Building creative momentum: A look inside T&P's production team

Charlotte Bent, Group Creative Director, shares how collaboration, versatility, and efficiency drive their innovative production process.

In the fast-paced world of modern advertising, speed is everything. Charlotte Bent, Group Creative Director at T&P, shares the innovative ways her team is structured to produce timely, high-quality content.

By bringing strategists, creatives, and producers together under one roof, they’re able to work seamlessly and at lightning speed.

Can you give us an overview of your production team’s structure?

Moving at the speed of culture is really the name of the game and we’ve constructed our team to reflect this. First, from a purely physical standpoint, we have our strategists, creators and producers all sitting together, for the most part, rather than operating out of separate departments.

So, all the work, from ideation to production, is taking place – as much as it possibly can – in a single location. This allows us to move faster and limit any communication breakdowns that might occur when you’re passing things from department to department.

Because everyone is in the room, decisions are faster, work is more bespoke to each platform, and we can generate content within hours or days rather than weeks or months.

Another aspect we emphasize are team skillsets. Meaning, having people who, while they be specialists in a particular area, are also able to do a little bit of everything.

So, creatives who know their way around an editing tool or strategists who know how to wordsmith compelling copy. This is of course helped by AI, which allows us to automate some of these processes and also enables people to do things they might not have been able to do previously.

When everyone can do a bit of everything, there are less handoffs, less waiting around, and a greater sense of shared ownership over the final product. Which ultimately leads to faster turnarounds and more creatively cohesive work.

In your experience, what are the key ingredients or qualities that are essential for sustaining a high-performing production team in today’s fast-paced advertising environment?

There are several. Not letting perfect be the enemy of good. Having a team that isn’t just concerned about their part of the project but the entirety of it. And having a streamlined approval process that allows us to create work that’s relevant to the moment, rather than relevant to the moment a month ago.

Marketers need to produce content at the speed of culture that can legit compete with what’s out there in the creator-verse on YouTube, TikTok and Insta. And to do this at volume. You simply can’t get away with doing a TV spot and then carving it up in a variety of ways for the next three or six or nine months.

Again, having as much on site as possible is critical. The ability to have an idea, pick up a camera and then have something to review at the end of the day isn’t necessarily native to a lot of the ad world, but it’s increasingly the way the smartest marketers are going to operate.

Finally, having a willingness and the confidence to test and learn. Sometimes everyone just needs to jump off the cliff together.

What are the biggest challenges you face when balancing creative vision with production logistics, and how do you overcome them?

The hardest part is reconciling big creative ambition with the practical limits of time and budget. We solve it by scaling ideas early—agreeing together what’s non-negotiable and what can flex—so a great concept doesn’t die in production.

Can you share with us a recent project you’re proud of?

To efficiently produce a quarter’s worth of content for one of our clients, our agile team undertook a meticulously planned two-day intensive shoot. Recognizing the need to maximize resources and minimize costs, we strategically rented a sprawling estate offering a diverse array of indoor and outdoor scenes and locations.

This single location allowed us to create a multitude of distinct visual environments without the logistical complexities and expenses of traveling to multiple sites.

We invested heavily in pre-production, dedicating significant time to scouting the location, developing detailed shot lists, and sourcing a wide range of props and set dressings. This comprehensive preparation ensured that each scene was carefully curated and visually compelling, allowing us to create varied and high-quality content.

The key to our success was the ability to run multiple shooting teams concurrently. By dividing our team into specialized units focused on different concepts and locations within the estate, we were able to maximize our shooting time and capture a greater volume of content.

This synchronized approach, combined with our thorough pre-production, resulted in the successful capture of multiple distinct concepts and the creation of a valuable library of assets, providing ample content for the upcoming quarter and beyond.

This efficient approach not only met the immediate needs of our client but also established a scalable model for future content creation projects.