Sergio Lopez: Omnicom Production Will Be a New Type of Production for a New Type of World
Announced last week, Sergio Lopez has joined Omnicom to lead the newly formed Omnicom Production as global CEO - a title he previously held at Publicis Production, and before that, at McCann’s Craft Worldwide.
The discipline will combine Omnicom's global production capabilities, encompassing Omnicom Studios, eg+, Designory, Mother Tongue, Link9, and its agencies’ own production departments, to deliver what they describe as ‘scaled content solutions powered by data-led technology’ for a future influenced by data and AI.
Charged with bringing the network's brands and capabilities together, and leading around 700 people under his production team’s remit, Sergio tells LBB’s Ben Conway about his vision for the new role, the importance of protecting Omnicom agencies’ creative integrity, and why this is about modernisation, not efficiency.
LBB> It feels like the launch of Omnicom Production has been in the works for a while, following the formation of Omnicom Studios and the acquisition of Coffee & TV - how and why has this come together?
Sergio> If you see what's happened in the last five years - covid taught us how to work remotely and has skyrocketed the consumption of social media content and connected content. You also have the disruption that AI has generated. So there are a lot of conversations that are leading to a lot of polarising concepts. You have the conversation about creativity and brand building, and the conversation about data-driven platforms and all this stuff. It feels like clients have to choose between one or the other, and that's why you have all this competition; in house or out of house, independents or holding companies, craft or performance. I believe the clients actually need all of that.
So when building modern production, let's use all the smart things that we can do with technology, because now people are used to having a life that is tailored to them and very much data-driven - on Spotify, on Netflix or WhatsApp. So advertising needs to be tailored for them [too]. But where does craft fit in?
If you look historically at Omnicom, firstly it's a holding company that has protected creativity for decades. Last year, it was Creative Holding Company of the Year at Cannes; it defined what Super Bowl commercials were with [TBWA\Chiat\Day’s Apple ad] ‘1984’; it defined the world of print with VW Beetle in the ‘60s and ‘70s with DDB; it defined what celebrated craftsmanship is with work like Guinness ‘Surfer’; and defined modern communications with ‘Viva la Vulva’. It's not just pretty work! They defined Christmas [advertising] with DDB and John Lewis in the UK.
We’re building something from that DNA of creativity. That and all the knowledge that we have now through Omnicom media, one of the largest media agencies. We’re bringing that together and that's how we will define what creativity for our platform world is - and this is the team that is going to make it happen, like they have in the past.
LBB> Omnicom has waited a bit longer than some of the other holding companies to centralise production - why is now specifically the right time to launch Omnicom Production?
Sergio> Strategically, Omnicom was protecting the creative integrity of its agencies at a time where creative integrity had to be protected - and they've done a really good job at that. It was just announced that it was the most effective holding company of the year [in the 2023 Effie Index]. So from results to creativity, they've done a really good job at protecting [that].
Having said that, eg+ was founded in 2014 and in the last two years there have been conversations about new ways of producing content. They recognised that they need to transform their model in a different way - not just based on efficiencies. Up until now, a lot of production was very efficiency-based: ‘How can you save 10% on production spending…?’
This is not an efficiency play, this is modernisation. It’s a strategy that is very much aligned with Omnicom’s belief, and now is the moment to do it because all the things are in place.
LBB> How are you hoping to continue protecting that creative integrity of all the different brands, while trying to bring them together on the production front and encourage these shared capabilities?
Sergio> The impact of creativity is massive. You can do very smart things with programmatic media buys and optimisation, and make things 10-15% smarter. But when you do really good creative, talking in client terms, you can be 300-400 times more effective. You can become iconic and do things that people will remember years later, which then becomes their association with the brand. So creativity is key in everything that we do - and that's the challenge of the project. Nobody has been able to protect the creative integrity in a world that is more complex. Everybody is just so overwhelmed with the ‘how we do it’ that the ‘what we do’ is suffering. That's why I believe that getting the best production teams on creative and getting those minds to figure out how to solve that problem is going to be the solution.
LBB> You’ve become something of a specialist in this role - building out Publicis Production and Craft Worldwide at McCann - how is this Omnicom job similar to those projects, and different from those projects?
Sergio> It's been different each time, due to what their needs were. Craft happened at a time where people were looking beyond television. In the UK, back then, it was the beginning of content - we used to call it ‘bits and bobs’, it wasn't a thing. Craft was about starting to create other things beyond television and print, and there were a lot of conversations back then about efficiency too. It became a really good place for any kind of creativity. When you look at the kind of work that was celebrated [at the time] - Xbox ‘Survival Billboard’ for example - and the kind of clients we were growing, they were looking for production efficiencies.
When I went to Publicis, the next iteration of the model was high connectivity with media, which they needed because of the ‘Power of One’. That was the creation of PXP, and taking Prodigious from being a studio to being a key content powerhouse.
When I look at Omnicom Production, the next iteration, the whole model needs to be redefined because AI is disrupting the entire model. Now it’s not just about how we connect this with that, it's how we use technology and data. This is very difficult because we're combining creative minds with more analytical minds - it’s the ‘cool kids’ and ‘the geeks’ all coming together, which creates a lot of possibilities.
But it's a much different challenge in a world where everybody's talking about AI. Not just generating images and videos, but getting to understand what people expect from us, and how we can make some of the things that we do better. I'm excited about my role at Omnicom Production because it’s going to be a new type of production for a wholly new type of world. It didn’t even exist in 2022, when AI was just a glimpse in somebody's eyes.
LBB> How are you going to adapt to this new AI and data-driven world? How will Omnicom’s existing tech, like Artbot, Omni and Adobe's Content Supply Chain solution, play into that?
Sergio> Those technologies work very well together. If you look at our partnership with Adobe, that’s the backbone that connects everything. Through Adobe Experience Manager, we have all the content that we produce in one place, so everybody can use it. We can build the clients libraries of stuff, so you reduce wastage - they might go on a shoot and have two hours worth of car footage, but only use one minute - the rest can be used for other stuff.
Then you have Omni, which is about understanding the audiences, connecting the content to ‘who am I talking to?’. With Omni, we can put those assets together in a way that caters to a person, while keeping the soul of the brand. And Artbot is the one that makes it happen. When you collect the data from Omni and the assets from Adobe, Artbot is the one that puts it together, and learns how to do that from how people react.
It's an ecosystem that connects very well, and that's why it needs Omnicom Production, and everything else we have, to make sure we can create all those images. Because when you start looking at connected TV, where we can do variations, plus all the social media channels, and 140 different markets, with three audiences in every market, you go from doing a lovely 30-second commercial to a massive list of things.
So it’s important to have a team of people that say, ‘This is where we shoot, this is how we’ll shoot it, this is stuff we can generate, this is stuff we can modify’... And that's where AI is a really interesting thing to have, because when some things need to be shot and others modified etc., you need to be able to have an understanding of that.
LBB> Omnicom Production is bringing many companies and capabilities under one roof - Omnicom Studios, eg+, Designory, Mother Tongue, Link9, and Omnicom agencies’ production departments. How will you facilitate and support this cross collaboration?
Sergio> It’s easy-ish to understand what the destination is; the difficulty is figuring out the path and bringing the people along. And it has to be people that embrace change and embrace the adventure, which isn’t for everybody. Walking in the dark is not for the faint of heart. Sometimes you go to the wrong places and have to pivot - I talk about it with excitement but it isn’t easy!
When we talk about challenges, it's not just about the vision, it’s understanding how to bring people along… Mentoring people and building teams that mentor each other. Possibly my favourite part of the job is building those teams that are going to make it happen. It’s very much a collective effort and means understanding what kinds of profiles you need. Not just finding who’s creative and who understands data, but personalities too - who is adventurous? Who's going to keep everybody safe? Who's going to keep everybody excited? Who's a specialist in X? And [you need] a combination - that's where real diversity in the workforce is.
LBB> And finally, what’s exciting you the most about this new venture?
Sergio> There are a lot of things! I love the roster of brands that we have here. When you go through the list, it's possibly one of the most inspiring roster of clients in the world. And, I mean, who [else] gets to work with people like David Lubars [BBDO chairman], Jeff Goodby [co-chairman at Goodby, Silverstein & Partners] and Chris Beresford-Hill [worldwide CCO at BBDO] every day? Chaka [Sobhani, president and global CCO of DDB Worldwide] has just joined too! When you look at who my creative partners are, that's exciting as it gets. For somebody like me, who comes from creative, it really is creative heaven.
