Neil Duncan.
Neil Duncan, Managing Director, Publicis Production ANZ.
Smart agencies treat production efficiency as the foundation and innovation as the rooftop. By using saved capacity to prototype bolder work, they’re turning measurable savings into exponential creative and commercial growth.
Automation as an Enabler
The imperative to reclaim time and reduce inefficiencies is universal in today’s fast-paced marketing environment. Within our production team, we’ve tackled this by embedding automation into workflows through DesignOps – a proprietary system that streamlines content creation across video, static, animation and display.
Since its rollout earlier this year, DesignOps has delivered more than just operational gains. It’s accelerated approvals, tightened quality assurance, improved feedback loops and ensured consistency across assets and go-to-market approach.
Yet the real opportunity lies in how these efficiencies are reinvested. Rather than viewing automation purely through the lens of cost and time savings, teams are redirecting reclaimed budget and time into strategic thinking, research and creative experimentation. This shift is strengthening collaboration between agencies and clients, and laying the groundwork for more resilient, long-term outcomes.
Data as a Creative Catalyst
In advertising, the magic happens when instinct meets insight. Combining creativity with data shapes big, human ideas that adapt in real time, feel more personal and deliver greater relevance and impact.
Recently, we built a fully functional virtual research panel using synthetic data – scraped, refined and modelled through multiple AI systems. This synthetic audience panel lets teams interact with representative personas, each embodying a unique audience segment with distinct behaviours, attitudes and language. By simulating real interactions through agentic AI, we can test, learn and optimise creative executions before production begins, ensuring we focus on building the most impactful work.
Technology that Fuels Storytelling
Creativity in the broader sense is part art, part science. The art remains largely human; the science is accelerating through technology. At Publicis, our creative teams are swiftly adopting new tools that strengthens collaboration between our production and technology teams, delivering significant benefits to workflows and creativity.
Traditionally, early film production relied on static briefs, scripts and reference clips. Now, creatives produce dynamic, layered inputs during exploration. Storyboards are generated with Imagen, talent characteristics explored via custom LLMs, music and audio concepts through ElevenLabs, and location mockups from Nano Banana. These richer, more tangible assets give directors, producers and talent a clear sense of intention from day one and enhance collaboration throughout the process.
Investing in the Future
Innovation starts with people. Training equips talent to master emerging tech, experiment without fear and push creative boundaries – turning tools into game-changing work. Teams are eager for this training but often struggle to find time. It’s incumbent upon leaders to deliberately create breathing room for growth; growth that expands individual capability, sharpens strategy and delivers meaningful outcomes for clients.
As agency leaders, we need to shift the conversation with clients beyond cost cutting. Technology isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about unlocking new creative possibilities. By pairing human creativity with data and technology, we can deliver a new era of storytelling and personalised experiences that generate measurable results.
Make the shift. Encourage experimentation with new tools. Invest in capability. Put technology-powered creativity at the heart of your client strategy.