MCA Embeds Strategy at Every Stage of a Client’s Business to Futureproof Success

Strategy is knowing where you want to go and mapping a great route to get there. With so many continuous changes happening in today’s marketplace, having a robust, expansive, and adaptable strategy is one of the key ways to stay focused on what matters and free of the distractions that don’t. "More than ever, we need agency partners to see around corners and innovate in areas such as measurement, stewardship, content development, artificial intelligence, immersive experiences, multicultural media ecosystem development, media supply chain efficiency, and the future of media and advertising,” said Marc Pritchard, P&G’s chief brand officer, during last year’s keynote speech.

Global production specialist MCA has, for over two decades, helped brands to do more with their shrinking ad budgets without detriment to the quality of the creative. Stefan Kerridge, MCA’s strategy director, believes that now is the time for marketers to shift the conversation and start asking how to redesign and rebuild the marketing and production ecosystem to offer more flexibility, enable creativity at the same time enable control and transparency at every stage.

This is why MCA is focusing on a strategic, data and insights driven approach, under Stefan’s direction, to help lead this necessary transformation. “We leverage a wealth of experience that spans the MCA global team, including agency producers, production company owners, post-production, audio and SFX experts, media specialists, and client-side veterans. Having personally spent over 20 years on the client side working for companies like PepsiCo, Ferrero, Pizza Hut, and Premier Foods, I fully understand the pressures marketers are facing,” Stefan says.

LBB spoke to Stefan about how this approach will enable creativity while delivering value, the three core pillars at the centre of the new offering, and how better use of data and asset lifecycle management can quickly—yet sustainably—enhance desired results.

LBB> MCA aims to address current and future marketing challenges through three key pillars. Please share what they are and why they’re going to provide effective solutions.

Stefan> We are driven by a passion for bringing this together multiple elements of consulting expertise and combining it with strategic insight. This approach is built around enabling creativity and delivering value through a focused and strategic methodology. We connect insights and intelligence through proprietary technology to deliver breakthrough commercial outcomes for marketing teams. The three pillars we focus on, are:

Production Consulting: Serving brands in every aspect of asset and content production.

Marketing Transformation and Ecosystem Design: Evolving and enhancing brands' entire production and advertising landscapes.

Data Analytics, Insights, and Global Trends: Leveraging proprietary technology, data, industry knowledge across 60+ countries and global trends to measure and manage data, delivering powerful insights to drive value and change.

 

LBB> MCA has consulted on over 10,000 projects and collected a lot of data. How are you planning to use this data and the insights gleaned to help your clients?

Stefan> Driving insights through data has never been more important. We will harness data collected through our proprietary Control Room technology to derive valuable insights. We’re bringing together both quantitative and qualitative insights from thousands of projects in over 100 countries. It’s a treasure trove of information, insights, and intelligence providing an unrivalled view of the advertising production industry worldwide. This includes every asset type, shoot type and location, costs, deliverables, agency, production company and supplier details, sustainability, and DE&I metrics across a wide range of industries. By leveraging our benchmarking insights from the 'production league index' and conducting bespoke, targeted research on industry hot topics, we stay ahead of trends and provide our clients with cutting-edge solutions.

 

LBB> How are you using this proprietary data to communicate with clients and to deliver necessary savings? What parts of a clients’ business does the data inform?

Stefan> We can demonstrate that early engagement and better upfront planning result in a 50% increase in value delivery—an essential factor as project lead times continue to shrink, with the average time between brief and shoot decreasing by 15%. This approach also allows us to gain a clear understanding of the creative ambition from the outset, enabling us to effectively support both clients and agency partners in delivering work that stands out and achieves key marketing KPIs.

From a client perspective, this proof around delivering better results through better upfront planning helps reinforce the need for great briefing—a key issue for the industry. Better Briefs' global survey found that while over 86% of agencies and marketers agreed that briefs are important, there is a disconnect in the quality of briefing; 80% of marketers felt they were good at writing briefs, while only 10% of agencies agreed.

Our research helps inform practical decisions for clients on where to shoot, which agency and production partners to consider, the optimum process to enable creativity, and deliver value through a range of key industry challenges. These include the future of advertising content, in-housing models and trends, industry innovation, the benefits of new technology and techniques, and how the industry is going to shape and service the needs of clients in the future. These insights enable us to anticipate market shifts and craft strategies that are proactive, not reactive.

LBB> Creative assets don’t have the longest lifecycle in this industry which can be incredibly wasteful and costly. How is MCA rethinking asset lifecycle management and what benefits will this bring about?

Stefan> The traditional linear and siloed model of communications planning and asset development is no longer sustainable. Many agencies and holding groups struggle to adapt, often prioritising solutions that serve their profit motives over the needs of their clients. We still frequently see a default reliance on 30-second TVC scripts, while media agencies push prearranged bulk deals. The old saying, "to every hammer, the problem looks like a nail," remains unfortunately true.

I’d also challenge the perception that creative assets inherently have short lifecycles. That notion stems from the outdated, linear approach to content creation. At MCA, we’ve started using the phrase, “The most effective way to produce assets is not to produce at all.” While it might sound unconventional coming from a production consultancy, it reflects the reality that budgets are tightening, lead times are shrinking, and countless assets stored on DAM systems are never utilised.

The solution lies in creating assets in a more flexible, modular way, with a focus on reuse. Modular content enables clients to efficiently repurpose existing creative elements, maximizing their value across platforms and campaigns. This approach not only shortens production timelines but also reduces costs, allowing brands to maintain consistency while quickly adapting to emerging trends and audience preferences. By leveraging modular assets, you are able to enhance creative flexibility, ensure brand cohesion, and deliver personalized messaging at scale—all while optimising resources and driving measurable results.

In solving these problems, the start point is to rebuild the right ecosystem, we employ a proprietary approach we call P.A.C.E. with a key focus on both upfront alignment of the company and marketing vision and the practicalities of implementing and embedding change through detailed planning, resourcing, training, and improved ways of working. P.A.C.E. is an acronym for:

P - Purpose: Aligning company and marketing vision with the need for transformation.

A - Audit: Conducting a comprehensive audit and stakeholder interviews to inform a proposed ecosystem for the future.

C - Change: Detailed planning across internal, agency, production, and tech ecosystems.

E - Embed: Supporting recruitment, training, capability development, processes, and ways of working.

 

LBB> What kind of changes can clients expect from implementing MCA’s asset lifecycle management strategy?

Stefan> Once implemented, the first major change is to encourage early engagement and planning for all parties involved. This leads to the development of an independent and agnostic content strategy that supports a broader channel mix, increased breadth of assets, and an agnostic approach to support both traditional and new communication disciplines. This strategy should consider a culturally relevant and audience-first approach, key connection moments and considerations, channel locations, customer journey planning, production, and activation.

It should also leverage insights and assets from previous campaigns, avoiding the unsustainable habit of recreating new campaign assets from scratch. Additionally, it should focus on developing modular and layered assets to maximise flexibility, use, and reuse across different media channels.

 

LBB> How are you leveraging new technologies and innovations to drive real results for your clients?

Stefan> MCA are dedicated to continuously improving and innovating our strategic propositions by testing and validating new ideas to address the big questions facing our clients. We explore cutting-edge technologies like virtual production, AI, and connected devices while consulting on new channels and asset types, including influencer, social, and user-generated content. Of course, AI is on everybody's lips right now, and its potential in advertising production is vast. From streamlining asset creation with dynamic templates to enabling hyper-personalized content at scale, AI is transforming how we approach creativity, efficiency, and audience engagement. Beyond idea generation, AI helps optimize workflows, predict campaign performance, and even automate repetitive production tasks, freeing up creative teams to focus on innovation. Beyond exploring these technologies, we focus on turning innovation into action, delivering tangible results. As early as 2022, we helped Reckitt address key challenges—creating more assets, enhancing creativity, and reducing budgets through tight SOW management, combining shots and utilising virtual production. According to the client, “Our objective now is to get to a global scale and to produce more than 80% of our production volume in this way in the future.”

LBB> Besides production, what other parts of the industry is MCA zeroing in on?

Stefan> In-housing is another area ripe for exploration. As clients seek more control, we help them navigate the options, challenges, and best practices for setting up in-house capabilities. The rise of connected devices also poses questions about whether manufacturers like LG and Samsung will become the media owners of the future, owning the audience's attention.

Moreover, we consult on the impact of these changes on production, post-production, audio, and SFX suppliers. These areas are most affected by new technology, requiring a stronger mindset of adaptation and versioning, with a lot more graphic-based work and automation taking over traditional roles.

LBB> In your view, why is MCA uniquely positioned to help clients futureproof success in such unsteady waters?

Stefan> We are poised to lead the future of marketing and advertising production by redefining advertising and production models, leveraging advanced technology, and providing strategic insights. Our approach centres on client needs, data-driven strategies, and innovative solutions, ensuring we not only adapt to the evolving landscape but also shape it for our clients' success. The future is here, and with the right strategies, we can navigate its complexities and seize its opportunities. In this landscape, the businesses that thrive will be those that can not only keep up with change but lead it, driving innovation and value every turn.