Top 5 key themes from Creative Operations Conference London
Flock recently had the privilege to partner with The Creative Operations Conference in London. We hosted a panel of experts discussing “In-housing, out-sourcing, freelancing and more…” and attended many of the speeches, panels, and demonstrations.At Flock Associates we have managed many of the largest and most complicated reviews in the US over the past several years: Ford, McDonald’s, J&J, and others have all gone through our agency review process in order to adjust their existing agency relationships.
Our top five takeaway tips from the jam-packed event are as follows:
Standardisation & Technology : Exceptional marketing processes are essential. By creating standardised templates and effectively using technology it will give creatives more time to focus on what they are brilliant and release funds to invest back into the brand. With the continued emergence of different communication & commerce channels such as Social, Ecommerce etc creatives are getting swamped by day to day operational issues. By enabling the right tools to complete mundane but essential tasks such as time tracking this will release more time for creatives to do their thing. Sell it to them, they will love that!
People: You must provide the right environment where evolving and learning are central to your values. Talent is the platform of all businesses, so it is vital to attract and retain the right people. This is not just for creatives but for Marketing operations professionals too. Think about ways you can make Marketing Operations, the environment, and the tools we use, cool!
Risk Mitigation: GDPR is the first of many data initiatives that will impact our business. Get under the skin of how they will affect you and how you set yourselves up for success to benefit from these changes. Don’t lose sight of your legal obligations and the restrictions around content usage and licensing, especially as we continue to use new content sources including UGC.
Agency Eco System: Wherever you are on your in-housing journey always align with all your internal stakeholders on what marketing functions should be delivering inhouse and what you should use an external partners to help you with. Sounds obviously but it is a pitfall we have seen many people fall into and therefore they have found marketing transformation almost impossible. If the brief is agreed upfront it will save time and allow you to set yourselves up for success with the right internal capabilities and the right agency model.
Test & learn: It is essential to test & learn at all stages of your process if you are going to excel. There were some great example of a test and learn approach involving new tools and technology. Made.com talked about their new tool for aggregating user generated content and HSBC are using AI to check campaign data.
We hope this gives you a good overview of the key takeout’s from the Creative Operations conference in London. If you would like to find out how Flock can help you with making your marketing more effective and efficient please do contact me Julie.marshall@flock-associates.com.
We look forward to meeting you in New York if you are attending the event on 15th April 2020.