mediaPro panel debate on project management technology

It hasn’t always been the case that agencies and their clients see eye-to-eye on how best to make their relationships work. In the case of how valuable technology is throughout the advertising production process, however, there might be some broad agreement. That was one possible observation following a panel debate which took place at mediaPro 09, involving clients, agencies and production houses.

Sponsored by technology provider Adstream, which was represented on the panel by international business development director Andy Hopkinson, the Agency/Client Debate drew a large and highly engaged audience, as this topic characteristically does. Joining Hopkinson on the microphones were Katie Nykänen, marketing solutions and process development manager for Nokia; Steve Hutchinson, head of commercial operations and content at broadcaster BSkyB; Matt Davis, production director (print and studio) for agency DDB Chicago; Robert Zappa, senior VP at agency Leo Burnett in Chicago; Simon Toaldo, CEO of global production agency Hub+; and Adam Kirby, CEO of Publicis’ international production platform, Mundocom.
Hamish Pringle of agency trade body IPA chaired the debate and set the scene, citing the publication of Magic and Logic three years ago, which set out guidelines for improved understanding between agencies and their relationships with marketers and procurement officers at the client end. The ultimate goal was stated as “profitable ideas that produce profit for all”. The question for the panel to address was the degree to which technology (which might include campaign management workflow, digital asset management and digital delivery systems) was able to both underpin the creative process and provide that balance between ‘magic’ and ‘logic’.

A simple yet important observation was made by Simon Toaldo of Hub+, who harked back to his first days in advertising production years before, when the accepted viewpoint was that it was possible to achieve any two out of the three requirements of quick, cheap and high quality, but not all three at once.

“We’ve gone from being a craft to a technology-based business, and you can now have all three of quick, cheap and really good,” said Toaldo.

Adam Kirby of Mundocom suspected that using technology was “probably the last best chance for agencies to reinvent themselves as proper businesses to their clients, and establish that they are the best people to produce great ads”.

However, the two agencies revealed the extent of their ambitions and progress in this regard. DDB was looking at “a global perspective on technology”, said Matt Davis, and had been working on this for five years. It was a new type of agency network with transparency, reporting capabilities, and continually improving metrics all to the fore. Every production function, from colour management, content management, and approvals, right the way through to warehousing and distribution, came within this end-to-end network.

“The benefit of this is that it gives us the ability to bolster the creative, support it through production, and make sure that the client gets the best agency teams,” said Davis, adding that the platform would be launched globally in 2010.

Robert Zappa of Leo Burnett revealed that the agency was in the early stages of developing a technology partnership with Adstream. The context to this, illustrating the scale of the challenge, was that the agency group had no idea how many adverts it actually produces around the world.

“We’ve been very focused on driving a strategy around job management, and there are six factors: project management, resource management, ad management, creative asset and production asset management, and document management. If we can find a platform that integrates all of those things together, then we will be on the curve, not behind it.

“So we have started off this year partnering with Adstream in some of our key markets around the world. Adstream gives upstream management of the creative process. But it comes down to a change in behaviour, and what we call ‘elegant organisation’. Creatives will reject anything you put in front of them, so it needs executive support, and it needs to be relevant and easy to use.”

This was an observation that would have had some resonance for Katie Nykänen of Nokia, whose role includes being global manager for campaign management and asset management projects. Part of the challenge, she said, was “making people in marketing understand that what they do is part of a workflow”. Keeping track of assets and adverts was also a “real challenge”, she said, and the mobile phone manufacturer had therefore introduced Adstream’s technology for campaign management and asset repository purposes. It is being used for TV distribution and for sharing assets across the world. The aim, Nykänen added, is to reduce wastage and inefficiencies, and “allow people to be more creative”.

BSkyB certainly wants more creativity in advertising, as a commercial broadcaster looking to accrue advertising revenue. Steve Hutchinson pointed out that viewer behaviour was changing dramatically, with “appointment-to-view TV” very much a thing of the past. There must therefore not be a compromise in the quality of TV ads, he stressed. As for technology, BSkyB had embraced Adstream’s offering five or six years ago, and had “quickly seen savings in speed, cost and efficiency”. It was now good to see that “the whole of Adland is embracing digital movement”, Hutchinson added.

Adstream’s Andy Hopkinson believed that the recession would result in a sea change in how businesses operated, with both agencies and clients looking for a better way of working. “What I hear clients say is that [by using technology] they know what’s going on in the world for the first time. They’re changing what their global agencies do. They’re not spending three days a week writing status reports that are out of date the minute they’ve finished. They’re not getting files corrupted, and the files are in the right place at the right time, so no-one has to worry about that. People say if you have a process it will get in the way of marketing. That’s nonsense.”

The pressure to reduce costs is heavy, Nykänen emphasised, and in looking for ways to save money, it was often “almost money that we did not know we could save” that was identified. She said: “Sometimes I sit in meetings with agencies and we’re both saying: ‘Are we really wasting all that money?’ We don’t want to cut the content or quality of what we are doing – just be more efficient.”

There was a stark warning for agencies that are slow to embrace technology that gives clients a more transparent picture, though, as Nykänen predicted that “in the future we would not even consider working with agencies not in that arena”.

From the floor came a question as to which areas of advertising creation needed technology applied to them. Davis had a swift two-word answer: “Online approvals.” For Robert Zappa, the important wins were to be found upstream in managing the creative workflow. He said: “That’s the real challenge. Production will always have a strong technological focus and everything is now digital. But I’m interested in everything upstream of that. Agencies are inherently dysfunctional upstream and there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit there.”

Toaldo explained that he had seen a good deal of this dysfunctional nature in practice, and said that there were lots of examples of agencies spending money on technology that ultimately was hardly used. He continued: “I agree that this is a time of really big shift. We need to do a couple of things: think well creatively and strategically to come up with great ideas, and accept that this new way of working also requires clients to change how they operate.”

“One area where we can use technology better is in how quickly we can remaster and revoice existing content,” observed Hutchinson. “We need to do that more than ever. The step change is here now, and we’ve got to find a way to do that better.”

But is the fact that every agency group is establishing its own technology platform helpful for clients? The question from the floor was: how could the industry get together more often to “help each other help each other”?

Opinion seemed divided upon this. Hutchinson felt that there was certainly a need for more dialogue to find solutions. He said: “We need to get back to basics and think about what we as a community are trying to achieve. We need to have grown-up conversations about how to get there. Until we break down barriers it’s going to be difficult.”

Davis, however, said: “This sounds like a question of standards, and 70% is already done. There are lots of standards already with things like PDF, JDF and XML. We are now filling the gaps with things like asset management. We are on a journey and getting close. At the end of the day though, it comes down to talent and humans.”

Zappa put forward a third view: “I don’t want to think about standards. I’m standards-agnostic – I want the experts to think about that. I want to concentrate on what we are great at. For me, it’s about the process, and operationally changing behaviour.”

Hopkinson stressed that the latest marketing technology implementations are actually “all about inter-connecting data around the world”, continuing: “Once you’ve got a global view, the debates will be out in the open. Then you can see where the inconsistencies are and do something about it.”

It remains an uneven relationship between an agency and its client however, Hopkinson remarked, with the agency needing to demonstrate constant improvement. One member of the audience, presumably from an ad agency, remarked that it often seemed that agencies were not allowed to make a profit; they would install a web-based system for a client and the client would then question why the agency now needed multiple offices around the world.

It was an observation that had most of the panel nodding in seeming agreement. Agencies will always be held to account for the extent and use of their resource, but when the overriding objective is removing cost and waste from the whole marketing communications process, every party ought to benefit.