Pat Murphy:
Hi and welcome to The MCA Prodcast, your fix for everything innovative in advertising production. I’m Pat Murphy and I’ve been working in this industry for more than 35 years now. I’ve seen a lot of changes, but know there’s plenty more around the corner. Each week on the podcast you’ll get to hear from one of the movers and shakers who are shaping the world of advertising for the future and we’ll dive into some of the key challenges facing our sector today and how we’re best placed to overcome them.

Today I’m joined by someone who’s been a driving force behind the scenes of UK advertising for decades. Steve Davies is the chief executive of the APA, the Advertising Producers Association in the UK, and a longstanding champion of the craft, the people and the evolving role of production. From navigating seismic shifts in tech UK and a longstanding champion of the craft, the people and the evolving role of production, from navigating seismic shifts in tech, talent and transparency to keeping the UK at the top of the global production game. Steve’s seen it all and I know he has strong opinions.

Steve, thanks so much for joining me here at The MCA Prodcast.

Steve Davies:
Thanks so much for inviting me, Pat. I’m looking forward to chatting with you.

Pat Murphy:
Great stuff. You’ve been the CEO now at the APA for a very long time, but your background was actually in law, wasn’t it? In sports television – tell us a bit about that.

Steve Davies:
Yeah, well, I was a partner in a law firm in London and then I worked in sport and TV, prominently around boxing and rugby, did the first ever pay-per-view deal with Sky, worked with a lot of boxing promoters, worked on events in Vegas, etc. So it was an exciting but crazy world.

Pat Murphy:
Straight into our first surprising thing about you… I hear you’re Mike Tyson’s lawyer.

Steve Davies:
Well I represented him, yes, because he had trouble coming into the UK because of his convictions, when he had a fight scheduled here, his first ever fight and the government said he couldn’t come in. So I went to see the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, and appealed that decision on the basis that he wasn’t any threat to the British public, only to his opponents, and he agreed and allowed him to enter for a week or however long he was here.

Pat Murphy:
So those experiences in sports telly, how did you make that transition then into this role at the APA?

Steve Davies:
Well, I always tell people I feel very lucky to have stumbled upon this industry because it’s absolutely amazing, mainly because it’s full of amazing people. But at the stage at which I thought I wanted to do something new, I went to see a legal job agency, as you do. They told me about this job. I didn’t know whether it would be interesting or not. I went along for an interview but I immediately became interested because I was interviewed by Joe Godman and John Hackney, two legends of the industry, I suppose and John is still the chairman of the APA and their intelligence, energy, enthusiasm immediately transmitted to me that there could be something interesting here.

Pat Murphy:
Obviously, the APA now is a very different beast to before you joined. I think there was a lady called Cecilia who was doing it before you, and it’s incredibly different. Tell us a little bit about what you now provide your members.

Steve Davies:
Well, I think, immediately we decided that we decided we wanted more outward looking and have good relations with the organisations we dealt with and start from there and we have set out to fulfill our mission, which is to create the best possible business environment for our members. So we’ve added training, contractual advice, which takes up a significant amount of our time. We’ve done lots of marketing overseas, done events in Japan and China and India and Silicon Valley. We keep people up to date with future thinking on AI and the rest of things that might provide opportunities for them. And we’re looking now to do new things regarding working direct with clients on the basis of the reports we had last year.

Pat Murphy:
And that report was very interesting. I noticed you gave us a bit of a plug on that as well. Thanks so much for that.

Now we saw a couple of weeks ago we saw the demise of Technicolor and The Mill, of course, and that’s put a lot of people out of work, and I know that you posted about offering help to those that have been affected. What kind of support are you providing those people and the rest of the industry who have responded?

Steve Davies:
Well, what they need is jobs, and so we’re making sure that their names are out there and that everyone knows about them. But of course, what happens in this business is it’s such an amazing community, so people just came together naturally. The other post-production companies, whereas in some businesses they might think even it’s this good news, a competitor’s gone out of business. Here they just felt for the people who worked there for a brand they respected, and so they have all rushed to offer such jobs as they can. But of course they can’t always employ them all, because times are tight at the moment and they’ve got to think about the benefits to their own business too, of course, because that’s their first responsibility. But they’ve employed as many people as they can at the moment and will try and help the rest of the people get through it.

Pat Murphy:
You mentioned opportunities just now, and with all that incredible talent that was sitting in there. Do you think that there really was an amazing amount of opportunities for those people to get together to set up their own little shops?

Steve Davies:
Well I think a lot of the people who were inclined to set up their own little shops from The Mill had already left and done that, as really the company declined in its general reputation because of Technicolor’s mismanagement.

So people like Darren had left to start Untold, Sean had left to start Selected Works, etc etc. But what’s happened is that some of those companies of course – they know the people inside the mill who they would like to have in their company, so they’ve gone and expanded and taken on more people based upon their inside knowledge, if you like, of who’s going to be valuable to them.

Pat Murphy:
What do you think is the most misunderstood aspect of the advertising production industry at the moment?

Steve Davies:
It’s interesting, isn’t it? I think that sometimes people just associate production companies with making things look glossy, and of course not all clients think that. Most of them understand that very well. But some think, well, just the production company just makes things look glossy, I don’t necessarily need a glossy ad them very well. But some think, ‘well, just the production company just makes things look glossy, I don’t necessarily need a glossy ad’. But of course what they’re actually doing, as with any good agency, is they’re making sure that the communication is as effective as it possibly can be on behalf of the client so it sells the most stuff. So that’s a misapprehension that is out there in part.

Pat Murphy:
Do you think the production houses have that experience and talent to do that? To be strategic for clients?

Steve Davies:
Well, some probably have and some don’t, is the answer. And they put an interesting situation where with direct client opportunities sometimes the client will need more than directing and production skills and production companies are happy to add those people projects because there is now great freelance agency talent out there in the market, partly because quite a lot of them don’t like working for the conglomerate agency organisations. So they can do that for projects. But of course what they don’t want to do is become agencies because there’s plenty of good agencies out there already.

Agencies have big overheads – you don’t want to translate yourself into something where you’re competing against people who effectively know that business better than you do.

Pat Murphy:
That’s the perfect time to bring in the subject of production unplugged, I guess, because that’s coming up at the beginning of May. Do you want to just tell us a little bit about that, because that comes straight, directly from what you’ve just been saying about working directly with brands and the ability for production companies to be able to do a great job that is effective.

Steve Davies:
Yeah, I mean that’s a very important new event for us. I think when you’re a trade body, any business is looking at things in terms of threats and opportunities, and when you’re a trade body, I think there’s sometimes too much will focus on the threats. So we have to provide the opportunities as well, and working directly with client is certainly that.

So the report we had last year we commissioned Alex Walker-Sage to interview clients and ask them about their attitudes to production and their attitudes to the triple bid. It was a survey, but also really making sure they understood the value of the triple bid, which many of them did already, of course.

But we also wanted to find out about their thoughts on working direct and we had a very clear message from clients, which is ‘we’re very interested in production companies, we’re interested in what they do, we’re interested in working with them, but they sell to us in completely the wrong way’. Of course it’s not true of all of them. They send us their director’s reels, they tell us the awards they won, and we’re not interested in that. What we’re interested in is ‘show me a piece of work you made for a client, tell us what the client’s objective was and demonstrate that that client’s objective was achieved’, which, of course, makes perfect sense, and to me being a practical person is more interesting anyway. So what we’re doing is we’ve got entries from members where they have to show that, we’re going to choose the best ones, and they’re all going to have a stand, if you like, in the venue over by Tower Bridge, and clients can then come along and meet with them, knowing that the production company will be talking in the terms of what they want to hear.

Pat Murphy:
I think it’s a very interesting event coming up. This is the first one, yes?

Steve Davies:
It’s the first one, yeah, on the 1st of May.

Pat Murphy:
Absolutely delighted that MCA is a sponsor of that. Really encourage people to turn up if they can, because it’s going to be incredible conversations between brands and the production community.

Steve Davies:
Thank you, Pat. I appreciate your support and, of course, you have a critical role as somebody who translates the production world to clients and vice versa, in helping build that business.

Pat Murphy:
Let’s talk about producers, specifically. The role of a producer, Steve, has changed a lot over the last 10 years. What’s next for the producer role in the next few years?

Steve Davies:
Well, I suppose the main change for a producer is two or threefold. One is there’s not enough work around now for the number of companies out there, and so selling is critical to every business, as we know. And I think to prosper now as a producer, you also have to be able to sell and develop new work. That’s critical. You also have to be able to sell and develop new work. That’s critical.

You also have to now be able to manage a huge number of assets and production, which is you’ve gone from maybe a 60 and a cut down to maybe delivering 400 items. So you’re becoming much more of a structure / process person, if you like, which I’m sure will suit some people more than it will suit others. But those are certainly significant changes in the role.

Pat Murphy:
Now I only think personally that the role of the producer in the creative process makes them even more important with the complexities. Would you agree with that?

Steve Davies:
I think so. We wrote something years ago, a report in which we had various people writing about what production companies do. It included a director who decided to be anonymous, but he said ‘what production companies have done is they’ve overvalued the role of the director and in doing so they’ve undervalued the role of production’, because it sort of made it sound like the director’s the genius and everybody there is just to service their needs. That’s not completely untrue, because of course, they’re vital and critical people. But the producer also has a vital creative role, I think, because if we look at the whole methodology of how you’re going to get the thing done, that is just as critical, important and clever really as writing the storyboards, in my view, and we have, as an industry, ended up with that role being undervalued.

Pat Murphy:
Do you think the role of the producer is a little misunderstood? Then would you say, rather than undervalued, probably misunderstood. Is that a better way of describing it?

Steve Davies:
I think that’s probably true. Yeah, I think it’s probably slightly misunderstood. Yeah.

Pat Murphy:
Now tell me are you excited or concerned about the integration of AI into the production processes? Surely AI, in the hands of a great director, can give even more opportunity to be creative within tighter budgets?

Steve Davies:
Yeah, I think I’m mainly excited, is the answer. Of course, none of us knows the future, but I think we’ve done lots of AI presentations and studies and we feel that it’s reached a point now where people are feeling more confident about what it’s good at and what it isn’t good at.

We had a superb presentation at The Future of Advertising by William Bartlett from Frame Store, who explained exactly why and what you could use it for, what you couldn’t, and it’s clear from that that it’s going to be a tool of the human mind, the creative mind, the effectiveness mind, if you like of getting where you want to get to, and so it’s not replacing people on that stage at the moment. But I mean, there are other factors at the moment, one of which is agency legal departments are being extremely cautious about AI use. I mean, I’ve seen agreements, for example, where they forbid you you’ve got to get the copyright for the whole thing and they forbid you from putting it back into the system. Well, if you use an OpenAI system, those are the rules of the open AI system. So those are inhibiting factors at the moment to its growth. But I think it’s clearly going to get better and better, but I think it will remain a tool of the talented people.

Pat Murphy:
With everything that’s changing, how do you see production companies adapting to stay competitive? I mean, you mentioned just now that there’s not a lot of work, not enough work to go around for everybody. How do production companies stay competitive in this new world?

Steve Davies:
Well, that’s a huge challenge and they all know they need to adapt or most of them do, but it’s easy to say that and harder to see and invest money in what that direction should be. I mean, I feel that there will be room for 15 or 20 companies at the top with the absolute top directors who will be selling those directors to the top brands and agencies for their big showpiece commercials like the Christmas ads, etc. But if you’re not in that category, then you have to be doing other things and you have to be finding other ways to sell yourself, finding other sources of work. Looking abroad, and I think it’s moved to a stage where you know,

Pat Murphy:
So let’s touch on a sensitive subject, right and I’m sure you know my view on this because I talked to Matt Miller, your counterpart at the AICP recently – the subject of loaning out directors.

Steve Davies:
Yes.

Pat Murphy:
And in particular to in-house production units or production agencies of the large agency holding groups. What’s your opinion of that?

Steve Davies:
Well, I mean large agency groups are out to destroy the production community, if you like, and I don’t mean by that the creative and broadcast departments we work with. They very much value what APA members bring, but not all the finance people do. Their own model is somewhat under threat, so they think let’s keep more production. So I think essentially assisting them in our destruction by loaning them directors is a bad idea. Now it’s easy for me to say that, but it’s my job to support people in practice, not just to say ‘you should do this from some sort of lofty height’. I do get it. If you get talked to a production company owner, he’s got a director who’s maybe not worked for eight months, has a mortgage, family or outgoings as anybody does, even if they don’t have a mortgage and family and needs to pay it, can’t get any other work and they’re offered a decent payday. So I can see where the pressure comes.

And actually the pressure is often enhanced by the fact that many agencies ask the director direct, sometimes claiming not to know they’re represented. So the director is then keen and the production companies cast in the role of bad guy if they say they can’t do it. So those are real pressures, but certainly it’s not in the interest of production companies to participate in loaning out directors for decent jobs.

Pat Murphy:
Do you think this is a slow death for the current model?

Steve Davies:
I think it’s an adaption and I think there’s two major factors. One is there’s less of the big TV commercials that used to be made. It’s not none, but there’s fewer. And there is the encroachment of the agency world, and so, yeah, I think we’ll see probably fewer companies making purely big ads in the future. They’ll be, as I say, the elite, and beyond that, people will be making all sorts of other content.

But actually, if you look at the APA members list of which there’s 338 companies on the website, and if you look at the production companies, who are probably 250 of those, a lot of them, most people won’t have heard of, but probably the majority aren’t trying to make TV commercials, they’re making content. They’re making interesting, engaging content, companies like Stamp and Chrome and Just So, and their profile isn’t that of companies who represent top directors, but their business model might still be extremely sound.

Pat Murphy:
I was just about to mention that, I saw a posting from I think it was Matt at LBB a couple of weeks ago online about the issue of ‘is there work happening’? We obviously see work going on every single day in our business. There is work happening. It’s just a different type of work, as you just mentioned. Do you think that’s an opportunity for some of your members to adapt for the changing needs of clients?

Steve Davies:
Yeah, absolutely, and we have to do that. We can’t just say ‘we want to carry on doing what we’ve always done’. If the clients want more assets at a lower price because they need to get more stuff out during the year, it’s up to us to find a way to make that into a viable business.

Pat Murphy:
In your role, Steve, I’m not even going to hazard a guess on how long you’ve been there. It’s quite a long time. As I mentioned earlier what’s the most controversial decision that you’ve ever had to make at the APA.

Steve Davies:
Fourth of June 2000, that’s when I started Pat. 25 years, nearly. The most controversial decision, it’s difficult to think. I mean we try and arrive at things by consensus. We try, and you know, get the council together, the members together, and it is a phenomenal community. So I feel that most of the time people have been supportive. I mean even when, having got some of those reports, I said to the production companies ‘clients don’t think you’re selling to them the right way, or you can do account management, we need to do something about that’. And none of them said ‘I don’t agree’ or ‘no’. They all tend to say, well, that’s great, let’s learn. So we put some courses on so we could all learn together. So it’s an amazingly coherent and supportive community really.

Pat Murphy:
There’s an argument that says that you know your role at the APA is to look after the top production houses. Right? But how do you balance the needs of the top production houses, the ones that are working and very busy, with the ones who are the newer players or the ones that are just coming into the industry? How do you balance that the needs of both?

Steve Davies:
We certainly set out to treat them all the same, and for the newer companies, they particularly value things like the support with contracts and production issues, and so they may need more support at the outset than the bigger companies do. So, say, someone comes along to take a successful example, Code started. They seem like a new company, but actually it was 12 or 13 years ago now – they came along and they were great guys, but they just left college and really didn’t know anything about the business. But they’ve done phenomenally well by learning together and we’ve supported them throughout that, and we’re delighted to see people thriving through the combination of hard work and intelligence that it takes to have a successful production business.

Pat Murphy:
What are some of the biggest concerns you’re hearing from some of the members about what’s happening in the industry right now? I mean, obviously we’ve touched on a couple of those things, but is there anything else that you hear from your members?

Steve Davies:
The overriding concern is not having enough work, and that’s a conversation that I’ve been having for some time now. I mean, I was talking to a production company throughout the last couple of years and they probably always had 10 or 15 scripts in a month and it wasn’t one of the super big ones with the famous directors, but it was a very good company and they won some and lost some, and that was the swings and roundabouts of business. They accepted. But they moved to periods now where they’ve had one script in a month, none, and so it’s shown to them that something’s fundamentally different and they need to find a way through that. But at the end of last year really I was having conversations every day with concerned companies. I’m very happy to have those because I love the members and I obviously care about them all and that’s my motivation really.

But I said at the start of this year let’s just get on with it this year. Let’s do this Production Unplugged event. Let’s do some events. We’re to do something in Saudi. Let’s do whatever we can to generate new work. In November or December we could sit down and look at whether that’s worked or not, but I’d rather be forcing all those things forward than spending too much of the day contemplating the fact that things aren’t where we would like them to be.

Pat Murphy:
So, for young talent, young professionals coming into the industry right now, what key skills or mindsets would set them apart, in your view?

Steve Davies:
I think it’s extremely difficult because we’re always trying to help young people, particularly as part of our diversity programs etc, and we get people work experience and then there’s not enough work out there. So a couple of them have actually stopped working in the business. So it’s hard to get new talent in at a time when the business is retrenching, if you like. So that is obviously a major concern.

I had a couple of young production managers come and see me late last year to say ‘do you think we should leave because the business is all over because of AI’ to which to go back to that… ‘Well, I don’t think it is plus any other business you go into will also be affected by AI’.

But we know the key skills are the same as ever, really. They are attitude, hard work, enthusiasm. I’m sure you see it yourself. You can spot who’s going to be a good employee almost on day one by their can-do, attitude, willingness to learn. I’ll always say to young people ‘you’ll make mistakes, I’ll make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but if you care about your job, you think I’m only making that mistake once’ and you move forward and those people will continue to find opportunities and thrive.

Pat Murphy:
One of the subjects that’s kind of quite dear to my heart and the business at MCA is sustainability. I know obviously, with geopolitics as it is, that seems to change a little bit, but it is a major focus still with a lot of the clients that we work in today’s current climate. How’s the APA helping production companies to implement greener practices?

Steve Davies:
Well, we were part of the start of AdGreen I mean, that is Jo’s baby and she did a brilliant job with that. But we supported her at the outset and we still do that. My concern with AdGreen, as Jo knows, is that the process is too complicated. We worked with her last year on some early guidance uh, which uh is now up and running, which we’re going to promote a lot out of, because it strikes me that, you want to know up front what the risks are.

There are are only a very few determinants of really the the green impact. One is the size of the shoot, the number of days, if you’re shooting abroad and where, maybe the catering, and that’s basically it. So you don’t need to count everything else.

And what I would like to see is clients getting an estimate, or three estimates and three bids, and they could see well, if we shoot it in London, it will cost this, but the environmental impact will be X, and if we go to Bulgaria, it will cost less, presumably, but the environmental impact will be significantly worse. And so a client is then put in a position of making an informed decision. Of course, they’re also being somewhat pushed towards the decision that we would say was the responsible one, but in a slightly subtle way.

Pat Murphy:
Good response, very diplomatic there, Steve.

Last week you had your feature of ad production seminar, which I would have loved to have been at. Unfortunately, I couldn’t. And you have one coming up in May. We mentioned earlier the Production Unbundled and Cannes is also not far around the corner, in June as well, and you’re always there. It’s always good to see you in person.

How do you manage to balance all of these things? You have a team of thousands working for you to balance all of these things that you’re putting on and real life, day-to-day issues for the members.

Steve Davies:
Well, it’s kind of you to say that. And of course, yeah, resources are limited. I want us always to be flat out and look and do everything we possibly can, and I’ve got a great team who are also committed to doing that but you know resources are finite. So I’ve mentioned you, we’re going to look at Saudi Arabia this year. I mean, there’s, of course, other opportunities in in other countries as well uh, to go to events like the AdStars in Korea or whatever, but we’re not going to go to that because we need to be in London. We can’t be everywhere.

So there’s always a balance as to what’s going to be the most effective and, to give Saudi as an example, we need to get a handle on what’s the right event to go to. Some people in the UK went to events in Saudi last year builders’ marketing events and turned out they were really just video games or something, so they were completely irrelevant. We’ve now found this one festival through our friends at the Ad Association, Athar, which is in October, which sounds like it is the appropriate event at least. So we need to find out more and then we can share more information with members, because that’s a market with significant budgets which people are interested in knowing more about.

Pat Murphy:
So, steve, do you have any role models, people who you kind of look up to or have been inspired by in the industry?

Steve Davies:
I’m not sure I do, but I mean the APA chairman, lewis Moore of Farrell and John Hackney, who are people who ran very successful production companies. Haven’t worked for many years because they don’t need to, I suppose but they have been the chairman of the APA since before I started and they’re an amazing support to me, particularly when we have difficult issues to deal with in terms of discussing them together. We always come to a better decision. So that’s been, I suppose, the people I’ve had have had the most influence on me.

Pat Murphy:
Now, last year you won the Fellowship Award at the 48th Arrows, so congratulations on that. I don’t know if you were at the arrows last week. I was also a judge on a recent creative awards, uh, but I was looking at some of the ads and I was thinking you know ‘where’s some of the creative’? You’re seeing a lot of quite mediocre ads being submitted for creative awards. Do you think we’ve lost some of the fun and mischief and creativity that was there going back 15, 20 years?

Steve Davies:
It’s hard to say, isn’t it? I mean, I’m not a big fan of nostalgia, but I did do a comparison of the 2002 APA show with a more recent one and of course, the APA show, being the collective works, the best works of the year, is a good point of comparison. And there is no doubt that in 2002, there were more bigger and spectacular ads and probably more of a creative free reign, but we had a panel of creatives to discuss that. And they were perfectly happy about the modern era, if you like, where there’s more of a focus on purpose-driven work and people’s concerns. The world has changed from one where you just sold something and that was a good thing, like ‘buy my sherry’, to one where you have to be projecting yourself as a responsible brand as well. So inevitably it’s got more complicated, but it hasn’t necessarily got worse.

Pat Murphy:
When you switch off, when you go home and you kind of like switch off for the day, what are the things that you do outside of work? That means a lot to you.

Steve Davies:
Well, I suppose family friends. I mean, I’ve got two of my kids living in Sydney In fact I’m off to visit them shortly. I’ve got two of my kids living in Sydney. In fact I’m off to visit them shortly and I’ve got a lot of other things I’m interested in in terms of, you know, being active and me and my whole family are Spurs fans, so that takes up a bit of time going to games and things.

Pat Murphy:
And how are they doing this season then?

Steve Davies:
Sometimes it’s enjoyable, but sometimes it’s not. But I feel like I’m like I’ve got Stockholm Syndrome. I’m there come what may, whether we’re good or bad, you know, just go with it.

Pat Murphy:
What’s the number? I think they’re 14th now in the Premiership?

Steve Davies:
Something terrible. Yeah, I mean it’s fortunate that those promoted clubs are all terrible, otherwise we might be really in trouble.

Pat Murphy:
We’re Just coming to an end now, and you know we always ask this final question at the end of every one of the podcasts we do. Steve, what’s your favourite ad?

Steve Davies:
Well, look, I can never share any favouritism, can I? But I’m going to go for Ice Skating Priests because I think it’s an absolutely epic commercial. That’s like a film in 90 seconds. The performances, everything. The director was amazing. I don’t know what happened to him, but he did a brilliant job on that.

Pat Murphy:
Fantastic. We’ll get it up onto The MCA Prodcast website. Steve, look, thank you so much for joining me on The MCA Prodcast.

Steve Davies:
Thanks, thanks for having me, pat, really enjoyed it!

Pat Murphy:
That’s it for this episode of The MCA Prodcast. A huge thanks to Steve Davies, CEO of the APA, for sharing his insight, his candour and a few war stories from the front lines of ad production. If you’re in the industry or thinking about stepping into it, the APA’s influence is everywhere and Steve’s leadership has helped shape the standards we work by today.

Don’t forget to subscribe, share and leave us a review. It helps other rule breakers and innovators to find us.

To find out more about The MCA Prodcast, please head to theprodcast.com, where you’ll find details on all my guests, links to their favourite ads and full transcriptions of all the episodes.

I’m Pat Murphy, CEO of MCA. Do come and connect with us on LinkedIn or Instagram, of which all the links in the notes for this episode will be there. We’d love to hear from you.

Thanks again to Steve, my team at MCA and to my production team at What Goes On Media. Until next time, keep making, keep questioning and keep pushing the industry forward. See you next time.