WPP Brings Its Production Muscle Under One Roof With WPP Production

WPP is reorganising how it makes things, and the signal is clear. Production is no longer a support function. It is becoming the engine.

The holding company is consolidating its global production capabilities, including those of its long-standing production arm Hogarth, into a single unit called WPP Production. The new organisation officially launches on February 23 and will be led by Richard Glasson, currently global CEO of Hogarth. Once live, WPP Production will bring together more than 10,000 production specialists across over 40 locations worldwide.

On paper, this is a structural change. In practice, it is a strategic one.

By moving all creative producers onto a single global platform, WPP is betting that collaboration, speed, and consistency matter more than agency silos. The unit will operate through WPP Open, the company’s operating system, and is designed to better harness generative AI through virtual and hybrid production models.

This move comes at a moment when WPP is under pressure to simplify. Late in 2025, the company reported a revenue decline and made it clear that streamlining operations and investing in AI-powered services were central to its turnaround strategy. Production consolidation fits squarely into that plan.

Client demand is another driver. As media becomes more fragmented and always-on, brands are asking for a wider range of content, tailored to more formats, faster than ever. Glasson has described this as a hunger for “different types of content for different purposes,” and WPP Production is positioned as a high-velocity content studio built to meet that need.

Importantly, WPP has said the move is not about cutting jobs. No layoffs are anticipated, and the intent is scale and effectiveness rather than cost reduction. The company also plans to open additional studio locations globally to support content capture and virtual production, building on its London hub.

Zooming out, this is about more than WPP. With the advertising industry reshaping itself amid consolidation and AI acceleration, scale in production and technology is becoming a competitive advantage. WPP Production is a signal that the future of agencies may hinge less on how ideas are conceived, and more on how quickly and intelligently they can be produced, adapted, and optimised.

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Read the full article here: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/wpp-rolls-production-capabilities-into-new-wpp-production-unit/810502/