By Carol Badaracco Padgett, Senior Writer
Sparks will fly, say production incentive specialists Kylie Ruehl and Dawn Musser-Sepanik with TPC. They know because they’ve seen the tight and profitable match-up between commercial production and incentives. Specifically, when it comes to media placement and allowing social media buys to qualify in other states, Illinois chief among them.
Kylie Ruehl, Managing Director at TPC
TPC provides a variety of financial solutions for content creators, from lending to accounting and advisory. Ruehl is managing director of TPC’s commercial division, which consults with advertisers on finding the right state incentive program to fit their creative visions. Musser-Sepanik brings her 20+-year career in advertising to the table as TPC’s senior vice president of production incentives strategies. Together, they keep a keen focus on commercial production– a qualified production under Georgia’s
Entertainment Industry Investment Act.
Since commercial production is often an unintended beneficiary of state programs, such as in Georgia, TPC’s commercial division collaborates with film offices to interpret program rules through a commercial lens.
“Currently, social media buys are not an allowable distribution method in Georgia,” Ruehl says. “In the commercial world, it only makes sense that these rules are amended. Regardless of whether a commercial is televised or viewed on TikTok, the economic impact of a large budget is still in play. It’s not uncommon that the budget for a social campaign is far greater than one for broadcast at this point, and we’d love to be able to drive those productions to a great incentive state like Georgia.”
Dawn Musser-Sepanik. Senior Vice President at TPC
Musser-Sepanik frames it like this: “I think that Georgia perceives a national buy or traditional broadcast as having a wider audience but that’s not true today. Twenty-something-year-olds are now the target market. If brands want to reach them, they must go to social platforms. It’s about growing with the times.”
More and more, the pair reports, advertisers are seeking assistance for where to shoot their content beyond LA and New York. Places like Illinois, where social media buys qualify, start to become appealing as budgets and the demand for different types of content are considered. Both Ruehl and Musser- Sepanik would like to point those clients toward the Peach State, which is ripe for production with vast locations, production facilities, and talent.
“Advertisers lean into their agencies, and we have that relationship with the agencies,” Musser-Sepanik notes. “We want to show the creators in the commercial space that nothing will be compromised if they shoot in Georgia. And we’d like to see production of commercials grow and thrive there.”
For more information about social media and commercial production in Georgia, please contact Georgia Entertainment here.
