You have all heard our team talk about digital production, and the benefits clients can realize when they harness the power of a global, cost-effective production solution.  As we begin 2012, I wanted to share one of our best case studies of last year. As you read the story below, I believe you will see the value in Deliver’s process and perhaps even how you and your clients can benefit from a similar strategy.

The Partnership

Deliver and our client, a leading global consumer packaged goods firm, together with their two digital creative agencies, came together to consolidate our client’s digital production globally. The goal was cost-savings; savings that could be reinvested back into the WPP Team budget to fund new marketing initiatives, such as mobile applications and social media.

Structuring the Perfect Relationship:

As a multinational, multi-product company, our client needed a production solution that could meet both their global marketing needs as well service local markets for web site development, online advertising, e-mail campaigns, and mobile applications.

The Deliver team put place a proven method to leverage cost-effective staff, consolidate team activity, standardize processes, leverage templates and automation and roll-out a global delivery model to ensure quality delivery and continual optimization.

Deliver New York engagement managers established and educated dedicated production teams in Bogota and Dhaka. Deliver employed three specific engagement models to efficiently service the client, as well as our client’s digital agencies:

• Dedicated Agency Team – responsible for executing the digital agencies’ creative vision
• Local Market Teams – responsible for local marketing program execution based on creative provided by agency partners
• Global Production Team – responsible for Deliver localization of our clients’ global web property. The digital creative agency develops master materials and Deliver works with their offices, with the help of a translation partner and local media agencies, to adjust master creative to meet local market requirements.

The Results:

With hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings, our client was able to expand their digital reach in 2011. Deliver produced over 1,000 banners, launched over 50 websites, and developed iPad applications and Facebook game localizations in 30 markets.

Steve Forcione who works as the WPP Managing Partner for this account stated, “The successful partnership between our client’s creative agencies and Deliver proves that leveraging a global production solution can be easily and seamlessly integrated into any client’s digital program.”

I hope that 2012 will bring forth new collaborative relationships between Deliver, your agency, and clients that produce these same positive results for all of us. I’d be happy to speak to you at your convenience regarding our process and how Deliver can save your clients 20-40% on your digital production costs while opening up new creative and strategic opportunities.

Ad Age published the article, “Friends With (Digital) Benefits: CMOs Link With CIOs.” It discusses the growing importance of the collaboration between the CMO and CIO. Although this article was published a few months ago, its message remains extremely relevant.  In order to successfully execute strong digital advertising, a strong relationship must be established between these two individuals.  No longer can great creative stand alone; today’s market defines an effective campaign as one that is not only strategically and creatively executed, but also measurable, targetable, and analytical.

Mr. Paderni, an analyst with Forrester Research who has been studying the relationship reinforces the significant shift within the marketing world, instigated by the digital revolution and fueled by the economic crisis. “Now, both functions are under pressure from the CFO and CEO. The market dynamics are pushing accountability for both functions,” he said. “And, at this point, even the marketer that would like to go it alone is realizing the level of complexity and data management is too big to manage alone.”

Working in digital production we have always seen the importance of the marketing / client technology lead relationship.  Due to the increased complexities concerning client deliverables, we believe the involvement of technology leads is a vital component to a successful campaign kick-off and execution. Production campaigns always tend to run smoother when we have the lead technologist available to communicate directly with production teams and specify technical details that a strictly marketing focused executive might not be able to effectively communicate.

Various reports about the overall advertising outlook suggest that we are in a “good news, bad news” situation. On the one hand, overall advertising spend in the U.S. is projected to decline in the third quarter, according to our WPP colleagues at Kantar Media. Details are available here. Another survey suggests that the optimism of ad executives is at record lows. An overall weak economy will do that.

On the other hand, the outlook for digital marketing is much brighter. Digital and especially mobile media spend continues to build ad budget confidence.

Overall budget shrinkage is primarily driven by reductions in print and TV, while digital marketing budgets continue to expand. Some industry analysts have cited these trends as evidence of two separate advertising markets – digital and traditional.

It’s no surprise that digital is on the rise, but we think what’s missing from the equation is what you might call the “value index.” It’s not just the size of budgets that matter, but rather the value that is created (the sales produced and connections made with customers, etc.) from them.

Especially in digital channels, more marketers have learned that they can stretch existing or even smaller budgets to produce more creative or fund initiatives in new formats by embracing digital production best practices. That’s the proven way to produce higher value from budgets, whether they’re growing or shrinking.

And if digital channels are to be thought of merely as an extension of traditional channels, that’s all the more reason to set up integrated processes for converting core brand messaging and campaigns from traditional into the digital world. 

Considering that travel can be expensive, what is the payoff when a client meets their digital production teams in person?  In my experience, there are several immediate and tangible benefits:

Increased buy-in (executive level):  Moving critical client work to a location they have never seen in another country can understandably make some executives nervous.  A personal visit can confirm that the facility being considered is safe, secure and fully modernized. Having executive clients visit our Deliver hubs, tour the office, meet the production teams, and spend time with office leadership allows clients to quickly get past their fears that offshoring significantly increases their risk profiles.  An IT review to see back-up generators, redundant network lines to ensure Internet connectivity and the latest servers demonstrates that our hubs are up to global industry standards.

Better communication:  As simple as it seems, “putting a face with a name” is critically important within global teams.  I’ve seen time and again how our clients appreciate the perspectives of our specialists more once they realize they are experienced professionals who are as committed to the work as they are – not just voices on a conference call.  Building relationships in person leads to improved communication even after the trip is over, as people learn to understand each other better and trust each other’s input.   And being there gives you a chance to meet everyone on the team – not only the project managers and leads who might be the most vocal on the phone.

Increased buy-in (Staff level):  When work is being transitioned from a local team to a production hub, the agency staff tasked to manage the work – typically project managers, or technical leads – is often understandably upset about the change from working with the designer in the next cubical to one thousands of miles away.  Asking them to meet the new team in person to share their knowledge, and to be responsible for an element of training or onboarding, not only helps build relationships, but also helps return a sense of accountability and ownership to those project managers and tech leads.  It gives them a stake in ensuring the new model succeeds, and helps them to focus on solutions, rather than complaints. 

In large team transitions I believe this is a particularly critical component – during one multi-brand transition, each month we cycled 1 or 2 project managers down to visit the hub for a week.  After each trip we saw a marked improvement in the performance of that project managers group.  Interestingly, as time went on and we hired new project managers, the trips were still helpful, but less dramatically so – the new PMs accepted the model as business-as-usual and so were bought-in from the beginning.

Deeper brand knowledge:  Production teams love to work on well-known global and US brands just like we do.  Hearing more about the clients is exciting to the team and helps give them real insights into those brands.  When the team better understands the real-world business challenges their clients face it gives them a much better understanding of why the work is important (and why they see all those “crazy, last-minute” requests.)  That sort of context is invaluable in really tailoring processes to work their best for your business.

This fall I had the opportunity to visit to several of Deliver’s digital production hubs, and was reminded, as I always am, of how valuable personal connections and in-person visits are when working with a remote team.  It was pointed out to me that despite the fascinating and sometimes even tropical locations, these visits are the opposite of vacations.  Instead of “getting away from it all” they are an opportunity to “getting right into it all,” meeting everyone in person, being where they are all day, and seeing up close and personal how the work really gets done. That’s why these visits are so important for everyone involved – us, our clients, our agency partners and Deliver’s digital production teams.

Of course like everyone at Deliver, I’m a great believer in using technology and platforms to complete digital production work seamlessly across a global network of resources. Skype is my favorite tool of all time – and between those IMs and video chats, emails and traditional conference calls, and of course our DEPP workflow system, I know it is possible to keep projects on schedule, on budget and on strategy without everyone being in the same building.  In fact, used right, those tools can make it feel just like you are working with someone in the office next door. But, there’s something about letting team members meet and connect personally that can really kick-start a partnership and help make everything work more smoothly and effectively – not only during the trip, but for long after the travel in shanghai massage is over.

Of course, travel is expensive and this is at its core a low-cost business, so we don’t propose frequent trips to a long list of international destinations.  Rather, I suggest strategically timed visits by the right client contacts and agency staff.  That may be for a kick-off meeting before establishing or transitioning work to a our production hubs.   It may be in-person training of a new team or staff person – at their location, or at yours.  Or, for large-scale programs, it may be a semi-annual visit by a few project managers for engagement debriefs, process improvement discussions and future planning.

 —  to be continued —-

Petrus Lindqvist serves as Deliver’s Global Operations Manager for Nokia. Previously, he held senior leadership and advisory positions in eCommerce and IT, both on the agency and client side. He is based in Helsinki, Finland.

Generally speaking, the digital production community is forward looking when it comes to technology. Digital designers, developers and animators always want to know about the latest and most powerful tools, because advances in technology mean they can produce higher-quality outputs and more effectively manage a wide range of digital assets. Marketers, too, want to see their digital production teams and creative agencies work as productively and efficiently as possible.

Of course, there is something of a “cool” factor involved here, with some people wanting to use the “next big thing” as soon as possible and show themselves to be early adopters. At Deliver, we believe you have to strike a balance and not just pick up new technology because it’s the hot new thing, but because it delivers real value to marketing organizations.

That’s why everyone is excited about Adobe’s Scene7 software, which is gaining traction and creating a lot of excitement in digital production circles. Adobe defines Scene7 as:

a hosted solution for managing, enhancing, publishing and delivering dynamic marketing assets and rich visual merchandising to Web, mobile, email, Internet-connected displays and print.

For digital production, Scene7’s dynamic imaging, asset management and multi-platform distribution capabilities have the most potential value. For instance, by combining and automating some of the more powerful features of both design software and content management systems, it will make many production processes smarter and more efficient. Further, it leverages the power of the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. That means it should be less costly and burdensome to maintain.

But Scene7’s capabilities are most exciting to our team. Let’s say a big global brand is launching an interactive campaign to reach consumers in 10 or more languages. Scene7 allows you  to automate many previously manual tasks. You can create one master image (likely through Adobe Photoshop, with which Scene7 is integrated) and then upload it to Scene7. From there, digital production professionals create attributes or layers for all the different elements of the master banner – language, text, images, colors, logos, etc. All these layers are captured in a database and can be accessed by “on the fly” calls – meaning different ads and assets can be produced and delivered in real time to clients visiting a wide range of Web properties. It is no longer necessary to assemble dozens or hundreds of different assets for each different property or language.

Further, Scene7 enables you to figure out which banners are working most effectively through its Adobe’s integrated Test & Target tool, which supports A/B testing, multivariate testing, and behavioral targeting. Because the assets are created on the fly and assembled through layers, you can see which colors, images or headlines are driving the most response. Previously, these evaluations had to be done after the fact, only when a creative or production team had a chance to review detailed performance reports and make adjustments to the campaign or individual ads.

With Test & Target, you can simply identify various parameters (how long to test, which elements to test) and then program the tool to use the most effective combinations once the parameters are fulfilled. In other words, it optimizes and automates the digital production process from end to end – which is a very good thing for any organization trying to reach consumers with highly effective messages and images that cut through the digital noise.

But it’s important to remember that high-powered tools like Scene7 are only half the story when it comes to digital production technology. It’s important to have solid workflow and reporting systems, like DEPP. These tools may not generate as many exciting headlines in design publications, but they ensure that project teams (including client representatives and agency creative and account teams) are up to speed on the latest project status, necessary approvals, campaign changes and the like. Further, you have to ensure your processes are best practices-based and tailored to unique client needs, not dictated by the limitations of your technology.

Again, it’s all about striking a balance between the latest, highest-powered tools (like Scene7), and the old reliable systems that help ensure tight campaign timelines are met, costs remain low and quality targets are achieved. The technology you choose is only as good as its ability to help you meet those critical digital production goals.