How WPP Is Rethinking Advertising Through Production

(0:00) Hi, and welcome to Technically Creative, where we talk to creative leaders about how technology and AI are changing their industries and their companies. Technically Creative is brought to you by KoobrikLabs, the AI consultant for creative companies. Today's guest is James Brook Partridge, head of production in the UK at WPP Production. And before we get into this conversation, I want to give a little bit of context. We recorded this interview before WPP released a memo that sent shockwaves through much of the advertising production community. The memo encouraged WPP agencies to direct more work towards their own production operations.

(0:31) The reaction was fierce. I subsequently had Steve Davies, the CEO of the Advertising Producers Association, and Matt Miller, the president and CEO of the AICP, or the Association of Independent Commercial Producers. They came on this podcast to discuss their objections, and I think they raised some very important points. I stand by the importance of those questions. But I also think there's another side to this story that deserves to be heard. At a time when much of the advertising industry is facing declining revenues and enormous pressure to adapt, WPP production actually grew by 1.5% in the first half of 2026.

(1:05) That's really significant. And it suggests there's a real demand for the production capabilities WPP has been building. And if you're responsible for thousands of employees, their careers, their livelihoods, and their ability to produce good work, you have a responsibility to keep that business healthy. I used to run multiple independent production companies. I know what it feels like to fight for work, develop talent, and worry about keeping the lights on. But those responsibilities don't suddenly disappear because you work for a holding company.

(1:32) A producer losing their job at WPP is every bit as serious as a producer losing their job at an independent production company. And I think sometimes we forget that when we turn these debates into battles between big companies and small ones. But there's another reality we have to acknowledge. Production is changing. There's more content being produced across more platforms for more audiences than at any point in history. And this should be an incredible moment of opportunity for producers.

(1:57) But the systems we've built around producing a handful of television commercials every year were never designed for this volume of work. And that's something I think the independent production community needs to be honest about. For years, a lot of production companies simply weren't interested in the smaller work. The $10,000 social package, the quick turnaround content, the endless variations and adaptations. And understandably, they weren't interested. Their businesses were built around carefully crafted commercials.

(2:24) The economics of making $10,000 or $20,000 for a package of content didn't make sense for them. So the agencies built that capability themselves. They hired people. They invested in that infrastructure. They learned how to make that work quickly, efficiently, and at scale. And now the market has moved around that capability.

(2:42) The work that production companies once considered peripheral has become central to the advertising business. The big television commercial is becoming a smaller and smaller part of the overall production requirements. Brands need hundreds, sometimes thousands of pieces of content across different channels. And the agencies that spent years learning how to produce that work are now expanding their capabilities to meet those needs. Isn't that what companies are supposed to do? To learn, to adapt, to invest in their people, and to get better at serving their customers?

(3:11) And if agencies have built successful production businesses in response to a market that independent production companies weren't particularly interested in, is it really unreasonable for them to continue developing those capabilities as the market grows? I'm not sure it is. And that doesn't mean they should be able to manipulate a competitive bidding process or steer clients away from better options. Those are legitimate objections, and I think the industry is right to raise them. But building a better production capability and unfairly controlling who gets the work are two very different things. And I think we need to be careful not to confuse them.

(3:41) Because if we're going to argue that independent production companies should be allowed to evolve, expand, and compete for all new kinds of creative work, surely we have to allow agency production companies to do the same thing. The challenge is making sure that everyone gets to compete fairly. And that's what James and I explore in this conversation. How do you build a production business that can operate at scale? What happens when technology allows us to make more work for the same money? And how do you lead a team through that kind of transformation while making sure the people doing the work are supported, trained, and given a future?

(4:11) What struck me most about James is how seriously he takes that last responsibility. He's managing a large team through an industry that's changing underneath their feet. And he's thinking about how to make them more capable, more adaptable, and more valuable. And I think that's worth listening to. We can disagree about how work should be awarded. We can defend genuine competition in the independent production ecosystem.

(4:32) And we can also recognize that the people building new production models are responding to real changes in what clients need. Those positions can coexist because ultimately I think everyone in the industry wants the same broad outcome. More great work being made, more opportunities for talented people, and a production industry that can sustain the people working in it. The difficult part is figuring out how we get there. And that's why I'm glad we've had this conversation. This is James Brook Partridge.

(5:07) I am so excited to have you on the podcast. We've been trying to do this for a while, and we've known of each other, you know, over the years, so many different guises. But I'm fascinated by what you're up to now, and so I wanted to just say thank you for coming on the podcast. It's a pleasure, Orlando. And I kind of, it's funny, we've circled around each other for years and never really met until about a few months ago when we kind of started connecting over LinkedIn and had a chat. Because your career has been fascinating to me as well.

(5:32) And yours to me. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, it's a total treat. So you are the head of production for WPP Production in UK. This podcast is all about people who are at the intersection of creativity and industry.

(5:45) There's been so much change happening in advertising and production, in production at scale, and also at the holding company level in advertising. For people who are maybe in other industries, what do they need to understand about your role and what WPP Production does? It's quite a big question to start with. So WPP Production is a relatively net new entity, which was put together or came to being at the beginning of this year. And it's a consolidation of all the production operations within WPP under one banner. I guess my history might be quite interesting before we get into the reason why WB production might have been the way we've gone.

(6:31) But my job, I mean, I'm an agency producer by trade, as you were, I think, when you started out. We were the guys who worked with the creative departments and agencies, and we got the scripts from our, you know, we got scripts from our creative department. When I started working in advertising in the last millennia in 1999, and there was only three real forms of advertising places that advertising went it was tv it was radio and it was print and of course there was cinema as an extension of it but there really was only a very limited a number of channels you go to which which which is not the case now um so um my job has been getting work commissioned across the years and making great work for creative departments and it still is right but i think the way we go about making work is changing which kind of and the demands of our clients are changing, which leads us to the WPP production entity. WPP production for me has been, or as I look at it, it's been put together due to demands being put onto our business by our clients mainly.

(7:30) I was reading some stuff the other day, and the clients at the moment are having to generate, at this point now, a generation of three times more content than they did three years ago. It is predicted that in the next two years, clients are going to need to generate between five to 20 times more content to be able to set the needs of social media and the algorithms, right? That is a huge amount of deliverables. And we know, you know, I've been standing on set so many, many times where we've been trying to chase our tails to capture the work that turned up the morning of the shoot, fill the social channels. Yeah. We are unable in the current structures, in my opinion, to be able to meet that rising demand.

(8:11) Therefore, there needs to be a radical reshift in how we strategize around production. And I think what WPB production will enable us to do is put all the people who produce into the same entity. And in my opinion, it's going to elevate the role of the producer in the process because the conversations about what and how we make work, what we make and how we make it, are going to become fundamental to the process in a way which I don't think they really ever have before. Everybody thinks about an advertising agency doing a specific execution for a brand. What they don't realize is that actually prior to the social media age, that was siloed all the time. You might have an agency that would do a Heineken piece for their sponsorship and you would have another one that would do their big brand work and another one that would do their retail work.

(8:55) And as we're seeing this always on mentality of the amount of content that's required, a centralization of that production ecosystem is sort of required to be able to meet clients where they are. I think that's exactly right. And I think also that's married, it's married up with the fact that clients do not have as much, there aren't as many clients I don't think. You know, you look at clients restructuring and downsizing. So you have less people trying to deliver more work with less money and faster timelines, right? So it's kind of almost perfect storm, in my opinion.

(9:30) And I think that the... I've always said, and I do say this, I think advertising as a business has historically been quite reactionary in the way it goes about stuff, right? It doesn't necessarily... We live on the edge of culture. We want to represent the edge of culture through the way we communicate and what we talk about. But the way we operate, I think, has been... really hasn't changed that much.

(9:51) And I think we've been able to kind of sort of fudge that, to use a term. I don't think we can anymore. And I think the problem we have in all big holding companies is we need to be able to meet, answer the questions our clients are asking us to deliver the communications they need, which needs to turn up the latest they need it to be. There's no point in us sitting here wishing that we were being asked a different question. And I think over the years, I think perhaps we've always wished that question was different. And I think we're now in a situation where we absolutely have to service our clients in the right way.

(10:28) So for me, you know, the clients haven't got time to go around managing loads of different entities, doing different work for different channels. They just don't have it. And I think one of the observations that is made, and I've heard spoken by the leadership in WPP Production is, Clients probably need to be spending more of their money with one supplier. It doesn't have to be us, by the way. There's lots of other people they can choose from.

(10:52) But the end-to-end production process and the ability to be efficient across that process and scale across that process and strategize that process probably means they're going to have to consolidate their work and morph their work into one supplier. So I think we're in that state at the moment. What people don't understand is production is inherently not scalable. You are building up crews for specific executions of specific creative ideas. It's a very laborious. It's a very like you're calling up freelancers.

(11:24) You're trying to see who's available. You're calling up crew. That makes that a very full of friction process. And so if you're going to be doing that at scale, you need to hire people on a much, on much longer contracts. You need to be able to make that scalable by reducing a lot of the friction across that process, I would imagine.

(11:43) Completely true, but I also think that the production industry itself has, I mean, we've been through many years of intense cost controlling, of finding cheaper places to shoot, of how do we make this work harder? How do we sweat that a bit more? How do we get more out of this state? How do we shoot? You know, I don't think there's a huge amount of scope within the actual shooting process itself to cut back, right? Yeah.

(12:05) So we either need to, to your point, commit maybe to operating in a slightly different way and putting volume through one entity so they can perhaps do deals in a different way or internalize crew, right, which is part of what's going on at the moment, so that you can control those costs a bit better. Or you need to employ technology to help you scale it. And I think it's probably a combination. It is a combination of both. I mean, it's like probably I think that is where we're at at the moment.

(12:29) I'm so glad you lean towards AI because I'm always the one bringing it up first, and I'm just so glad that you've done it. Well, it's kind of, AI is such a fascinating area for me. I kind of, if you, I've been quite, I've been very open to AI since day one, simply because I think it's an incredible tool and I think it enables people to do things differently, right, and enhance productions in a way. But I think the truth of AI, like a lot of the, you know, like a lot of the innovations that come along, I think... people tend to speak about all these things in quite a binary fashion when they first come out. It's an either-or.

(13:07) You're either doing it in AI or you're not doing it in AI. The truth of the matter is that AI will become blended into our workflows, and we will use it as an instrument to help expand what we do, because we need to expand what we do, and it's going to be great at doing it. Quite where we land with it completely in terms of that, I don't know, and that's kind of part of the fun at the moment. Although, You know, I was judging the Filmcraft category of CAN this year and they had the first time they had an AI section of their own. Some of the work that they're doing in that space looks pretty impressive, right?

(13:38) And, you know, there's no doubt in my mind that AI is here. it sounds stupid even saying it's definitely here to stay it's how we embrace it is the question and finding the boundaries between what we're comfortable with and what we're not both from a client perspective and from a consumer perspective i think these these are the journeys we're going also lead the whole legal stuff that comes around it we're on a journey and i think for me that's that is super exciting but super challenging for people and pretty unnerving for some people A few minutes ago, you said, you know, costs are coming down. And like, you know, on some level, that's sort of not true. I mean, the overall budget for a brand is actually always ticking up. The reality is that the cost per execution is coming down because they require so many more assets.

(14:26) And what I like about your framing is that AI is often framed as an either or. It's either human production or machine production, creativity or efficiency, craft or automation. I think your view is much more useful, which is there's more need than ever before. There's budget happening, but on the larger level, it's always ticking up. We just need to figure out where this tool that helps us scale production fits in a real production pipeline. No, I think that's absolutely spot on.

(14:53) Yeah, I think your point is right. It's about the amount of stuff we need to do for the money we've got. That's the equation that is becoming more challenging for us. You know, I think we're... Big Op Co's got the conversation around AI a little bit wrong at the beginning was they talked about it as a cost-saving device, right? And I actually think it should be framed as a value add.

(15:19) They are slightly different things when you think about it, right? I don't think that AI is necessarily going to make everything massively cheaper. I think what AI is going to enable us to do is to deliver more for the same. And it's a slightly different conversation. But I think that you have a lot of people thinking there's going to be a huge AI dividend, right? on stuff and I think some of that may happen especially with the Gentic workflows and what have you which everyone's you know heavily invested in and looking at but I think that I tend to look at AI more as a value add rather than simply a cost cutting tool

(15:51) This is such a new tool to us. And so I guess to your point, do you see it potentially just creating new classes of advertising? I very much don't see it, you know, eliminating anything. I think it's going to create whole new sectors of advertising and production. In what sense, new sectors? Just seeing it on the film level.

(16:12) There are $5 million productions or $2 million productions that nobody would have touched. Independent films don't have the money and take forever, and the studios are trying to take big swings to make big money all at once. Hybrid production allows for smaller films that are written to be smaller by really good writers to potentially have an opportunity to get... $2 million, which is comparatively a lot less, for a studio to be shot in a hybrid workflow on a volume stage with people populating the Unreal Engine backdrop, having actors respond. And you know, the House of David movie that starred Sir Ben Kingsley, that was shot in two weeks on a hybrid stage at MGM. It's not like that's taking away from a shoot that would have happened.

(16:59) Nobody would have invested in a Moses film. No, I think, I think, so you're absolutely right. I kind of look at, there was a brief spot made maybe two, two or three years ago, which was done using the volume stages down Garden Studio, I think it was, quite brilliantly did it. And it was, you had four scenarios in it. There was the North Pole, there was a jungle, there was a desert, there was another quite sort of remote and hard to get to location, right? They shot it all.

(17:35) That ad would not have been made that way. It would not have been made. Without any of these screens, right? And I think we're seeing things, we recently did a campaign for a Spanish beer where we were able to, you know, the whole strategic positioning is having a beer at Magic Hour. Magic Hour is an hour, right? If you want to do loads of iterations within that hour for real, you've got some very limiting factors on your production, which are going to cost you a huge amount of money.

(18:03) Again, could not have been done without using LED screens to maintain a magic hour all day. I think we deliver something like 150 executions over three or four days. I think the point you're making is, the way I would frame it is, we are now able to do things we could previously not do. We couldn't do previously. So it's a creative enabler when people understand the tool properly. And this is, I think, where the excitement comes from.

(18:30) I mean, I was in a meeting with a creative director the other day and we were talking about where on volume stages I think really help clients immediately is in the retail space. we can build you a store in Unreal. You don't have to shut your stores down anymore. You haven't got to shoot at night shutting your store down. You haven't got to shut the door. All the problems have come with that, which we don't see, but clients do, by the way.

(18:52) We can work around that. And then the creator goes, oh, but we can put an elephant in the store now. And yeah, you can do that because it's not... Do you know what I mean? It's like we haven't got the health and safety issue. So it's kind of, you can think somewhat differently about how you go about solving problems.

(19:06) And I think like all these technologies, the more people who sit there and work with it, who really know what they're doing, the better these things are going to get. there was an Uber Eats campaign with Robert De Niro that was done in the UK. David Shane, I think, directed it. Yeah. And it was all done with, all the driving shots of Robert De Niro were done on a volume stage, right? So he could be directed through the window,

(19:29) it looks like they're driving, you're maximizing his time, you don't have any PR issues with people looking in from the outside and all that kind of stuff. It just gives you a much more controlled environment and no one's going to sit there going, well, that's definitely done on an LED screen. And by the way, even if they thought it was, it doesn't detract from the quality of the work. So... So I think it's, I think it's, it is a, the technologies we are looking at now are, are super scary in terms of what we can achieve with them. But I think people need to be really switched on the tune to that line of thinking rather than going, Oh, this worries me because of X, Y, and Z.

(20:04) What you said earlier, thinking of in terms of creative opportunity and value add, I I've noticed a lot of creative professionals shy away from making that shift because they like the way it's been, you know, like, I mean, especially in the UK, A producer in the UK of commercials versus a producer of films, the producer of commercials is always going to have shot more days than that producer of films. It's an environment where if you like the craft of production, advertising is the place to be. A standard commercial producer is going to have shot more different types of production and probably have shot more days than most film producers. And so people who love the craft, I think, naturally gravitate towards that. But I do think that it makes them reticent to buy into AI if they've already got a successful career doing it, you know, the old way.

(20:53) Look, it's change. I mean, and change is hard to deal with sometimes. And I think someone said something to the other day, which I thought was great. Everyone wants progress, but no one wants change, right? I think you have these kind of situations where, you know, people, and I think, you there's no doubt that the changes that the technology are bringing are going to require people to skill up in different ways.

(21:18) So as we're in this journey for people who've done things a certain way all their life, it can be quite a scary thought, right? We've been really focused with my production teams in London to get our teams involved. whatever discipline they sit in to be comfortable with using generative AI. Yeah. Be it post-production, be it, some people really keen to get into it, some people struggle a bit. But we've really worked on skilling those people up, you know, and giving them opportunities to learn and all this kind of stuff for a couple of reasons, really.

(21:53) One is I think it protects their careers long term, whether they acknowledge that or not. I think having an understanding of the tools and realizing what they can and can't be is really important. But I think also, you can't go out and hire that talent easily. Yeah. So if you were to go, well, I need to bring in five experts on VO3, well, you're going to have to go and find that talent. It's going to be expensive.

(22:13) So better train your guys internally. But also, the people we're training up, be they flame operators or editors or motion designers, that kind of stuff, they know what good looks like. They understand the craft of the work, and therefore they can prompt the tools in a way that I certainly can't. I mean, as a producer, I don't know exactly... It was a DOP, for example, prompting with lens information, lighting cues, and all this kind of stuff. There's so much value in the knowledge these people have to get the best out of these tools.

(22:43) So I think it's... So from that standpoint, I think it's a time where... It's a time of great change, it's a time of great transformation. It is happening very quickly, which people always find, you know, change is bad enough, but the speed of it is unsettling. But I think it's just important to kind of, for everyone to take a breath and go, these are challenges we faced in our lives before. It probably didn't feel quite as existential at the time because it was happening slower.

(23:09) But we actually deal with change quite well, I think, as an industry. And I think I genuinely believe that everyone needs to lean into it to understand what these things, what these tools can do and where they're not quite so strong. So we can have proper conversations around the clients and ourselves. I mean, that's so spot on. Anybody who takes the evangelical position of this is going to solve and change everything or the defeatist position of that we're doomed. All of the good conversation that actually matters is in the middle.

(23:37) It's very attractive on LinkedIn to be like, and this is the end of production as we know it. And that I'm sure gets impressions and clicks, but it's just not the way serious people talk about these sorts of problems. The production industry is an emotional beast, I always say, right? And it's that way for a reason. I think there's passion. There's passion in it.

(23:58) There's a love for what we do. There's a love for the craft. And it's what makes the industry amazing. I think sometimes that passion can get directed in ways which are unhelpful. you know and I think part of this comes with Asian experience as well Orlando and I think that for me I can be quite reactive at times but I know that I'm a much better version of myself when I actually absorb stuff and think about it a bit more well maybe let's have a look at that let's try this out let's see what happens I think someone was saying the other day in production in production You deal with problems on set all the time.

(24:31) There's either the guttural panic, everyone panic kind of response, or I don't want to do that or get upset about it, or there's the considered breath in, all right, well, we're going to have to deal with this one. How are we going to get through this sort of thing? I think experience teaches you that you can deal with all these things as they get thrown at you. But I think I wouldn't want to remove the emotion and passion from the business because it's very important, but I think sometimes it can be detrimental to constructive conversation. Yeah, I 100% agree with that. You run a production organization of more than 150 people.

(25:01) How does that scale change the way you think about production problems? The scale of my team, well, I have the advantage that I have a lot of people to call in and we've got problems going through, right? And they're on payroll, so in theory, we should be able to find someone to pick up a problem or advise on stuff. So that is very comforting in some regard. I mean, although... you know, you would appreciate the sitting in our job, because we don't have a load of people sitting around not doing stuff, right?

(25:29) But there's a lot of expertise within the team I've got, and lots of years of experience in the team I've got, which is invaluable to me. I mean, I have a senior leadership of people who are absolutely fantastic and who I lean into and rely on, really, to help me get stuff done. I don't think the problems of production, I think, So I have that benefit. You know, I think the size of the team makes, you know, it comes with all the issues of a larger team in terms of HR, management, all this kind of stuff, being emotionally switched on to the pressures that are going on around us, having time to speak to people when they need it, all that kind of stuff. But I think in terms of solving production problems themselves, I don't think the way we look at that massively changes, except we have end-to-end capabilities, right?

(26:18) Which, of course, we didn't back in the days. We can go from an agency producing role all the way back into a business affairs and delivery aspect within our organization or any part of that that you want. And I think that's interesting to me. And I also think, if I think bigger than just London, we have somewhere around 9,500 people in the business globally now. We're the biggest production company globally by some margin. And every time you scratch the surface a bit, you find new and amazing people sitting in places you didn't think.

(26:48) And I find that really exciting. I mean, given the fact that I traveled with work for some time, I'm very open to and really enjoy engaging with other markets and working in that way. And I think it gives us a real point of difference to some other operations. I think we have the biggest footprint globally by some way. So I think the ability to scale within my own team, but then also to scale out horizontally to the network is really, really interesting to me.

(27:13) Are there problems, specific problems, that only become visible when you're leading that many people? Things that you wouldn't have seen when you were just an agency producer on the ground? Oh, God. Yeah, loads. I mean, I kind of, you know, as a single agency producer... agency producing is a really interesting job I think.

(27:31) I always likened it to being in an hourglass and you're sitting in the middle where the sound goes through. You are that point of contact between the agency and the production company and you carry a lot of pressure. You really do. And I'm just thinking back at my producing days. You carry a lot of pressure and expectation and people's hopes and dreams and all that kind of... I mean it sounds a bit lofty saying that but it kind of is the world we live in when you're dealing with high level creative work and

(27:56) and emotional people and what have you and tight budgets and shooting deadlines and client needs and that kind of stuff. You're right in the middle of all that stuff. And as a people pleaser, I found that quite challenging at times, although you always wanted to deliver the best work you can and kind of... But it led to a lot of sleepless nights for me. I think within... I think the challenges of running a team are much...

(28:19) I don't feel as isolated, really. I've got a management team whom I work with in London, who I can speak to, who are great. I have people in finance I can speak to, people in talent management I can speak to. I've got my MB, Nick, it's great. You know, there's a great team around me. And what you're tending to do is try to figure out how you move the work through the system in the best way with the people and make sure everyone is...

(28:42) working hard enough, but not working so hard that they're driving themselves into difficult places and that kind of stuff, which can happen. I find the challenges to be much more varied and much more different in that sense. I mean, it's interesting. Productions are pretty varied, right? But I find the role of managing teams and teams this size to be... It's a completely different set of challenges, I think, in a way, Orlando.

(29:06) And I kind of felt, having produced... When I produced for 20-odd years... I got to the point with producing where I felt I've kind of done this a bit, you know, yes, I've done some amazing work. I'm really proud of, but I kind of wanted a different challenge. And I think that this definitely gives it to me. There's just so many other things to think about that are new to me, I guess.

(29:25) Maybe, maybe the challenges aren't greater, they're just different. In Hollywood, there's always been this understanding that there's a studio system, this industry. And I think that like advertising production has always felt like these little sort of one off little executions of perfectly crafted little things. And I think that like we accept it from Hollywood. And I think that like what's interesting to me is that like Omnicom centralizing production, they sort of did it in this like bold, brash way that kind of upset a whole bunch of people. And it seems like everybody's kind of having to do that to make sure that the production systems are fit for purpose in the world that we've talked about, which is a world where a brand is always on, always communicating, always needing assets.

(30:05) It feels like advertising is systematizing for the first time in a way that Hollywood had done 100 years ago. Yeah, I think there is some truth in that. I mean, I was having a conversation with someone today about, I feel like, there was actually a really interesting article in Campaign recently, and it was about whether agencies need to make their own work. And it was based on a couple of creatives who set up a new agency where they wrote work, they strategised and made work, but didn't necessarily make it themselves. And actually the commentary around that was, I think, far more interesting and open than I thought it was going to be. There was those who said that agencies should always make their work, and there were quite a lot of very senior people in the industry going, it depends, or it's a choice, all this kind of stuff.

(30:47) I kind of feel like, and again, it's my personal point of view on it, but I think we are, the agency business is becoming more like a studio, right? where the work comes in and you have an idea and you have a creative and you have directors, but they might not be the most important or loudest voice in the room, right? I think producing, and why I said earlier, I think the producing role has been elevated through this is because production strategy and how we get these made and how we make sure we get the money that isn't getting any bigger to deliver all the assets, that requires a production strategy which is going to be driven by producers. And that, I think, is a slightly different way world than the one you and I grew up in where, you know, I remember having a creative director shouting at me one day saying, you know, remember who you work for, you work for me. I mean, I had that a couple of times back in the sort of the early 2000s.

(31:36) I would argue there was a dilution of power going on. where it used to historically reside 100% within creative leadership. And I think it's not like that anymore. And I don't think that's to the detriment of anybody, really. I think it's just to the need of the client. And I think there's projects that will require...

(31:56) one part of that to be more dominant than others, but I think there has to be... It has to be a partnership, and I think, actually, the way we're now set up as an organization, we have WPB Media, WPB Creative, WPB Production, and Enterprise Solutions. We're pillars, which means we're kind of in the same place rather than it being a horizontality where work would come down. So I think that, for me, as a producer... Yes, there were loads of challenges around what we do. Yes, it is different from the way it used to work.

(32:25) But I actually think the producers are being empowered in a way they never were previously, I think. What's the kind of single biggest change that you think is required out of a production system? You know, like we said before, you're 150 people that you run. Like, what's going to future-proof a team like that over the course of the next five to ten years? I think ability to embracing the change, right? Embracing technology, really being open to doing things differently.

(32:51) I mean, I kind of... Going back to the conversation we had about LED stages and LED technology, when you actually see that stuff working on set, it's pretty mind-blowing, right? Yeah. You kind of go... What can we do with this which is different? But then actually we spent a long time trying to get people, mainly creative departments, to kind of engage with that technology.

(33:12) It was really difficult. I think when you get challenges around production or you have ideas on a table, would people want to go and do things how they've done them correctly? consistently done because they know they can get the results that way. But actually what we've needed to do is look at things differently. I think therefore I would say to how you future-proof yourself in the world right now is to be constantly curious, to be looking at stuff differently, to be opening up the new tools to play with, seeing what it can do. Where can it help us?

(33:45) Where can it not? And I think the other part around that which we've got to be careful to be protected is giving people time to explore. And also giving people time to play with tools who might not work properly, right? And have that kind of conversation. But for me, it's about that. It's about completely being open to change.

(34:01) That's the thing I think people don't think of a lot is one of the biggest things I saw change in my time in advertising and now is budget sure, but time. I mean, you must remember this. There was a time where you had about two weeks to search for a director. Like you, you could look at the DVD wall. You called the production company and go, Oh, I want this real and whatever else. And you as a PA would search through all of the directors, see who was good.

(34:30) You would give that to your boss. The boss would give it to the creative directors. They would sit and watch DVDs over and over and over again. And that was about two weeks of time. I mean, now, you know, everybody sort of decides from the top of their head, scripts start going out the day after the producer got the brief. Yeah.

(34:47) That that's the shocking thing, I think, to most people is everybody assumes that the system is working now. And I assume that in your position, you're realizing, no, it's not. We need to still get faster to be as responsive as we need to be for our clients. Yeah, I guess when we, you probably did the IPA course back in the days, right? Oh, yeah. With the kind of, that green and brown book we all got given, which told us how long production should take.

(35:09) And I think for a standard, for a standard kind of two-location or three-location shoot, it was recommended that you had a 12-week production period. I don't think, I don't think 12-week production periods exist anymore. No. And if you've spoken to people in those days, they'll go, I can't be done any faster. You know, the truth is technology has changed that, right? You have things like

(35:30) shooting on video on on digit digitally which enables you to move to shoot more and then to get stuff digitized in a way faster you have editing on set uh you have um you know there's there's been levers that have been pulled to enable us to go fast also people just saying we're going to have to do this faster right um yeah but the time factor is is it is why client said so you know i But again, it's always kind of, and I always find there's, it's always interesting to me. You know, a lot of the, a lot of conversations I have with people are people getting challenged with stuff and then sort of sitting there going, I wish I hadn't been asked that question or I wish that question was different or I wish the facts I was facing with weren't the facts I'm faced with. And I always, and I always go to the point, it's fine to feel that way, but yeah. The question isn't going to change. We need to address this point.

(36:24) And by the way, sitting around saying how unfair it all is, you're just wasting time, which could be a better serve actually finding a solution on it. It might not be the solution you come up with might not be what everyone wanted to hear, but it will probably be a good solution. And you kind of walk down these roads, and I think it's actually quite empowering in a way. The time thing, I mean, we do a lot of social content for clients now, and literally it's like briefing the morning, delivering the evening. And I think that where these big operations need to be really wearing is there's people out there who do that, one-man bands, two-man bands, small companies, they'll do it and they'll do it happily. Therefore, if that's what clients can receive from other people, we should be able to do the same.

(37:05) There's no point building a whole system and it being less efficient or working more slowly. 100% and I think that, you know, one thing that, you know, the one big advantage we have, which is scale, can sometimes be a hindrance, right? I think with systems and processes and all this kind of stuff and I think we've got to be super smart about how we deal with that. And then there's the cost side of it as well, you know, we can't be more expensive than our competitors, right? Absolutely no way. But there's no reason why we should be if we're smart and clever about things and we work together to fix these problems.

(37:33) But I think, yeah, it would be odd, put it not, to build a system which kind of was slower and more expensive. Although, you know, give it a go, see what happens. Obviously, it kind of used to be the big value of agencies is that they would go, we're going to craft this amazingly beautiful little film. Now we're working in a time where brands want brand consistency across all of their markets. They want a similar look and feel. They don't really want some agency going off and crafting something that looks substantially different to anything else.

(38:05) Do you think that that's also eroding the unique offering that the boutique agencies used to have? It's an interesting one. I think... Weirdly, I think that boutique agencies are going to do pretty well at the moment. And I think they're going to do pretty well because they will service specific briefs. And also certain clients who don't need the scale in, you know, globally, they might need, they might have a particular, you know, for example, and just a UK based client who just does UK based work might not have the same challenges that a big multinational corporation has, right?

(38:35) In terms of their budgets and how they price and all this kind of stuff. So I think there's a work that I, you know, and you're seeing quite a lot of boutique agencies starting up. And I think that's where some people go because they prefer to work in that space. I think we are still seeing big bits of work come out of, or big ideas for sure coming out of agency groups. I mean, just off the top of my head, Vaseline Verify was a huge winner in the new award shows, which was a social idea really based around verifying online people who were talking about, influencers who were talking about what they did with Vaseline and how it worked for them, was it true, was it not?

(39:11) And there's a whole kind of, you know, a big idea, but executed in a different space. And I actually think that's an interesting area for us as agencies. I think we're seeing... KitKat Heist. I mean, a great example of how you take the theft of a truckload of KitKats and turn it into a massive online PR exercise, which is not something necessarily that the big agencies would have done in days gone by because we were focusing on the bit you just talked about. But actually, where we're seeing our audiences is changing and how we're engaging with our audiences is changing.

(39:41) And therefore, I think what we're seeing is that the ability to play in different spaces in really interesting ways so i don't think i don't think i guess the answer to the question you're asking is i don't think the need for those kind of ex that of executions is as big as it used to be right it doesn't mean we're not going to do them it doesn't mean they're not going to happen but i think that they're going to happen less less and less and you're going to see much more of the social kind of pr experiential kind of stuff going on which i think again is interesting and exciting actually You mentioned in there kind of, you know, how brands are engaging with audiences. Gary Vee was interviewed about Cannes, and he said something very interesting. He feels like Cannes is putting the cart before the horse, that basically people are going, look, creativity works, because they're cherry-picking the best of creativity and pointing at the examples where it did work and awarding that and saying that that's all creativity. His point is...

(40:35) You need to be A-B testing. He believes that it's actually wildly irresponsible for a brand to put media dollars behind an idea that hasn't been validated in organic social. And I think as that speaks to we've talked about how technology is affecting production and systems. How is it potentially being used in terms of the data analytics to figure out where an idea might be more successful? The open platform that we've got has the capabilities to test work against audiences, be they're synthetic audiences or not. I think that the...

(41:15) We are definitely seeing always on kind of loops where work is going out there and it's being testable and coming back and changing and being changed at pace. The testing piece is interesting to me. I mean, again, I always sit there going, if testing was so great, every piece of work would always be brilliant, right? And we don't necessarily live in that world. So I think testing itself must to some degree be flawed, right? It's not going to give you all the answers to everything.

(41:42) But I think creativity without measurement risks just high-level wasting of art, you know, art for art's sake. I think there's always that, and there's always been elements of that in the world we live in. But data without creativity, you can create just irrelevant stuff as well. I mean, you know, stuff that doesn't work as well, right? And I actually think, you know, the testing points... It's important to understand what your audience is like and understand that.

(42:10) But I still think there has to be room for the unexpected execution or an idea which elevates something which no one saw coming. How we protect that in a world of increased analytics is something that doesn't keep me awake at night, but I think it's something we need to keep our eye on because otherwise we end up becoming a sea of sameness because data kind of... will tend to come back with insights that might be similar. I mean, you kind of look at, the example I would give about around that, and I've worked on beauty brands for quite a long time, is when you look at beauty brands in certain spaces, a lot of the work they do is the same. It looks and feels the same, right? And that's all tested.

(42:50) That's all very heavily tested, right? So what we're not seeing there is the testing give us points of difference or differentiation which makes stuff stand out. When you look at work that stood out across the time we've been in the business, it's the stuff which didn't feel like it was right. It's the stuff that you think would never pass the testing. I mean, Honda Cog's probably a good example. Guinness Surfer's another example.

(43:11) I mean, these ads which were kind of counterintuitive to the world they lived in, so they stood out more. I mean, cameras. Gorilla is a great example. People still didn't know what the hell its purpose was after they watched it. No, and if you tested that, it wouldn't have seen the light of day, right? So I think we've got to...

(43:27) The world of testing and the ability to test has never been greater. The speed at which we can do it's never been faster. The results that we get obviously inform what we do. And I think that that is to be lent into, right? We shouldn't ignore it. But I think there is something to be said for...

(43:45) instinctive instinct around work there is something to be said for the ability to go I believe in what that's going to do and to back it and to give it a go and I'd say also with that you know given we talked about you know the speed of production how we can turn things around quite quick quickly in different production methodologies the ability to test sort of out their ideas or get stuff out in the market is is also there right so I think I think The analytic pipeline, the way we respond, I mean, there's 5 to 20 times content challenge the clients have got. That's going to have to be fed by algorithms that are telling us what's going on and changing the data and changing the work because we're not going to do that manually. But I would always say, be careful not to just walk into, you know, let's try and elevate a buck beyond a sea of sameness where we can, right? Let's try to make sure we're entertaining our audiences. Let's try to make sure that we are keeping them there for reasons which are the right reasons and which are considered.

(44:42) Because I think actually, when you think about... data driving everything, what then becomes the point of difference is your creativity, right? And the sharp end of the creative sphere, right? What's that doing? And that will become the point which really makes us differentiate between the day-to-day, the business is usually average and the really standout bits of work. Is there a feedback loop at all yet, or is there one coming where you produce a piece of work and then from a production standpoint, you do the analytics around that work and you go, actually, we need to produce more differently next time, maybe for this brand or we need to do something differently ourselves?

(45:18) Yeah. We have tools which we've deployed for clients which enable them to make short form films based on feedback constantly, right? Interesting. And what does that look like? It's a tool we developed for one of our clients. It has, you load up all the rushes.

(45:31) You go out with a piece of work. The piece of work you get feedback in with data points around it. The AI can then look at the rushes and go, this answers that data point and changes the edits and puts them back out again, right? Interesting. And so it might say, okay, you're losing people's attention around here. Maybe we cut to that, you know, that more interesting shot slightly earlier, etc.

(45:55) Yeah, or this part of the section didn't perform well enough. We need to get some messaging out around that or that kind of stuff. And that's one of the tools we're using. I think all opcodes are looking at tools like this. Again, I think it's how they're set up and where the data is coming from to feed it, which is the hardest part to kind of navigate around some of this. I think the point you asked about, does it change the whole production pipeline?

(46:19) Not yet, I would say. Not from right at the beginning end. Where I find the open platform fascinating is, and I kind of often, when someone goes to me, well, how is AI really going to transform what you do from the start? And what's the open platform? That's your internal? It's our operating system, which powers WPP.

(46:39) So we've got four pillars, four regions, and one operating platform, which is open. I talk about making as you ideate. I think when you're looking at work these days, you know, you would have had times where you were writing a script. Now you actually go, I'm not going to write a script. Why would we show clients scripts anymore? Let's show them the work, right?

(47:04) Because there's so much subjectivity in a script. And they go, what's this going to look like? How's that going to be? What's that going to be? How long is that going to fit in 30 seconds? We have the ability to do that now.

(47:14) And you also have the ability to have media plans coming at you very early on. So you know what you're going to have to fill. And you've got your idea. And you go, well, here's my base idea. And this is what it looks like as a 30-second TVC. But we've also taken this idea and we filled all the social channels here.

(47:28) And you can go to the client. And you can test that at the beginning with your synthetic audiences. You can go back to a client with an answer to a brief where you're going to them, here are two routes in. This is what it looks like as a piece of film. This is what it looks like in all the platforms. By the way, we've tested both of them.

(47:45) This one works slightly better. And by the way, a lot of the stuff we're showing you, we think we can take straight to market. Of the assets we've shown you, the 100 bits of work we've shown you, we think 50 of these can go straight out the door. Because they are of that quality. We need to say, and the film, here's the TVC, we haven't got budget to shoot this all the way we would have usually done it, let's break it down. We think we can do this bit with an LED volume or this bit.

(48:10) How we strategize production, I think, can be changed by the tooling. But it's not a completely iterative process in terms of sending it out to market. It's being done within the open platform with synthetic audiences. There's no reason why you couldn't test work with markets, you know, out of that platform earlier on. And that technology is kind of being developed. So I think that it's a really interesting time from that standpoint.

(48:33) And I think this is where, going back to the point I was saying about being open to change and curious about this kind of stuff. I think maybe the production, you know, we know the production is getting tighter to media. So we're getting a better understanding about where clients are going to need to be. And being closer to media is really important because we need to know what we're going to make. Getting deliverables lists out of clients has always been very difficult, in my opinion. But now that should be easier.

(48:56) So you therefore have the ability to work closely with media. But I think you also, with the creative technologists which are coming along now, you have the ability to ideate work in a different way and actually make work as you're going. Now, again, a lot of people find that quite challenging as a thought because it's very different from how we've done things in the past. But I think actually, again, it's quite liberating in one sense because you're able to work out whether you can actually make stuff or not, or whether you're going to get stuff out or not, or whether it's going to work or not. And from a client's point of view, it does start to give them some certainty and a bit more confidence in what you might end up working, what you might end up making. And it might actually save a lot of ideas for getting canned, which might not have got to the shooting stage previously because of fears or concerns or this kind of stuff.

(49:40) Yeah. But it also de-risks, I think, especially when you when you know, oh, if I put out 100 pieces of content across TikTok and Instagram and whatever else, fine, I have the big TVC. But if one of those hits five million views, that's paid for the TVC. Yeah, and again, it's kind of a very... None of our clients' media spend is anything less than 50% of the social channels now, right? Yeah. You know, TV isn't the big dog anymore.

(50:07) It isn't the piece of work, which is the one that was fundamental to clients to get out of the door. I mean, arguably, the importance of the big films, or I'm not saying not the big films, because big films exist on different channels, but the TV spend is definitely decreasing, and therefore, fixing the problem of expansion is incredibly important. You know, again, why I think it is incredibly important is if we don't do it ourselves, clients will find other people who will do the expansion piece and then they will give them the creative piece as well, right? Because it's the bit at the end which is not unimportant, but it's kind of, it is not the bit of the way, it's not the dog anymore. It's kind of, it's only part of the makeup and we have not. I think where we came unstuck, I think, in times gone by is dismissing the social stuff as just an afterthought, where it's actually far more important than that now.

(50:57) I think that's the way in which this has all kind of changed under everybody's feet. I saw a statistic the other day that said the UK creative economy is growing at 2.5% of the rest of the economy. But most of the people I spoke to at production companies were not feeling that. When I... have sat down with agency producers like yourself or Charlie Gatsky and then production company heads. The deliverables list that you guys are looking at are matrices that are so deep.

(51:24) And producers at production companies are still only looking at the TV commercial. And, you know, and then we're wondering why they're not getting quite the amount of work as before. Just speaking on behalf of somebody who's run a production company before... Is there an appetite for an agency, for a production company to offer that up as an offering? Okay, we'll shoot your social content for you. Or are you guys kind of like, listen, it's cheap.

(51:48) We're making a tiny margin on it anyway. It's not worth it to us to put it out the door. We're going to hire our own people for it. I think there's absolutely no reason why you wouldn't necessarily speak to a production company about moving into that space, right? I think going back to the conversation from earlier about being able to have less handoffs and less touch points... I think that's a big part of this, right?

(52:12) Agency producers are also very limited in time. So being able to have it within your own organisation so you can just send it through the pipeline, and by the way, clients change stuff a lot. They iterate a lot. If you've gone to a third party and you keep tracking changes and you keep getting overages and this kind of stuff, we tend to manage that in a slightly different way because we can. So that scale helps us. Our scale helps us in that point.

(52:34) Right. So I think there's that. There's no, you know, there's no reason why production companies can't do that. I just don't think it's necessarily the thing that makes them a lot of them tick in that sense. You see, they'd be very grateful for the revenue, I think, at the moment. 100% and I do understand that.

(52:53) Look, I think one of the things I do say is that the way the production industry is shaped has always been dependent on what clients need. Yeah. Right? I think that it's not the other way around and that's true of the way agencies are shaped as well, by the way. I think that in these conversations around how work gets made and what it gets done, I think sometimes it's being portrayed that agency, help codes are driving this whole conversation, which is true to some degree, but they're driving it because of what clients are asking them to do. how we get through it all.

(53:23) So I totally get the question you're asking. And I don't think... I grew up with production companies, as you well know, and worked with all of those guys. And it's really hard out there right now. I know that. And part of that is because of some of the way we're operating and doing it.

(53:36) But I don't know whether passing it all straight through is the solution either, right? Being candid. I think... I'm just trying to think of like they seem to be really struggling with how do we make a better offering or make a broader offering that takes our unique skill set and gives us a chance at some additional revenue and additional capabilities. So I don't think, but I think that the, and again, I haven't drilled down into the stats around what's going on with all the APA combos exactly, right? But I think what you're seeing is the big dogs in the space with all the huge creative talent are still kind of ticking along pretty well.

(54:13) I think it's the middle ground, which is suffering quite a lot. And that is an area where, you know, there is a demonstrable, evidential battle going on for workflows and this kind of stuff. But I go back to the bit I said in the beginning, the clients need to deliver more work with less money. Well, more work with the same money, right? It's that equation thing. And with less people being able to manage suppliers, the end-to-end production ecosystem within Occos is a good way of getting that done.

(54:45) It's not the only way. And I think Richard, my CEO, is quite clear on this. And Dave Rolfe and myself and people have spoken about this. There is no world which exists where we don't want third-party or are not going to engage with third-party production companies. They're part of the solution for us. But I think it is a part of the solution.

(55:05) We need those guys, and we understand the skills they bring. I've spent a lot of my career feeling like I'm the enemy in this conversation. This is not the intent. We are trying to kind of work with everyone as best we can. But I think the world is changing around us a bit. A lot of production companies have been slow to that race, but a lot of them are getting there now, and you're seeing how they're coming into the party.

(55:35) But AI itself is a challenge to the directors, I guess, in some senses, because you're not necessarily going to, not all directors will want to go and work in AI, right? And not all directors will want to lean into it. And if you're doing more shots through AI and less shooting, well, how do you charge for that? And all these conversations come to bear. I think you look at what Knucklehead have done, with uh airhead i think it's great and you know and and i and i think there's companies leaning in the way which is really really beneficial and there are ones who haven't yet but again yeah look i think it's it's a tough landscape out there for production companies i i am i'm cognizant of that no thank you for for all the time you've given i i'm i recognize we're over time and i've kept you too long but i would love to just ask for producers and production leaders listening who are trying to guide teams through this moment what should they be saying to their people right now

(56:26) I think the first thing I say to everyone is it's all going to be okay. Right? Like we work in a creative industry and I think we need to focus on craft. And people are producing more than ever before. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. I think there's a lot of uncertainty, but I think actually there's a lot of opportunity.

(56:43) Right? It's all going to be okay. What we are great at as an industry is fixing problems. We're problem solvers effectively, right? The challenges we're getting are somewhat different than we've had in the past, but that's to be expected. I mean, you read about, I did a piece for Campaign where we looked at advertising across generations moving forward.

(57:06) I think it was 50th anniversary or something. And I got to look at the first TV commercials that were made in the UK and you read stuff around it. When TV first turned up, creative agencies didn't think it was going to work. Yeah. You know, so you've got people who've been doing long form copy ads and photography stuff, and that was where advertising was, and then TV turns up going, that's not going to work. So these aren't challenges we haven't had in the past and dealt with, right?

(57:31) I just think it's kind of, so I think it's important to keep everyone calm, to keep everyone, I think also to remind everyone, we are very lucky to work in the industry you work in. I know it doesn't always feel that way, and it can feel quite oppressive and quite difficult, and it feels quite combative, it has felt quite combative over the last few years for me. But ultimately, you get to work with great people. You get to work on creatively challenging projects. You get to do some gnarly problem solving, which I think is where a lot of producers do find happiness sometimes, right? And how do you fix these problems?

(58:04) I think what I say to everyone is- That's where most of my self-esteem came from and probably still does. Well, stay calm and carry on is what I always say about this stuff. You know, the other thing I'd say to everybody, and it's like my mantra at the moment, is to turn up and be useful, right? And, you know, be present, be able to bring your best self to the meetings you can and be focused on fixing the problem, right? Yes, there's going to be times when you have to go and sit in a room and shout at the wall on your own just because it's all a bit frustrating around you. but help people get through the day in the best way possible and look after each other.

(58:35) I mean, the world is a tough place right now, but I'm still convinced that, you know, there's far more good going on than bad, but there is a lot of change going on, and I'm very aware that it is very challenging for people. So, you know, I check in with my guys regularly, make sure they're all going all okay, and we look after each other. So I think ultimately, you know, going back to, my transition from being a producer into a leader, I think it's trying to create an environment in which people feel able to operate and function and have the careers they wanted. Well, that's fantastic. I mean, James, I've been looking forward to this for quite some time.

(59:13) That totally delivered. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time and chatting with me about this. It was great. And I just so appreciate you giving me this time. You're more than welcome.

(59:22) I'm just very jealous I didn't get a background which is anywhere near as impressive as yours. But that's on me. That's all right. Next time, we'll have you back next time, and we'll put you on some WPP rooftop somewhere. It'll look incredibly epic. Tremendous, man.

(59:41) Well, thank you so much. I so appreciate it. No problem. Thank you. James is a wonderfully thoughtful producer and I'm encouraged chatting with him because he's got a large task ahead of him. He's running a very large team of dedicated and inspired producers.

(59:57) And I have a soft spot for producers. I'm always rooting for their success. For too long, producers have been treated sort of like project managers and not really consulted for their expertise. very much just told to get it done. And if you ever push back or complain, you're not a can-do person. And I think it's with the things that producers in advertising get up to all the time and the tremendous work they put in, I think they should be valued more highly in agencies.

(1:00:27) And there's a way of looking at WPP production where you think to yourself, you know what, that is an advertising agency really investing in production apparatus and production personnel. And I know it's not popular, and I know that they're the big guys, but that's a large group of producers. That's a major company investing in producers. And that encourages me, and that makes me happy to see. And I appreciate that somebody who's at the helm of that is as thoughtful as James.

(1:00:55) So, you know, I think that's a team that's in very good hands. And listen, I don't think that the conversations around... How the industry is changing should stop. That's entirely what this podcast is about, keeping those conversations going so that we can all figure out what the best way through all of these changes are, whether it's technological changes, economic changes. I think a lot of them are blending all together. The economic changes are the result of the technological changes, et cetera, et cetera.

(1:01:23) So, you know, the world keeps moving slowly on its axis. We keep talking and having these conversations. And our perspective on this podcast is that everybody's trying to do their best. And we want to know from those people what their best looks like. That's very much what we're trying to do here. And every time I talk to new people who are passionate about the creative work they do, the more I am encouraged that that can't be replaced by AI, streaming, etc.,

(1:01:53) technology will not replace and cannot replace the passion that people who get the opportunity to work in creative businesses that inspire them the what they bring to the table is special and that's why I spent my life in creative companies and helping creative people and creatives and creative support personnel try to do what they do it's why we do what we do every day It's an inspiring group of people. And I'm very proud to remain part of that community. And listen, we really appreciate you as a listener of this. Thank you for your interest. Thank you for listening along.

(1:02:32) I hope you enjoyed that chat. We will be back next week with our Monday weekend reviews that seem to be doing very well and people seem to be supporting them. For the first time ever, most of our listenership is through audio and that coincided with us doing our weekend review episodes. So that was very exciting. And then next week we will have our usual Tuesday interview episode. So please tune in.

(1:02:53) Thank you for listening and we'll see you next week.