Production: “Do More With Less” With These 3 Tips

Over the last several years, MRA has been increasingly helping marketers conquer big-picture production challenges, think differently about their production supply chain, and innovate the way they work. Why? Because the shifting media landscape has required marketers to find innovative ways to produce more and more content – with flat or decreasing budgets.

Whether or not you’ve fallen victim to this “content requirements vs. budget” predicament in the past, if you’re like most, you may soon find yourself searching for ways to maximize efficiencies in your production ecosystem. So, we invite you to check out 3 tips below:

Tip #1: Explore alternative models for production optimization. Evolving content needs and tightening budgets have led to the expansion of alternative AOR providers that marketers can tap for managing content deliverables. Often times, though, we’ve seen that brand teams are unclear which solutions providers are best suited and whether or not the AOR should retain some role in the process.

Leverage internal resources or 3^rd party production experts to develop a best practice engagement model for specialty suppliers, mapping project types with partners who can deliver the greatest value/quality at the leanest delivery based on objectives, timelines and budgetary considerations.

By exploring new models, you have the ability to evolve relationships with traditional production partners and uncover potential new content partners and solutions – including creating or expanding your own in-house capabilities.

Tip #2: Implement addressable creative/production best practices. As an emerging area we’ve seen for many global clients, addressable creative for programmatic media buys enables marketers to execute countless creative executions through a streamlined set of master templates that otherwise would be cost-prohibitive to even consider producing.

As brands look to leverage the targeted marketing effectiveness that addressable provides, agencies are challenged with process learning curves that are complicated by the need for multiple agency partners to work together to execute the creative. There’s opportunity to drive significant cost efficiency in how work is executed by identifying cost drivers and implementing best practices to streamline workflows that eliminate overlapping scopes among agency partners. Contact us to learn more about these opportunities and how you might minimize the risk of duplication between agency partners.

Tip #3: Assess your technology stack. As we all know, the marketing tech landscape continues to widen, and there are a multitude of emerging technologies that can help you maximize transparency, increase efficiency, decrease costs, and mitigate risk. A few popular tech trends we’re seeing?

• Maximizing transparency with electronic bidding tools
• Mitigating risks with rights management software
• Tracking asset usage with watermarking technology
• Optimizing personalized content delivery with AI

Need help assessing where your tech gaps might be? Or looking for recommendations for specific tools or solutions providers? MRA is proud to have strategic affiliations with leading global technology companies and can help connect you with a multitude of resources. Let us know how we can help.