5 Minutes with… Stephen Ledger-Lomas
Stephen Lomas is the chief production officer and partner at BBH London – an advertising agency whose production credentials are hard to deny. His past roles are equally impressive. He has previously held production leadership roles at Mother London, David James Associates, Winkreative, Art+Commerce and Dazed / Nowness.
As well as protecting and nurturing BBH's excellence in production craft, Stephen’s focused on improving BBH’s ability to deliver against multi-channel briefs, broadening the diversity of production talent, and further developing and expanding Black Sheep Studios, BBH's in-house production company.
LBB’s Alex Reeves caught up with Stephen to get to know him a bit better.
LBB> You started your career in a very different corner of the creative industries at Dazed. What do you think about most when you look back on that period?
Stephen> Dazed was the most incredible academy and platform for talent, it still is. Jefferson Hack (co-founder and editor in chief) is a lightning rod for creative people. And he has that most precious ability to give space and autonomy to the teams he puts together.
Dazed itself, now a multi-channel platform, aimed to ‘be the first to know’ across fashion, art, music, film and beyond. One of the most inspiring aspects was Jefferson’s ability to innovate the business, creating a brand tone of voice that worked for advertising and branded content, being one of the first in the market to realise the algorithmic power of video with the Nowness platform, and always championing what is next. Dazed had a defiant point of view and moved on when things became mainstream. As the expression goes: “you never own talent, you merely borrow it”.
Jefferson had a small framed piece above his desk that said “If you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything” and I took that with me. Not literally.
LBB> When did you first feel that you were working in advertising? And why did that end up being the direction you headed in?
Stephen> Mother London was my full-throttle introduction to above the line advertising. I joined in 2008 and it truly had a special culture. The work was everything, but it also wrapped its arms around you as an agency. People there became lifelong friends. It was both a blessing and a curse to be producing in that agency at a time when it was so inundated with creative talent.
This business can be tough on people, especially for those that are personally unable to dedicate themselves with the required intensity. It was long hours and a lot of pressurised situations, with at times almost too much autonomy. When I left in 2013 I needed a break and went production company side for a while, but the thing which has almost always kept me coming back is the type of people the best agencies attract, and the variety of the work.
LBB> Agency production departments are all about finding the most exciting talent and matching them with the right projects. What was that process like at Mother in the early 2010s?
Stephen> We worked with some outrageously talented photographers and directors: Wim Wenders, Ryan McGinley, Annie Leibowitz to name a few, and there was a lot of freedom within small teams to really push clients hard for the absolute best realisation of the work. The quality of the creative opened a lot of doors, and let budgets work twice as hard, but it was always the dedication to the craft of the final executions that made the difference. Endless design development, retouch, music searches, edit. Mother also brought on experiential partners like Punchdrunk to do really innovative things in brand experience, immersive creativity that pushed the boundaries of what was possible.
LBB> BBH strikes me as an agency that's always respected specialist production partners and worked with the right ones for the right projects. Was that one of the things that attracted you when you joined in 2018? What else drew you?
Stephen> The number one thing which attracted me to BBH was the creative legacy and the reputation of this production department. More than 40 years of production excellence, finding, developing and giving a voice to some of the most seminal directors, photographers, illustrators, typographers of our times.
Producers at BBH are referred to as the ‘third creative’ for good reason; the partnerships formed with the creative department are crucial in the success of the work. BBH is always at our best when we are looking at who is next, and that is something we have been striving to push even harder for in my years running the department.
In my humble opinion we have the most talented production department in London, and 2024 is already looking like we have the creative ambition to match that.
LBB> Having been chief production officer for two years now, what do you consider the importance of that role to be within an agency? We're seeing more and more c-suite production positions in UK agencies right now.
Stephen> Strategy and creative are only theories or hypotheses until they are executed. Production is the tangible realisation of those ideas. It seems incomprehensible to me that any agency geared towards creative excellence wouldn’t have production represented at the top table. To truly connect every part of the agency process back to the output. The output is the thing which defines you and if you don’t champion and protect the producers, the makers, then you are nowhere.
LBB> What projects have you been most proud of in your career and why?
Stephen> Early in my career I was Rankin’s production manager and we produced the global Dove ‘Real Beauty’ campaign with Ogilvy that flew in the face of all of the category norms for beauty. It was real women, shot on film, totally unretouched and ran globally with a huge impact.
Later when I worked for Dazed, a small team of us launched the Nowness website and we commissioned some incredible bespoke content with amazing creators for one of the first dedicated video platforms. I remember the freedom we had to work with directors like Poppy de Villeneuve on her Rambert Dance Company project.
When I was head of art buying at Mother London I also worked as photographic director of Port Magazine with one of my all time favourite creative directors: Matt Willey (Pentagram). For the film issue (9) editor Dan Crowe brought Daniel Day Lewis on as guest editor and we commissioned and produced an issue dedicated to the craft of film. Stefan Ruiz shot the cover with PT Anderson in LA. It was a beautifully crafted and intricately constructed magazine under Matt’s watchful eye.
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At BBH we have worked closely with Grenfell campaign group Justice4Grenfell on a number of projects. In 2019 we took over London Fashion Week with a deeply emotive activation which represented all 72 victims of the tragedy. It was one of the most powerful demonstrations of creativity for good and a beautiful example of collaboration working alongside experiential production company powerhouse Blonstein.
LBB> What have you recently done that you'd be proud to share with non-advertising friends and family?
Stephen> Last year we produced a boundary breaking campaign addressing the major (but rarely discussed) survivorship issue of people living with and beyond cancer: Sex. Working alongside GIRLvsCANCER and its incredible founder Lauren Mahon, photographer Katie Burdon (Academy), director Sophia Ray (Academy) and a group of artists, produced a powerful and provocative campaign to drag this issue into public discourse.
My own mum is in remission from cancer and on viewing the campaign at launch sent me a message saying this was: “exactly what was needed, tackling the subject head on”. She felt it spoke directly to her experience of being greeted with a head tilt and a concerned look, and no longer feeling herself. It made me cry on the Tube on the way to work, and made me so proud that our incredible team made this work and managed to get it seen by the world.
LBB> You're still a photographer and consumer of culture. What's exciting to you outside of advertising right now and what is it giving you that your day job doesn't?
Stephen> I’ll always take pictures, I’ll always daydream about watching things grow and being out in the world pursuing something more singular. I think it’s healthy to feel curious about the world, to be committed to what is happening in art, film, fashion, music, culture. But the truth is that I love the culture of BBH and the people it manages to pull together to sit under one big Soho roof.
