How To Unlock Creative Capacity and Bandwidth at Scale
Dear John,
I’d love to action your request for a new social media campaign. However, due to bandwidth and capacity issues, I’m unable to prioritize it at the moment.
What do you do now? Truthfully, I haven’t the foggiest…
Sincerely,
Ima Bit Busy
Capacity and bandwidth—having the time and resources to get things done.
When Superside surveyed marketers and creatives at enterprise and mid-market businesses about what stops them from aligning and driving growth, capacity and bandwidth was the top answer.
What’s contributing to this massive blocker? Higher workloads, limited resources and constant change.
Oof! Now, I bet your tears are probably welling up. Maybe your design-sprint-induced carpel tunnel is preventing you from wiping them away. But know this: Outsourcing isn’t a sign of weakness.
In fact, it’s a key to success and the new normal. According to Cella’s In-House Creative & Marketing Industry Report, most creative leaders and in-house teams, up to 80%, rely on outsourced partners.
So, let’s talk about outsourcing the creative you can’t produce in-house and regaining your sanity and mobility in your wrists.
A Brief History of Creative Backlogs
Before we talk about solutions, let’s look at how we got here. As they say, “You’ve got to name it to tame it.” What makes it so hard for enterprise teams to get creative? Here are three main factors:
Higher Workloads
For enterprise businesses, scale is the norm—the nature of the beast. It’s not one market, it’s multiple markets, it’s not one channel, it’s omnichannel. For in-house teams, it’s not just one project, it’s 50 simultaneous projects.
No wonder nearly 90% of in-house marketing and creative teams said their workload continues to increase—a statistic courtesy of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2023 Creative & Marketing In-House Industry Report.
Limited Resources
Gone are the times when budgets were plentiful. The mandate for today's teams: Do more with less.
Marketers—not just one team, multiple marketing teams, growth, performance, lifecycle, etc.—are encouraged to lean on in-house creatives, who are also fielding requests from teams throughout the entire company, like sales, ABM and more.
Constant Change
The only thing constant is change. And one of the most constant things about digital marketing is how quickly it changes and keeps changing.
Working lean, teams only staff for the marketing and creative services they need most. Despite their best efforts, they’re not fortune tellers. Anyone else remember 2020?
Heard of a little thing called AI? What about immersive experiences like AR and 3D? Your competitors have. When overwhelmed teams can’t keep up with the day-to-day, innovation and experimentation also lag.
Ever tried to get a gourmet meal from a drive-thru? Let’s just say that under these conditions things get more than a little stale. (Unless you’re Iron Chef Dad.)
In our own experience at Superside, we hear it from our customers and across the entire industry, in-house teams are strapped. They’ve made blood from stones, now they have to make plasma too.
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Escaping the Capacity and Bandwidth Death Spiral
You just need to allocate resources better, right? Not quite. If you’re an in-house marketer or creative you already relentlessly prioritize projects. But for every project you keep in house, another has to wait—even though it shouldn’t.
Naturally, projects that can’t be managed in-house get outsourced. Makes complete sense. But here’s the kicker: Illogical, partial, dysfunctional solutions—cures that are worse than the disease—dominate the outsourcing landscape.
What if there was an outsourced creative design partner that fills multiple gaps with a global network of top talent and comprehensive range of creative services—including your staples, like ad design and social media assets, as well as innovations, like AI, AR and 3D.
The good news: There really is a better way to get design done.
Scaling Capacity and Bandwidth With Superside
Meet Superside, a partner that can tackle a range of projects—large or small, simple or complex, production or concept, quick-turn or long-haul… you get the picture. (Or should I say the creative?)
Because the relationship we build is just as important as the creative you get, you also benefit from dedicated project managers who get to know your team and your brand.
It’s true. They handle everything from sourcing talent tailored to your needs from our global network of world-class creatives to making sure every project goes off without a hitch, so all you need to do is submit the brief. (And we’re working on further automating that too.)
Looking for process improvements, want fresh ideas or need to switch up which creative services and projects you have in the pipeline? You can do it and you’ve got customer success managers who’ll listen to feedback and find solutions.
Ok, enough with the infomercial. I’ll give you some real-world proof of how Superside works.
How Reddit, Bolt and D2L Brightspace Broke Through
If your marketing and creative teams feel overwhelmed, you’re not alone. Furthermore, you don't have to be. Capacity and bandwidth issues are real. So is the ability to partner with Superside to get past the backlogs and get on with business.
How Reddit Stays On Task and On Brand
My team owns the brand at Reddit. We have to build it and maintain it. Superside lets us focus on that. When we have a large production request, we set the vision and then partner with our amazing team at Superside to get it all done.
Famous for their ruthlessly honest conversations, Reddit users can spot fakes when they see them. Similarly, Reddit expects its outsourced providers to deliver on their promises, upholding the quality of the creative and the relationship.
Acting as an extension of both Reddit’s brand and growth teams, Superside tackles the projects they can’t complete in house—delivering speed, efficiency and, of course, brand consistency.
Here are just a few examples of how Reddit has added capacity and bandwidth with Superside:
Every year, users look forward to Reddit’s year-end wrap-up. Since 2022, the brand team has partnered with Superside to help deliver on this huge undertaking—with the facepalms aptly limited to key placement within the creative.
“Wow, this actually worked!” Reddit’s growth team also teamed up with Superside to reach prospective advertisers with a meme-based campaign voiced in the platform’s native language: Sarcasm. Biting humor and a 50% increase in CTR. Nicely played teams, nicely played.
How Bolt Built a Killer Explainer Video in One Month
Bolt knew its one-click online checkout process was easy. Now all it had to do was convince its customers with a simple, but effective explainer video. Seriously, how else do you tell a story these days? And how do you create an animated brand video in, oh say, a month?
Bolt plugged into Superside’s video, motion and 3D illustration expertise to pull it all together. Bolt provided the storyboard. Superside took it from there with a team of 18 world-class experts who nailed this project.
Not only that, Bolt’s Superside team is constantly refining the video process and seeking ways to optimize workflows—continuously and simultaneously maximizing quality and efficiency.
How D2L Brightspace Harnessed the Power of AI
The client sought a visual style that was both consistent and open to creativity and innovation. Traditional stock imagery, while readily available, often falls short of delivering consistency, uniqueness and freshness. Our challenge was to find a solution that maintained the desired visual style throughout the entire campaign.
If you’ve been tracking mentions of AI and how to apply it to creative workflows, your bingo card is likely full. However, beyond the hype, real-world examples are what’s most helpful.
When D2L Brightspace briefed in an upcoming campaign, Superside Creative Lead Kenneth Prieto realized this was an ideal opportunity to use AI to solve for repeatability and efficiency.
As part of Superside’s commitment to continuous innovation, our creative teams can offer to enhance projects with AI when the opportunity arises. And forward-thinking companies like D2L can opt into this solution.
Sure enough, D2L was on board. Together with Prieto’s team, they launched the campaign’s 114 ads 70% faster. They also developed a long-term, go-forward solution for keeping the campaign fresh and optimized with updated headlines and images.
How You Can Increase Capacity and Bandwidth Too
I can talk about shared pain points all day, but I also realize your needs are specific to your brand, your industry and your teams.
Maybe you need more creative capacity to enter new markets, localize more content or iterate on existing campaigns. Maybe you’re missing out on new opportunities in advertising for lack of a scaled system. Or, you’re undergoing a strategic shift that requires a whole new suite of assets.
Whatever the case may be, let’s talk. Book a call and tell us how we can solve for your team’s creative capacity and bandwidth.
Obliterate Capacity & Bandwidth Blockers
There really is a better way. Plug into the creative services and expertise built exactly for teams like yours.
Miles DePaul is the Director of Revenue Marketing at Superside, helping bring design services at scale to enterprises around the world. Outside of Superside, you can find him wandering the streets of Toronto, Canada looking for tennis courts, hockey rinks, a lakeside view or a fancy cocktail. Connect with Miles.
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