Ad Bits with Alex Grossman
By Alex Grossman
Categories: Business
Ad Bits with Alex Grossman is a podcast about ads, production and creativity. Honest conversations with the people shaping the work. We get into decision making, leadership, craft, freelancing, navigating change and what it really takes to make things happen in this industry. No hype. No fluff. Just honest conversations with people who've been there. Supported by Green Desert. UK representation for trusted service production across Europe. New episodes weekly.
52 episodes indexed on PodSearch.
Recent episodes
- Leonie Ellis: Why New Business Is a Lone Ranger Job
She stopped her car outside a film set and asked a security guard for a day’s work. Now she works across MJZ and The Pearlin.Leonie Ellis is the founder of LE Collaborations and one of the most experienced new business figures in commercial production. She has helped build and represent production…
- Gemma Conway: Why the Producer Should Be in the Room First
Gemma Conway is Executive Producer at Omnicom Production in Los Angeles, with more than twenty years across BBH, Mother, 72andSunny and Droga5. We talk Business Affairs, the Philadelphia 76ers, London versus New York versus LA, getting producers in before the script is signed off, AI as a tool…
- John Mouratis: Real Fire, Triple Bids and the Power of No
John Mouratis produced the BBC Winter Olympics film Trails Will Blaze, stop motion with 700 3D printed athletes and real fire. It won a Grand Clio and a D&AD Yellow Pencil. We talk fire, triple bidding, late sign off, agencies run like factories, and why a great career is built on the nos.Ad Bits…
- Ad bits Joe Connor: From Mime to The Rolling Stones
He trained as a mime. He ended up directing The Rolling Stones.Joe Connor is a writer and director who trained in experimental and visual theatre, and has since worked with The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Sam Smith and Paul Weller, plus Land Rover, Volvo and Louis Vuitton. He has directed three…
- Kit Lynch-Robinson: Clarkson, Cars and Controlled Chaos
Kit Lynch-Robinson is series director on Clarkson's Farm, spent years on Top Gear and The Grand Tour, directed Chris Hemsworth through Limitless, and makes commercials for Porsche, Toyota and Hawkstone.He wanted to be a stuntman, worked out directing was all the fun without the danger, and his…
- Saymon Souza Medeiros: From Carrying Bricks to Cannes Grand Prix
Saymon Souza Medeiros is Creative Director at BigTime Creative Shop in Riyadh, ranked number one Creative Director in the Middle East and Africa, at the fourth most awarded independent agency in the world. This year he won a Cannes Lions Grand Prix, three Golds, a Silver and a Bronze for Lucky Fan…
- Morgan Clement, EP and Partner at Object & Animal, joins me for this week’s Ad Bits.
Morgan has been behind some remarkable work over the years, including FKA twigs’ Cellophane, Eusexua and Perfect Stranger, as well as major projects across advertising, music and fashion including Nike Jordan, RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and H&M x Heron Preston. We talk about creative risk, impact…
- Aaron Rocca: Inside Mother and Protecting the Big Idea
Aaron Rocca is Senior TV Producer at Mother in London, with a career that has taken him from account services in Melbourne to producing ambitious creative work across Australia and the UK.Aaron joins Alex to discuss his route into production, protecting unusual ideas and balancing creative…
- Ian Bonhôte: From Pulse Films to Super/Man
Director and Pulse Films cofounder Ian Bonhôte joins Alex Grossman to discuss his journey through advertising, filmmaking and emotionally driven documentary storytelling.Ian talks candidly about building Pulse, the four stages of a director’s career, the importance of great crews, and the making…
- Katharine Cowell: Producing Under Pressure, Creative Safety and AI
Agency producer Katharine Cowell joins Alex Grossman to discuss how production has changed, why producers are being asked to deliver more with less, and what production companies never see before a brief reaches them.Katharine shares the red flags and green flags she notices during a bid, why…
- Richard Packer: Leaving Outsider, Starting Again and Why Funny Ads Matter
Richard Packer joins Alex Grossman to talk about his route from BBH and Independent Films to 15 years at Outsider, and why he chose to start again with Packer Productions.They discuss learning by getting things wrong, leaving a successful company to build a happier working life, practical craft…
- Charlie Gatsky Sinclair (Uncommon Creative Studio) — Judging the Awards Her Studio Just Won
Charlie Gatsky Sinclair runs Brands & Entertainment at Uncommon Creative Studio and chairs The British Arrows — meaning she now judges the very awards her own agency keeps winning. We talk Cannes 2026 (a Grand Prix, Gold, seven Silvers, eight Bronzes, 34 shortlists), the Guardian documentary with…
- Nick Stoner (Ogilvy) on Coca-Cola's World Cup and Advertising as Performance
Three months into the ECD chair at Ogilvy Chicago, Nick Stoner joins Alex Grossman fresh off leading Coca-Cola's World Cup trilogy across 180+ countries and Dove's Beauty Machine campaign. One of our favourite conversations on Ad Bits so far, and it shows.They get into the unlikely route in…
- Rowena Jeffreys-Jones (BMB): Why Producers Should Never Say No
Rowena Jeffreys-Jones is Head of Production at BMB. Before that, a decade freelance across Mother, BBH, Anomaly, WCRS, Havas and TBWA. Before that, seven years at Salt TV producing broadcast and branded content for Pepsi, Samsung, Toyota, Visa and Qantas.Alex sits down with Rowena to talk about…
- Andrea Panda (Head of Sales, MJZ) — No Film School, No Household Name, No Problem
This week's guest came up through production the hard way. No film school. She started in casting in LA, then spent the best part of a decade freelance producing for some of the biggest names in commercials — Daniels, Alejandro Iñárritu, Mark Romanek, Guy Ritchie. She went staff at Psyop in 2019…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman: Sarah DiLeo (Studio X) on AI, Global Scale & Designing Stadiums Before Coming Back to Advertising
Sarah DiLeo is Global Chief Production Officer at Studio X. She started as an indie filmmaker, producing Bless Me, Ultima — a four-star Roger Ebert review, a sale to Sony, fellowships at Sundance and Film Independent. Twenty years on, after stints across branded content, VR, documentary and…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman — Paddy Craig: Blink Productions, the Cindy Job, and Why the Thing You Worry About Never Happens
Patrick Craig has been at Blink Productions since 2010 — one of British advertising's most storied companies, behind the Cadbury's Gorilla, John Lewis Christmas, We're the Superhumans, and the Educating Yorkshire one-take film that swept the British Arrows in 2026. He's been EP since January 2020…
- Charlie Roberson: The Career No One Takes, The Roster Everyone Wants | Ad Bits with Alex Grossman
Charlie Roberson is Head of Talent and EP at Rogue Films, and the person behind Rogue's new representation deal with Reset UK, the company co-founded by David Fincher. His UK roster includes Guy Ritchie, Robert Edgars, Corali Fogiatte and Yoan Wrench Jackson Teasie.But his path there is unlike…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman — Tim Katz (Knucklehead) on selectivity, the economics nobody talks about, and launching an AI studio
Tim Katz is Managing Partner at Knucklehead, one of the most distinctive production companies in British advertising — Cannes, D&AD, British Arrows, the lot. He's just launched Airhead, a director-led AI studio, which has split opinion across the industry. Alex and Tim get into how Knucklehead…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman | Morgan Whitlock, Managing Director — The Sweetshop
Morgan Whitlock has been at The Sweetshop for over twelve years and MD of the London office since 2024. In this episode of Ad Bits with Alex Grossman we get into what it actually takes to run one of the most awarded production companies on the planet, the emerging director problem, AI and The…
- Patrick Cahill: The Honest Truth About In-House Production
Patrick Cahill has spent over 20 years in production. Agency side at adam&eveDDB and Havas, in-house across six countries at Media.Monks running BMW and MINI across EMEA, and most recently Global Production Architect at Publicis on their biggest new business win of 2025.We talk about what in-house…
- TARAN | Ad Bits with Alex Grossman
TARAN is a MOBO Award winning director, Forbes 30 Under 30, and co-founder of Unndr, a seven figure lingerie brand scaling to over 100 countries in two years. He has spent a decade directing in music, fashion and branded content and is now moving into global brand work.In this conversation we…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman — Toby Tobin on New Business, Trust & Why Hard Jobs Make the Best Work
Toby Tobin has run new business at some of the best production companies in the world — Pulse Films, Stink, MJZ, and now Prodco. In this episode we get into what actually makes great sales relationships, why friction on set isn't always a bad thing, the current state of production budgets, and why…
- Ad Bits with Alex Grossman | Steve Davies, Chief Executive of the APA
Steve Davies has been running the Advertising Producers Association for 25 years. He has seen everything.In this episode we talk about what production companies are actually telling him right now versus what they say publicly, why the golden age of advertising never really existed, the middling…
- Monica Bertei — The Invisible Job | Ad Bits with Alex Grossman
Monica Bertei has spent nearly 20 years doing one of the most important jobs in commercial production — one that most people outside the industry couldn't fully explain. She represents production companies out in the market. She's the one building the agency relationships, getting the scripts in…
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