Welcome to the XR State of Ad Ops Report: UK Edition, a study into the changing reality of advertising creative production, marketing operations, and the impact of AI on everything.
Advertising teams are producing more work than ever, but the systems behind that work are under growing pressure. As campaigns stretch across more formats, channels and audiences, the challenge is no longer just making great creative. It's managing the complexity that comes with it.
XR partnered with a leading research firm to understand how UK brands, agencies, production companies, and media agencies are adapting. The findings show a market still investing and innovating, but increasingly exposed by the operational pressure sitting behind the work.
Production Volume Is Rising,
But Resources Are Not Keeping Pace
The UK market isn't short of creative. It's short of capacity.
Brands are producing more creative than ever, agencies are delivering more ads across more channels, and the volume of work keeps growing. But teams, budgets, and operational workflows aren't keeping pace and the cracks are starting to show.
For brands, this means more pressure on marketers already working at capacity. For agencies and production companies, it means more deliverables, more versions, and more complexity, often without the budget growth to match.
Say ad production volume has increased from a year ago
Are producing more with flat or shrinking internal resources
Of agencies and production companies say clients want more creative without meaningful investment growth
Marketers Feel In Control,
But the Data Tells a Different Story
Most marketers believe they have good visibility into their production budgets and that their creative and finance teams are well aligned.
But campaigns rarely unfold exactly as planned. Briefs change, approvals stall, channels multiply, and new creative directions emerge. That's when the gap becomes clear: marketing teams can see the budget, but they often lack visibility and control over what happens to it once projects are underway.
Nearly 70% of marketers go over budget.
Across brands, agencies, and production companies, nearly 7 in 10 report going over budget at least some of the time.
Scope creep and unplanned revisions or reshoots are the leading causes overall.
Work Is Getting Stuck Before It Gets Made
The biggest delays often happen before campaigns really get going and during the final stages of review. Budget approval, legal sign-off, compliance review, creative alignment and brief approval are the points where momentum starts to slow.
For brands, the pressure is concentrated around budget and legal clearance, with 57% citing budget approvals as a top bottleneck. Agencies face a wider spread of friction across approvals, compliance, and coordination.
Production companies feel the strain later in the process, especially around post-production and versioning, with 43% citing post-production as a top bottleneck.
Budget Approvals
Delays often start before work even begins.
Creative Concepting
Ideas take longer to align across stakeholders.
Legal & Compliance Review
Final creative and campaign approvals slow down time to market.
Scope Cuts Are a Symptom,
Not a Solution
The pattern is familiar: a creative direction is agreed, production starts and then the work begins to change shape. Then, stakeholder feedback shifts the direction, legal approval takes longer than expected, or an extra version becomes essential late in the process.
Scope cuts are often treated as the sensible fix when budgets tighten or timelines shrink. The data tells a different story. They’re less a solution than a warning sign that the operating model is under pressure.
Full-service agencies feel this the most. They’re managing more moving parts, rising client demand and tighter commercial conditions, while also reporting the highest levels of budget overruns, late launches, and scope reductions.
83% scale back creative scope at least sometimes
The Industry Keeps Making Assets it Doesn't Use
As production volumes grow to meet cross-platform demand, the real challenge isn't just creating more content, it's ensuring the creative you invest in actually makes it to market.
More than half of respondents use less than 70% of the creative assets they produce. That means a significant share of production spend is being tied up in work that never has the chance to deliver value.
Less than 70%
of creative assets get used
Over half of all marketers admit to using less than 70% of the assets they produce.
Why Finished Work Gets Killed Before It Runs
Advertising assets are produced and budgets are spent, but getting creative into market comes with its own challenges. Creative direction often changes, ads test poorly, approvals stall, executives request last-minute revisions, or key campaign windows are missed.
To keep campaigns moving, brands and agencies need creative workflows that give everyone visibility into what's being made, who's approving it, what it costs, and where it will be distributed. Without that visibility, too much great creative goes unused and too much marketing investment is wasted.
"We spent a year working on a project for a major tech brand, and once it was finished, they decided not to use it. Four years later, the same client came back with the exact same brief, and the same thing happened again.”
Prominent UK Commercial Director
Campaign direction changes after production
Asset did not perform well in testing
Asset was not approved by client, legal or compliance
Asset was superseded by a newer version
Timing or campaign window was missed
Social Carries the Volume, But Branded Content and CTV Carry the Investment
Most production resources are concentrated where the volume is highest, while the investment priority is moving towards formats that take more planning and production oversight.
Paid social and online video keep the production engine running every day, but ranks last for investment priority. By contrast, branded content, CTV, and podcasts are where UK advertisers are prioritising their budgets.
That creates a more complex operational challenge for UK marketers. Teams must produce a constant stream of social content while ensuring their highest-value campaigns receive the planning and creative execution needed to maximise every creative investment.
87% Paid Social
The most widely produced format in the UK, but not where investment priority is strongest.
75% Branded Content
A major production workhorse and the clearest investment priority in the UK market.
69% Online Video
Still one of the core formats absorbing production time and operational effort.
1. Branded Content
Brands are already producing branded content at scale, with 75% of respondents creating it.
2. CTV
A smaller current production footprint, but a leading investment priority, especially among agency-reported client priorities.
3. Podcasts
Ranking highly as an investment priority, especially among brands.
AI Is No Longer a Side Project
AI has moved from experimentation into the day-to-day work of production. It’s becoming part of the team, helping shape ideas, write scripts, generate images, test creative and move assets through the workflow faster.
With 83% of respondents actively using or piloting AI, this is no longer something that might reshape advertising in the future, it's happening now.
Brands
77% are already using or piloting AI tools in production workflows, leaning in earlier in the process like campaign briefs and scripting
Full Service Agencies
91% are actively using or piloting AI in production workflows for image creation, storyboarding, VFX and performance analysis
Production Companies
83% use AI tools at least weekly as a capacity multiplier, with strong usage across scripting, image creation and media planning
Media Agencies
93% use AI tools at least weekly supporting planning, optimisation and performance analysis.
Image creation / AI-generated imagery
Scripting / copywriting
Writing campaign briefs
Visual effects (VFX) / compositing
Storyboarding / visual concepting
Performance analysis / creative testing
"There’s been a lot of fear of AI, but in reality, it’s helping us move faster, be more efficient, and improve what we're already good at."
Orlee Tatarka, Head of Production, Wieden+Kennedy (shots OOTB, 2026)
AI Is Powering Speed First, Savings Second
AI is often presented as a shortcut to cheaper creative production, but the data suggests teams are using it because the pace of work has outgrown the way production has traditionally been managed.
Cost reduction still matters, but it’s not the main story, speed and scale are. With more assets to make, more channels to serve and less room for delay, AI is becoming part of how teams keep the work moving.
Speed time to market
Produce more assets and increase volume
Reduce production costs
For brands, AI is mainly about getting work to market faster, with 48% prioritising speed to market. For agencies, it's split across volume, speed and cost control.
UK vs. US: Same Pressure, Different Shape
The UK and US are more alike than different. Both markets are producing more creative than ever before, pushing production teams to capacity, losing too much creative before launch, and increasingly relying on AI.
The channel story follows the same pattern. In both markets, social carries much of the day-to-day production volume, while investment priority is moving elsewhere. In the US, investment priority leans more towards Podcasts and Linear TV. In the UK, Branded Content comes first, with CTV and Podcasts also ranking highly.
More content, fewer resources
🇺🇸 81% say production has increased
🇬🇧 77% say production volume has increased
Budgets still break
🇺🇸 70% go over budget at least sometimes
🇬🇧 nearly 70% do the same
Approvals slow the work
🇺🇸 budget approvals lead at 46%
🇬🇧 budget approvals also lead at 45%
Too much creative dies before launch
🇺🇸 44% cite campaign direction changing
🇬🇧 43% cite the same issue
Research Methodology
This report contains proprietary industry research conducted by XR in partnership with MX8 Labs, a leader in marketing research.
- Survey was fielded in May 2026
- Included 201 marketers in the UK
- Across full-service agencies, media agencies, boutiques, creative production agencies, and national brands
- Features recent leadership quotes from shots Magazine, an XR publication
Respondents were asked their opinions on the following topics:
Budget Pressure and Outlooks
Creative Investment Priorities
Project Resourcing
Creative Volume
Top Internal and External Bottlenecks
Asset Utilisation
AI Usage
and much more
Introducing XR ONE
The findings of this report are clear: advertising is growing more complex, fragmented, and driven by an ever-growing demand for content. And the operational cracks are showing.
XR ONE is the first advertising operations platform that connects every stage of the advertising lifecycle, letting brands and agencies better manage how their ads are produced, paid for, and delivered across every media platform.
With XR ONE, advertising operations are no longer a back-office task, it's the backbone of modern advertising. It delivers:
- End-to-end production tracking, from creative briefs, bids, and budget approvals to payments and in-market delivery
- Centralised cost management across all marketing teams and agencies, removing silos and spreadsheet chaos
- Ad delivery visibility that connects what is spent on an asset and campaign to how they are used in-market
Contact us to get an XR ONE demo of the platform transforming ad ops.
About XR Extreme Reach
We love all things ad ops and it shows. Our culture is built around passion for great creative storytelling and making every campaign run smoothly from production to playout.
Our new XR ONE platform helps brands and agencies manage everything from asset management and rights to ad delivery, so every ad lands exactly where and how it should.
Today, we power millions of campaigns for the world's top brands, making it simpler for marketers to manage bids and budgets, version assets, deliver ads, pay talent, and track rights. Less chaos, more craft and creativity.
Headquartered in New York, XR has amazing people, teams, and offices throughout North America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.
