Why production is advertising's best kept secret

There are two familiar moments in every campaign. The first is when the strategy forensically and brilliantly organises the client’s challenge. The second is when the creative feels unmistakably right for the brand.

Then comes a pause, a sense of collective satisfaction, and a confidence that the work will be great. After that, the gaze shifts to production, along with an optimistic assumption; this can be done in time, on budget and at scale. 

Execution has always been the industry’s best kept secret. 

But… this moment reveals one of advertising’s quiet truths; execution has always been the industry’s best kept secret. 

Above: "Those closest to the work know that it is execution that determines whether that idea survives in the real world."

Everyone celebrates the idea, but those closest to the work know that it is execution that determines whether that idea survives in the real world. It’s during production that the idea meets reality. Because ideas don’t fail in theory, they fail when ambition meets logistics, ethics, craft, talent and time.

As Sir John Hegarty famously observed, “Advertising is 80% idea and 80% execution.” An intentionally impossible equation, but one that captures something the industry has long understood, if not always openly acknowledged: Execution doesn’t just come after the idea; it defines whether the idea can meaningfully exist at all.

We risk underselling one of the most powerful forms of creative stewardship we have.

And while we still talk about production in the language of restraint - cost, compression, efficiency, delivery - we risk underselling one of the most powerful forms of creative stewardship we have.

Authenticity as a production requirement

Take our recent campaign for the British Heart Foundation, In Living Memory. A deceptively simple but profoundly important idea: 65 commemorative red benches installed across the country, each representing a person who has survived a heart complication.

Over fourteen shoot days, across two-and-a-half weeks, we filmed 65 survivors and their families in 65 different locations across the UK. The objective wasn’t to extract emotion, but to create the conditions for people to tell their own stories, in their own way and on their own terms.

This was not material that could be rushed, carelessly scaled or overworked. The success of the idea depended entirely on restraint and sensitivity. Had the production approach been too slick or too directive, it would have lost its power. Authenticity was a production requirement, not just a creative preference.

Above: Saatchi's campaign for the British Heart Foundation was a great idea brought to life by great production. 

Shaping the feeling, not just the making

In Living Memory not a typical shoot. It demanded different production instincts than those more commonly used: patience over pace, empathy over control, trust over performance. To honour this approach, agency production was tightly integrated with the creative and brand teams, alongside tirelessly dedicated director Jonathan Kneebone, and production partner Biscuit Filmworks. 

Execution isn’t a constraint on ambition but rather a multiplier of it.

From a single, carefully planned approach, we delivered over 160 assets across six channels without flattening the emotion or exhausting the people at the heart of the story. This is where production leadership moves beyond delivery and into authorship. Where it shapes both how the work is made and how it is felt by the world.

Creative ambition and practical reality

The industry, and sometimes clients, can still treat production as a downstream discipline, as something following the idea rather than shaping it. But, within agencies and across the UK’s world class production landscape, a different truth has always existed; execution isn’t a constraint on ambition but rather a multiplier of it.

The industry’s strongest creative leaders have long understood this power. They know that casting, tone, pacing, format and care are not secondary decisions but are the idea, translated into reality.

I’m fortunate to partner with a Chief Creative Officer [Franki Goodwin] who not only values production but sees it as essential to her teams’ success. In that environment, production isn’t asked to make ideas cheaper or faster, it’s invited in early to help make them work. The result is stronger collaboration, clearer decisions and work that survives contact with the real world. Ultimately, a win-win for clients.