Haymarket Content Labs & PLAYE: A Smarter Way to Scale Global Production

For content teams producing commercial work across multiple markets, demand rarely arrives in a neat, predictable pattern.

One week might involve a straightforward local shoot. The next might require multiple videographers across different regions, tight timelines and little room for delay.

For Haymarket Content Labs, that kind of variability is part of the job.

Working within Haymarket Media Group, the team creates commercial content for partners and supports a number of global events each year. But like many in-house content teams, they faced a familiar challenge: when work ramps up across different locations, sourcing trusted local production talent quickly becomes difficult.

That is where PLAYE came in.

Solving the global resourcing gap

Haymarket Content Labs needed access to videographers in multiple locations, both in the UK and internationally, without the complexity of building and managing that network internally.

As the team explained, they simply did not have the local freelancer network required to source videographers in every market where work needed to happen.

PLAYE helped solve that problem by providing access to a wider pool of trusted creative talent, making it easier for Haymarket to activate production support wherever it was needed.

More reach, less friction

By partnering with PLAYE, Haymarket Content Labs gained access to a broader network of videographers across global markets.

That gave the team a more practical way to deliver work at scale, especially when multiple projects landed at once or when shoots needed to happen in markets where the team did not already have local contacts.

Rather than spending time trying to source and vet talent in new locations, the team could move faster with the confidence that the right resource was already within reach.

Supporting growth during busy periods

One of the clearest benefits of the partnership has been flexibility.

When demand increases, Haymarket Content Labs needs to be able to respond without overstretching the internal team. PLAYE has helped the business do exactly that, giving the team access to the additional production resource needed to deliver multiple projects for partners at the same time.

For growing teams, that matters.

Instead of building fixed capacity for peaks in demand, Haymarket can flex up as needed, keeping the business responsive while staying lean.

A more sustainable and cost-effective model

The partnership has also delivered practical operational benefits.

Using local videographers in-market helps Haymarket avoid unnecessary travel, reduce production friction and keep costs down. It also supports a more sustainable approach to content production, something the team specifically called out as an important part of the model.

For brands and publishers running shoots across different regions, local-first production is not just efficient. It is a smarter long-term way to work.

Flexible support, depending on the brief

Another strength of PLAYE is that clients can choose how they work.

Teams can tap directly into a preferred bench of trusted freelancers or lean on PLAYE to provide more hands-on creative support when projects require additional coordination.

That flexibility gives businesses the ability to match the model to the job, whether they need simple access to talent or broader support across delivery.

For Haymarket Content Labs, it meant having a partner that could adapt to the scale of the brief and help them meet demand with confidence.

Built for modern content teams

The Haymarket Content Labs partnership is a strong example of how in-house content teams can scale without unnecessary complexity.

With PLAYE, the team gained access to global creative talent, a more cost-effective and sustainable production model, and the flexibility to respond when workloads increase.

The result is a simpler, smarter way to deliver commercial content across markets, without the stress of managing global production alone.

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