Article.

40 years of creativity

How the industry has changed since WMP started in 1984

 
 
Length 14 min read

It has been interesting to look back on some of the creative work that we have delivered for clients over the last 40 years. Many fun projects spring to mind as if they happened last week and it’s given us a good opportunity to take stock. What has changed, how have we moved forward, what is fundamentally unchanged

Technologies have unsurprisingly been one of the biggest drivers of change and progression. It’s amusing to reflect back to our starting point – multimedia production that at times involved synchronisation of up to fifty carousel projectors to a narrative that mainly delivered B2B messages. In its day, this was a highly engaging medium, using 35mm film and immaculately crafted sound tracks. Video walls followed, nearly as harrowingly unreliable since the computer technology involved was so cutting edge and niche.

In some areas such as film, stills, and audio there is currently a nostalgic trend towards retro. But, in my mind, what we now do with huge scale LED screens, walls and environments takes the possibilities into another realm, which is literally only limited by the imagination, and this is truly exciting to be part of.

The virtual worlds offered by Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies open additional dimensions to have creative fun, and creating stereoscopic UHD visualisations of partly designed infrastructure for one of the world’s largest property developers was a huge privilege. I have always derived the greatest satisfaction from projects which push the envelope a little further, creating content and telling stories in a way that is beyond expectations. Why would creatives be doing what we do if we didn’t all find it supremely satisfying to complete a project or campaign that we can be truly proud of?

On the topic of change, the second major development within WMP has been the diversification of both service offerings and geographical spread.

It might, for some, be difficult to imagine that video was initially very primitive, so we moved into movie making in the early 80s as soon as the technologies became usable. How liberating it was to be able to use presenters, actors and fluid camera moves in those early days. Now we take it for granted that 6K drones can give access to amazing shots, and multi-camera shoots can be streamed around the world with ease, without the need for specialist satellite receiving kit. More than once in the past, clients needed to specially move satellites to enable remote transmissions.

Image: our multi-media programming rig

Expanding into Live Events

Expanding our capabilities to live events production introduced yet another layer – the live audience, and on occasion, quite adventurous business theatre. Launching their computers using a Hitchhikers Guide theme and favourable comparisons against the competition helped to propel Amstrad into a steep growth curve, while roadshows and channel partner events for Sony, Budget car rental, Kuoni Travel and others helped motivate employees and strengthen and build business.

Again, early technology in terms of projection and lighting, and the creation of experiential environments has moved on enormously to be increasingly reliable as well as far higher quality.

Image: Launching Amstrad computers at the QE2, 1986

Taking on ambitious challenges

Projects for a client in North Africa have also been some of the most challenging that I have seen to date anywhere in the industry, and these will always be a source of pride. One complex event designed to showcase a huge engineering achievement to African Heads of State was one I will never forget.

The event site chosen was so remote that we had to get a 21km tarmac road built for the delegate journey. There, we erected a giant temporary dome and a secondary dome for an exhibition area, within which we ran laser shows, and projected specially made films on three screens, rising and lowering above a purpose-built water feature. We also projected films, lasers and lighting onto a wall of water and created bridges enabling our VIPs to cross into a bespoke exhibition space featuring interactive kiosks and a full scale exhibition. The film and multimedia content as well as the brochure materials all had to be delivered in three languages, as did the text accompanying illustrations painted onto specially constructed giant sculptures relevant to the client’s scheme.

We chartered two Boeing 707s and an Antonov to transport all the structures, kit and specially manufactured furniture. The only communications available was one satellite phone and a pylon was moved to bring 400kv of power to the site, along with a 1mw generator. Temperatures reached 40C so our AC was pushed to the limit.

It was ambitious. But what made the project especially challenging was the timeline: from receiving a verbal brief the entire project had to be ready to receive VIPs and VVIPs within a time frame of just seven weeks. In this time we created and presented the concept, prepared all the site infrastructure including the road itself and all the extensive ground works. We created content from scratch including filming, editing, designing all materials, printing a brochure, hand caste etched glass VIP giveaway sculptures and even creating a new website – also in three languages. It was a little tiring for all concerned but after that event, anything has seemed relatively easy and I am enormously thankful to the heroic team and crew who made it all happen.

Image: a large-scale project delivered in challenging conditions in North Africa

A drive for Design 

The events work needed design input and this created the need for a design department, the team members of whom I am still in touch with as with many previous staff. That development gave WMP the edge from the very early days of the 80s and the comment that we are design-driven is still one that often comes through. Not of course just for the design component of our events but also stand-alone brand work and printed collateral, which there remains a need for in addition to the digital work.

Image: Design soon came hand in hand with Video and Events

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Location, location, location

I have always believed that the character of a workspace is an important aspect of maintaining an active, creative vibe as well as being important for everyone’s quality of working life. In London, we started life in a highly characterful organ building workshop that I invested in and renovated. It was a great space but initially, we couldn’t afford to heat it properly – all funds went into delivering good work. So when one of our first group of clients came to preview a multi media experience in the middle of a freezing cold winter we came up with the idea of a coat rack and loads of coats. Instead of taking coats from our clients on arrival we offered them all an additional one which kept everyone toasty warm and was generally thought of as being creative. Thankfully, things have moved on since then!

 

Image: Our Shepherds Bush studio (converted from an organ building factory) in the 1980s

Technology as well as increased funds made it possible to work from our new Oxford office and what a revelation it was to eventually have a 900MB connection that could enable us to talk to our offices in London, Doha and WMP offices in Dubai and Shanghai, bringing in clients and partners from all over the world.  That is probably still to me the most extraordinary technology and since we had been using Skype since around 2002, we were very used to having open line video calls when the Pandemic hit so for the service areas that were able to work from home it was ‘business as usual’.

Geographically, our film making and live events extended to deliver in multiple countries around the world, and setting up an office in Qatar was a massive milestone for WMP. Our wonderful team, under the management of Julian and Alli, reliably produce huge volumes of amazing work and some of the projects that we can be most proud of as a company have been delivered – usually in extremely difficult conditions – in Qatar.

Numerous projects from the early days are notable, including creating a film about Sheikh Jassim and his role in the formation of the State as we now know it, shot on 35mm with a 90 man crew mostly from the feature film industry. Creating a desert set in the National Theatre in Doha we ran the first screening to VVIPs at National Day and in that same year designed the first production of what is now an even larger annual production – Daarb Al Saai.

 

Image: Qatar projects and filming ‘Jassim’

A focus on user experience 

We set up Digital as a department shortly after moving our HQ to Oxford and this amazes me in terms of the abilities we can create for clients, ranging beyond regular websites and into User Experience that vastly improves ways of activating IOT devices and solving practical issues such as gas detection or enabling video kiosks. The digital team have transformed our capability in this area as well as transforming the efficiency of many client’s products and operations.

WMP is very much a family business with a fiercely guarded family ethic and it was a joy to welcome my eldest son, Hugo, to join WMP from a leading product design agency and set up his own team to design an incredible range of products, from mobile phones through to sleep products and action camera systems to pizza ovens. In addition, we have the unique ability to take a product through its entire life cycle from analysing the need to positioning, building a brand and then using all the tools in our armoury to bring the product to market.

Image: user experience drives both product design and digital

Creating engaging live experiences 

Following a number of years at a leading sports consultancy, our second son Rupert also joined the team and set up our sports department. We bought, and have been managing, three Half Marathons as well as creating our own Triathlon. In addition to this, the London team run a huge number of ‘Active’ running and cycling events for clients, not just in the UK but other European destinations including France, Belgium and Italy.

Seeing the range of experiential events that our events team are creating fills me with particular pride. We created plenty of launches and larger scale events in the early days but the level of professionalism, engagement and sheer quality has simply got better and better.

Image: live events ranging from exhibitions and experiential to active and mass participation

Fostering talent

One product design client once requested that our response to her brief should bring her to tears with joy, as was the case with the first designs we did for her. I took this to be one of our best compliments. For me it is a joy to see the beautiful work that radiates from our Design team as well as the PD team. It is also satisfying to witness the tendency for WMP staff to stay with us and we are honoured that our Head of Design, Ashley, has been with the company for 20 years!

We are nothing without our amazing team and have had an astonishing range of talent in the company both past and present, supported and augmented by legions of awesome independent specialists and partners who remain an invaluable component of our capability. Keeping the wheels in motion inevitably becomes more complex with growth and our very capable MD continues to do a great job running the day-to-day business. More recently the appointment of our excellent Marketing Director and her supporting team was equally strategic, bringing an additional layer of well founded strategy to client projects, enabling us to create cross media campaigns based on solid foundations, often with more measurable outcomes.

Image: the team at our converted Barns in Oxford

Maximising creativity for maximum value

The combination of awesome people with multiple skills sets is powerful and clients who ask WMP to create fully integrated programmes has been massively satisfying for our teams and given great value for our clients. We were so grateful to our client Amerisleep when they asked us to not just design a new range of product for them but also create a new brand, design their flagship store, create animations to run in the stores and TV commercials as part of a brand awareness campaign.

Client relationships of this sort are special and we love being more than just a creative supplier. Staff at 3M once thought we were part of the company since we were so integral to the European operation, a perfect client partnership.

Image: an integrated campaign for Amerisleep

The future & adopting AI

The contemporary philosopher Yeoval Harrari predicted in his excellent book Homo Deus around 10 years ago that the future would be drastically affected by AI across almost all sectors of society and across most professions and working groups, from medicine to music. He has proved to be absolutely accurate and that future is now the present.

WMP has always been sufficiently nimble to service new emerging market sectors, embracing the best tools available, across the board. So it was easy for us to take a view that, alarming though AI will be for many individuals in society at large, this is a development that we can use to massive advantage to accelerate the rate of delivery for clients and often improve the output in the process.

So it is awesome to see all our teams integrating AI into most of their workstreams. We use AI voice overs, AI speeds up our edit work flow, scenes can be extended as needed, and we use Midjourney to visualise complex scenes in an unbelievably short time.

Some things never change

So what has remained unchanged? Aside from the move to social media, some client needs and marketing planning are frequently comparable to the early years, and the fundamentals of running a business remain.

The main constant however is the need to maintain a fundamental ethic of always aiming to create work that will amaze and delight our clients and their internal and external customers. The quest for achieving that big smile, making all the work seem worthwhile, is part of our DNA. In this journey, we have at times been guilty of over-servicing. But there are worse sins in life.

I have been extraordinarily fortunate to have been able to work in this exciting industry, with the bonus of working for such a wide range of fascinating client businesses and the satisfaction of seeing great work being delivered by WMP. A huge thanks to all the wonderful clients who have trusted and supported WMP over these last years, those who are working with us currently and everyone who has been part of our journey thus far.

So one chapter is complete and the next has started, with the promise and excitement of great things ahead in the next 40 years of creative excellence for WMP.