. But we thought the description would be interesting to share for any other entities needing their own template inspo.
Job Title
AI Producer/Content Creator
Who We Are
We make work that creates a stir, because the riskiest thing a brand can do is be ignorable.
About The Role
We're seeking an A.I.-native content creator with strong production knowledge to join our team. The ideal candidate is a hands-on maker/producer who will work with creative teams to craft visually stunning and hyper-realistic content for our brands using the latest AI photo and video tools. This candidate is enthusiastic about leveraging AI and other cutting-edge technology to deliver innovative solutions through compelling storytelling and design, and to streamline and elevate content production across various platforms. They are always at the bleeding edge of newly released platforms, updates, and so on.
Who You Are
The ideal candidate will:
Thrive in an entrepreneurial environment and are known for being forward-thinking and solutions-oriented. You’ve gotta be a good human–we have a strict no as*holes policy here. Life’s too short to work with them. You love love love to make great work, have a POV on creative, and know how to move a project forward.
What You’ll Do
Develop and create high-quality advertising content using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, DALL·E, Runway, Synthesia, and Flow Veo3.
Collaborate with creative, strategy, BA, and account teams to ensure AI-generated content aligns with creative vision, campaign goals, and brand tonality/guidelines
Develop and refine processes for AI-driven content creation, including prompt engineering and workflows
Write and refine prompts in an effort to achieve highly crafted assets
Analyze campaign performance and iterate on content based on A/B testing results and engagement metrics
Maintain “of the moment” awareness of emerging AI content technologies and trends to recommend new tools and approaches
Fine-tune, train and adapt models for specialized product imagery, ensuring consistency with brand requirements
Guide teams on best practices for maximizing the potential of AI-generated components within larger creative campaigns
Educate other team members interested in AI through guidance, tips, and training, focusing on prompt crafting, model selections & best practices
Work alongside Agency Producers to assess project feasibility, budget expectations & timelines with AI-based solutions
Qualifications:
Some experience in advertising and ideally social media marketing
Proficiency with generative AI tools (e.g., OpenAI tools, Canva Magic Studio, Adobe Firefly, Jasper, etc.)
Strong portfolio showcasing a mix of AI-assisted creative work across different media types
Excellent storytelling and visual communication skills.
Understanding of marketing strategy, brand tone, and audience engagement
Ability to work independently and manage multiple projects in a fast-paced environment
Nice to Have:
Experience as a content producer or solid understanding of the production pipeline
3+ years in a creative production or AI-focused role
Background in graphic design, video editing, or UX writing
Familiarity with ad platforms (Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, TikTok Ads)
Experience with SEO, paid media, or data-driven creative optimization
Why Join Us:
Be on the cutting edge of creative technology
Collaborate with a forward-thinking, innovative marketing team
Opportunities for growth in a rapidly evolving field
🗣🌪️ Speaking of Creators, People are Going Crazy Over This Influencer’s Brand Pivot
This is one of those IYKYK things, and if you don’t know, you’ll be like, “WTF are you even talking about?”
But join me on this journey no matter where you stand.
He goes by the name Hubs Life. And he rose to TikTok stardom by posting content about his 9-5 life. Daily routines. Making dinner. Clocking in and out of work. Updating spreadsheets. Climbing the corporate ladder in the suburbs of Texas somewhere. Feeding his dog. Brushing his teeth.
It was all so… normal. That was the point. He’d routinely sign off his posts with: “Normalize the norm.”
His social became a lightning rod for that tension between what we want our lives to look like and what they actually are.
It struck a cord with people tired of watching the rogue and unobtainable lifestyles of clout-chasing-money-making influencers. Finally, someone just like us. Also grappling with the day-to-day. Also leading a kinda boring-but-surely-gratifying work week. Also stuck in the matrix and fine with it. Content with what he had. Also never stretching for more.
Then Hubs stretched for more.
Or, rather, his growing online fame invited opportunities into his life that would begin to contradict the brand his channel was founded on.
First came the merch. Then the brand deals. Then, as he nudged towards a million followers, Hubs did something that would light a fire under his community: He quit his 9-5 to become a full-time content creator.
Those who signed up to his account for the relatably-mundane took this as an act of treason. A bait-and-switch. Social is humming with videos from people sharing their ragey disappointment at what they call “the greatest rug pull in TikTok history.”
Fueling these flames was the content of a TikTok Live, which drew controversy from viewers who screen-recorded snippets and fired them off into the tornado of hurt.
Hubs transformed a passion project into a brand strong enough to support himself and his young family. Now the internet has turned on this creator, forcing him to shut off his comments.
The Hubs Life lore goes concerningly-deep, with many blurring the line between person and brand.
But that’s just it; people make for volatile brands. They change. They go through different seasons of life. They seize opportunity. Brands evolve, too. But it’s evolution, and rarely ever revolution of a hardcore degree.
Followers didn’t buy into the person behind Hubs Life. They bought into a brand that was ultimately just one season of this person’s life.
🗞️ Production’s Not the Only Thing Changing. Can We Talk About the Trade Press?
EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT.
Two young guys quit their jobs, leave their Chicago homes, and head to New York City—center of the marketing and, actually, when you think about it, Pretty-Much-Everything Universe—with a couple of outfits and a business plan to go all in with a new-aged media company.
Just a handful of months later, yeah, they’ve taken our world by storm. (And left countless people jealous of/mourning the loss of that youthful flames which now flickers under the weight of parenthood, mortgages and daycare sickness.)
Breaking and Entering began five years ago as a podcast with agency and marketing leaders about how they got started in the industry. The goal was—and still is today—to help people break into advertising. It quickly became one of the sector’s most popular podcasts. They propped up different verticals, including their own awards show and a paid newsletter.
But since Geno Schellenberger and Jack Westerkamp went full time, they’ve kicked it into hyperspeed and hired someone (if you’re reading this, are you okay?). If you haven’t seen their daily white board news series, I’d question if you even work in marketing. Some of their posts are racking up views surpassing the million mark.
Then, recently, something quietly monumental happened: They broke industry news on their platform. An agency chose to share its news with fun-loving newbies Geno and Jack instead of a decades-old trade outlets with deep roots in advertising. The team is getting some big-ass marketers on the show, too.
That little black book is becoming one of the industry’s deadliest. They’re networking at warp speed. We could be looking at the ground floor of advertising’s next big consultancy. Or trade publication. Or all-these-things-wrapped-into-whatever-it-is-a-new-aged-media-company does.
Wherever it goes, a tip of the hat for what it is today, and how much fun B&E is having breaking all the rules. That is, after all, what marketing should do best but often forgets.
👂🍬 e.l.f CMO’s Rule of Healthy Conflict to Create Environment for Creative Innovation
It’s all primetime earhole candy. But if it’s on how to build conditions for creative bravery (and, tbf, problem-solving at large), roll to around the 15 minute mark.
“Unhealthy conflict is when people go at each other. I tear you down, you tear me down, we throw sticks and stones, we insult each other. What healthy conflict is; there’s you and there’s me and there’s a problem. And we’re going to attack the issue that sits between us.”
K thanks bye.
By Oliver McAteer, Partner & Head of Development at Mischief