As content demand continues to grow, in-house agencies must strike a careful balance between speed, scale, and quality. In the 2025 Global Benchmark Report for Content Production, James Mathers, Head of Operations at Three’s In-House Creative Agency, shared a candid look at the pressures and priorities shaping his team.
In Conversation with James Mathers, Head of Operations at Three
Q. What do you see as the three biggest content challenges for your business and team in 2025?
James Mathers: The first challenge, I see, and this is true for a lot of in-house agencies, is the relationship we’re looking to build with the wider business functions that enable the agency to operate effectively, especially from a resource perspective.
If resources are stretched and we need to change the shape of the team, or we need to partner with other agencies, we need to ensure we respect the processes in place to set ourselves up for success, as we’re not a separate P&L.
The second challenge is effective prioritization. A theme throughout 2024 and moving into 2025 is our workload. Demand is high, which is great, we’re definitely not short of work, and our profile internally has built well so we’re in a fortunate position. We’re very lucky to have really great talent within the team and across all areas, from account management, right through to production.
We do have a big demand for work though, especially as we work on both the UK and Irish markets. So effective prioritization and positioning that back to key stakeholders is an ongoing conversation. Myself and our head of client services work very closely, and we’re constantly testing and learning to find the right prioritization approach.
Thirdly, staffing will continue to be a challenge in 2025. We have enough work to employ more, but managing headcount is extremely important. We need to keep the wheels turning and we need to attract the right talent but also work within the process and respect the procurement framework defined by the business. The industry is moving quickly, so recruitment needs to work at a pace that matches this.
Q. Are your content budgets increasing, decreasing or about the same as last year? If you had extra budget, where would you spend it?
James Mathers: Budgets in 2025 will more than likely stay the same. I don’t foresee any increases, potentially a decrease, but this is dependent on the wider business.
We have some people at the moment that we could very easily extend, we could grow the team by 10% quite quickly based on volume, maybe even 20% – we need to consider this when budgeting
Q. To what extent are you incorporating automation and AI into your content production? Any lessons learned so far?
James Mathers: This question comes up often. AI is quite prevalent. We have tried to get in front of AI and are educating our teams on the possibilities of the use of AI in our business. We have an agency management system that we’re currently implementing that has an element of AI, which will help with efficiency, and take away some of the admin that producers and account managers have when costing up projects. But as far as AI for content production we’re not using it in day-to-day production.
There’s a slight nervousness as it’s still early days, personally I don’t see a humongous issue as long as they’re using it in the right way – for example pumping briefs into ChatGPT; I wouldn’t encourage a copywriter to do that.
Using it for idea generation, while the actual creative work is still human, is okay. In terms of automation, we have some suppliers that have used automation for online banners, and some other areas of creative production. There’s certainly a use case for it, and we’re also exploring this area. The worst thing is when there is a wave of technological advancement, you don’t want to be left behind. You need to be on the boat with everyone else, and this includes AI.
Q. What are the macro trends changing how your studio, how will your agency look maybe in two to three years-time?
James Mathers: We have a big production element, but as a conscious effort are pushing for more creative work. The production element won’t change any time soon, but we’re now working on sponsorship opportunities and pushing for bigger briefs. The landscape will evolve and change over time.
Q. How do you measure success when working with an external partner?
James Mathers: Culture and collaboration are equally important. We have to fully integrate with an external partner. We’ll always send an in-house producer and client services member to the shoot, for example, to ensure we can work collaboratively and be involved creatively and in the edit.
We often bring partners in that have a very different skill set to us, so when on-boarding that partner culture, collaboration and I would also add communication, are the foundations to a strong, successful partnership.
Q. How does your in-house team engage with sustainability?
James Mathers: We don’t have a specific sustainability policy within the agency, but of course the wider business has an ongoing sustainability effort and sustainability policy which we align to when we’re running shoots. This ensures we always have small, tight teams in order that we’re more sustainable as a business.
We do a lot of print production, as part of our retail point of sale, so we work closely with our print suppliers to ensure there’s a sustainable supply chain. Sustainability is a very important subject, and if we can make an impact through our working practices, we should.
Want more insights like this?
Download the 2025 Global Benchmark Report for Content Production to hear from other industry leaders and see how content production is evolving across the globe.
