WPP Production: The industry responds
Following last week’s news of WPP launching WPP Production, shots has spoken to production company leaders and trade bodies on what the move could mean for craft, competition, and the future of the agency and production company relationship.
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Last Friday, WPP officially launched WPP Production, “a single global production platform” which brings Hogarth together with production teams across the wider group, with the aim of unifying talent, tools and production capability under one offering.
It’s a move that echoes the wider consolidation happening across the holding company landscape, with rivals such as Omnicom also developing centralised production offerings through Omnicom Production. Positioned as a response to the growing demand for faster, higher-volume output alongside high-end craft, WPP Production raises plenty of questions for the wider industry.
I don't look at scale as volume anymore. I look at it as potency.
To answer some of these questions and get a sense of how the news is landing across the industry, shots asked a selection of company leaders from Electric Theatre Collective, Rogue, Merman, Academy Films and La\Pac for their take, alongside input from WPP, the IPA and APA.
Does WPP Production feel like progress for the industry, or further consolidation?
"It’s further consolidation, but it’s also progress that was inevitable. They have a business problem that they needed to fix, and they have to be seen to be at least trying to fix. It’s a business decision, simple as that, and apart from the slightly cringe launch video, ’Together in purpose’ and ‘A single soulful platform’, it’s the right move for them.
Now they just need to get their existing talent on board and be realistic about making all the work as good as they can, rather than brilliant all the time. They also need to reassure their production collaborators that 'we’re all in this together'. It’s business, and you can either come on board and all work towards that or, if you think you can do better, then genuinely good luck to you."
Charlie Crompton, Founding Partner, Rogue & Creative Business Consultant
"It depends on which side of the table you’re sitting. I’m sure, from a brand’s perspective, the allure of efficiency alongside the promise of limitless craft is seductive. The world is in the grips of AI mania and it would be fairly unique for a global holding company to say that they were doubling down on an anti-AI stance, so this initiative isn’t surprising. The real proof will be beneath the headlines of the PR.
We’re not the intended audience nor the intended user, so it’s hard to get a sense of where the priorities of this framework lie. Is the driving force quicker, faster, cheaper, in which case volume is the bedrock of intention? Or is it genuinely limitless craft? It’s easy to say both, so the proof of the pudding. We’re in the marketing business; brand needs are so multifaceted nowadays and there is space and opportunity throughout that list of needs where this sort of approach is logical. But our sense is that it’s not necessarily a unilateral solution."
Jon Purton, CEO, Electric Theatre Collective
The real proof will be beneath the headlines of the PR.
"Global clients require consolidated and integrated production relationships, so international holding companies responding to that is progress."
Eliot Liss, Chief Executive, IPA
"It was, all in all, fairly predictable. So not really an announcement or a surprise, more a case of catching up with the moves already made by other holding companies. In today’s race to meet the expectations of brands and clients, production sits at the very centre. What remains to be defined is what “production” actually means.
Truth is a very relative notion these days. What matters is being able to give the word a clear definition. From that definition flows a reality, the one independent production companies can offer, and the one WPP can offer. These realities are not always the same, and I say this without judgement."
Jérôme Denis, CEO, La\Pac
"I don't look at scale as volume anymore. I look at it as potency. Connective makers and tools fused with what used to be the merely neighbourly functions of marketing (strategy, ideation, deployment) is what's needed to drive value for our clients today. Disruption will be felt, but it's focus will be upon more aggressively coupling origination and its activation."
Dave Rolfe, Global Head of Production, WPP
"WPP was worth around £24 billion in 2017 and £3.1 billion to £3.35 billion today. New CEO Cindy Rose described the group's performance as "unacceptable". So, they had to do something. That something is to try and replace client retainers, which have become a thing of the past, with production work.
They promote it with corporate gobbledygook like 'This transformation solves both the volume challenge and the performance challenge'.
It feels like an attempt by a massive corporation to land grab as much profit as possible.
The reality is that the best directing and production talent is in the independent sector, and it is this that provides clients with the best value because they have to win work on talent and price, in open competition in the free market. The production company model, a small core of talent which keeps overheads to a minimum and upscales as needed for a production, is a gift for clients, whereas they might be less keen to provide financial support to the "10,000 craft experts" that WPP boast of."
Steve Davies, Chief Executive, APA
"It feels like an attempt by a massive corporation to land grab as much profit as possible, rather than considering what is most efficient and effective for a client."
Medb Riordan, EP/Owner, Academy Films
WPP is promising both 'high-velocity' output and 'cinematic-quality' craft; how do you balance speed and scale without quality slipping?
"Well, I don’t think you always can. One of the things that’s crept up on us in the last year or so, is that clients don’t care about ‘cinematic quality’ nearly as much as speed and scale. That’s not to say they wouldn’t love it if they can get both, but honestly, apart from Christmas and big sporting events, they don’t care nearly as much as people in production would like them to. And nor do the viewing public.
Clients don’t care about ‘cinematic quality’ nearly as much as speed and scale.
I think we have to give them the benefit of the doubt; if they can solve the ’high velocity’, using all their relationships and getting the production community on board, then you’d like to hope that the ‘cinematic quality’ might follow.Not every client needs their work to be brilliant. Sometimes ‘as good as you could make it' is good enough."
Charlie Crompton
"Most campaigns require ‘matching luggage’ elements that perform in different media. Each kind of execution needs a different sort of excellence in craft and production approach. The IPA consistently makes the case for effective, brand-building work - that creativity takes many forms today."
Eliot Liss
"Everything else is just words. High velocity, cinematic quality…
Production is about actions. You are what you do. And doing means working with teams, the very best, carefully selected, collaborating with demanding directors on premium projects. It’s the teams that turn words and intentions into reality. It’s all people in this business."
Jérôme Denis
"Buzz words. Of course you can make great work at speed and scale, we’ve done it, but it needs the budgets to support that. Are they planning on charging the clients more then? To get it 'faster'?"
Medb Riordan
"The opportunities that consolidation and AI might offer to streamline the network's significant processes, to communicate between themselves and become more cost effective can be useful to them, I’m sure. Then, utilising that capability for their clients when it comes to things like re-versioning, adaptations or entering into a market place one previously couldn’t afford is helpful.
Production is about actions. You are what you do.
However, when you’re looking to elevate your brand above and beyond the competition and speak directly to your consumer base with real emotional insight I think that this is where the smaller independent agencies and production companies will continue to thrive. They’re nimble in that they assemble the best and most appropriate team for each and every project, tailored to the client’s needs; and cost effective in that their overheads are relatively low. Compare this to the large property portfolios and rigid staff structures that exist within a large corporation like WPP and the difference is clear."
Spencer Dodd and Siobhan Murphy, Partners/Executive Producers, Merman
"I don't view things as a sort of dialectic amongst quality versus pace of output. That quality is contextual shouldn't need to be debated. What's important is recognition of the roots of the experience sought, its creative and co-creational underpinnings, utility functions and configurable capacity. What's sped is the recognition of experience sought and the more reflexive matching of the production approach needed."
Dave Rolfe
What’s the best-case and worst-case outcome of WPP Production for the industry?
"The best case is that clients realise they’re being sold a pup. Production companies thrive in competition and the client gets better results. They get better directors and competitive bidding. I feel it will drive more clients to in-house their agencies.
Worst case is they play incredibly aggressively and force this on every client, and they won’t get access to the best directors, many of whom are production company owners themselves."
Medb Riordan
"They’ve got a deep squad of great talent there and time will tell, but if everyone gets on board and is absolutely focused on doing the best work they can with whatever creative cards they’re holding, then that’s a pretty good place to be. In the UK especially, a lot of people in production get way too hung up on this illusion that every job you do needs to be brilliant or they’ve failed in some way. It’s such a stressful way to run a business, and it doesn’t work in 2026. What they forget is that sometimes clients don't ask for a heartbreaking work of staggering genius, they just want something that works for the budget that they have.
The worst case for WPP is two-fold. Firstly, their ‘AI-powered workflows’ don’t actually work in practice and, secondly, key creative people leave to start independent agencies (but I don’t think they’d be too concerned about that)."
Charlie Crompton
"Times are changing, as they always do. Alongside the new opportunities, there are pressures on all advertising production business models and ways of working. There is no downside to anyone looking to build capacity, capability and support jobs in the industry."
Eliot Liss
"After Publicis, Havas, and Omnicom, independent producers know what to expect. Ideally, this calls for a mix of humility and business discipline: setting clear rules and not claiming too much, too fast. Sharing rules, territories, and job typologies is key. Respecting the ecosystem, and its virtuous dynamics, while integrating into it.
Whatever the industry, everyone should aim high, and find an outcome that elevates rather than lowers the bar. Craft should never be diluted."
Jérôme Denis
The worst case writes itself in Orwellian fashion.
"Best case? In my eyes, the thing that will trigger success in our more measurable accomplishments is we realise the cultural promise of a diverse production culture within a scaled network. That will innovate in how it makes and partners to the degree that it can reciprocally inspire ideation as much as ideation inspires it."
Dave Rolfe
"The best case scenario is that the network is used to streamline its process and solve the problems that exist for them and their clients.
At worst, personal ambition and the pursuit of higher share price values will mean they act without integrity; looking to push the model in pursuit of these goals when it’s not appropriate or relevant and when it is at odds with their clients’ needs."
Spencer Dodd and Siobhan Murphy
"The worst case writes itself in Orwellian fashion. A primary concern is the devaluing of creativity in commercial and artistic terms. But I’m a believer (and it’s not an original point of view, just read Linkedin) that with an increase in volume of content, the requirements for the ideas and the execution behind that content to stand out and actually impact audiences and consumers is far greater than it’s ever been. I also believe that the over-engineering, consolidating and systematising of the creative process is not fertile ground for the best creative minds to be creative. This process will contribute to a boa-constrictor effect and things will bog down.
The industry, by its nature, is innovative. Disruption forces people to rethink the status quo and innovate. I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom, to be honest."
The best case depends on the table and seat analogy again. It will be commercially compelling on the spreadsheet and for some brands, some markets, some clients and some deliverables it will probably revolutionise their business. But not for all, and I think there will be a cycle of realisation over time. The industry, by its nature, is innovative. Disruption forces people to rethink the status quo and innovate. I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom, to be honest."
Jon Purton
What would WPP Production need to do to win trust from the wider production community?
"I wish I had the answer to this one. I feel it’s never going to a fair playing field. They have access to inside information. If you write the story, you already know the ending. At present, we are already cut out of so many key conversations with clients, and we know clients don’t like that. They feel shut out themselves. So now, when presenting three treatments to a client, one of which is their own, how can they possibly not show bias? At the end of the day, money is at stake, and corporations like that don’t play fair. They don’t know how to."
Medb Riordan
"Trust is earned from clients, collaborators and competitors alike through the good work and best practice that the IPA supports alongside our partner trade bodies."
Eliot Liss
"The question might be, why would they need to? Nobody in the production community in 2026 can afford to fall out with agencies who give them work. Good agency producers, wherever they work, already have great relationships with the wider production community, and vice versa. That won’t change.
At the end of the day, money is at stake, and corporations like that don’t play fair. They don’t know how to.
If you’re part of that production community who doesn’t have those strong relationships, then it’s part of your job to make them pretty quickly. You’re going to need WPP Production to trust you, trust that you can deliver what the client needs, on time and on budget, and not treat every production like an art project that’s the most important thing you’re ever going to make, and which nobody cares about as much as you."
Charlie Crompton
"We have to authentically enable an entrepreneurial culture, as much as we've ever done. We can show that we're unafraid to use new ways to build experiences ourselves, as well as partner with both new and familiar partners that themselves are exploring new ways [of working]. We will have to prove that we can be architects, to make things that bring joy, or bring connection and usefulness, or commandeer mediums in wondrous ways, more than [being] box-clickers. It is truly an exciting time.
In truth, there's an ineffable shift in dependency; a modern production model at scale, to prove its value, must demonstrate greater vision and capacity of means than it's done in the past, rather than externalise anew at every turn."
Dave Rolfe
"You never dress up a film with words. Films and experiences always speak for themselves."
Jérôme Denis
"Respect the business models that have supported them for decades. Transparency is key. As the gatekeepers of key relationships that underpin an entire industry, play fair and collaborate. Don’t steal and repurpose."
Jon Purton
