Transparency
Developed to be used by people
AdPeople’s approach is to make technology work and become an integral part of our efficient marketing solutions. We believe that technology will only work if it does what is expected of it.
Our system is a fully integrated. It has been under constant development in terms of agency processes and routines since 1999. This is undertaken by our own company, SoftwarePeople, with a team of 50 people.
Understanding the needs
During implementation, our adoption team ensures that the choice of tools and workflow processes is delivered with a thorough understanding of both needs and technology. All documentation of modules and tools is communicated in non-technical terms to simplify user training.
Program managers continuously ensure that the client and the agency are on track towards better efficiency. Every step in the process is configurable and labelling is adaptable for client specific terminology.
The system is the backbone of our workflow process and is a professional web-based marketing solution that delivers best-practice processes, enabling effective long-term collaboration between clients/ agencies and AdPeople.
Fully integrated solutions
The workflow system connects to the Digital Asset Management system and our studio people work directly on the system, not on a separate server. The files our project managers see are the same files that our clients see – and every image file available on the server in location A is also available on the server in location B.
By the very nature of the way we work, our people are truly globally integrated. We send fully-linked production files between Copenhagen, Singapore, Austin and Dhaka more frequently and easily than most agencies pass work between floors in the same building.
Not just another network
In short, we’re not just another agency with offices paying taxes in different places around the world and claiming to be a “network”. We are the real thing: an integrated, inter-operable, global company.
Our workflow system is called BrandShare™. Its key benefits are:
- Better brand consistency and brand integrity
- Increased knowledge management and sharing of best practices
- Transparency and accountability for all partners
- Automation of routine processes in the workflow to save resources
- Share of work and resources across business units/countries/ regions and globally
- Scalable solutions
More specifically, the use of our system delivers the following benefits:
- Higher quality of work and less errors
- Greater efficiency - 50% reductions in external agency spend experienced
- Shorter production cycles and faster time-to-market - 60% reductions in production cycle experienced
The technology platform of our system:
- Embraces agency de-facto standard tools like Xinet, Adobe InDesign Server, Adobe PhotoShop and Adobe Acrobat Professional
- Uses leading edge technology such as Microsoft SharePoint, .NET
Synchronisation between regions
Our Digital Asset Management system is the only system in the marketing industry that is able to synchronise workflow between different regions. This means that an upload from one region is synchronised and quickly made available to other parts of the world.
You would expect a Digital Asset Management system to hold all your “source material” – logos, templates, products and lifestyle images.
And, ideally, you would also like to see all finished work that has been sent out. You’d also like it if your agency could easily find originals for repurposing later.
Our system is capable of all this. It is what makes it unique.
Does your agency need to wear a belt?
Lean Six Sigma has been the leading methodology for business process optimisation among Fortune 500 companies for the last twenty-five years.
These efficiency requirements have now reached the marketing industry and clients are increasingly pressuring their agencies to implement leaner approaches.
Creativity and efficiency
At AdPeople we have acknowledged the complex relationship between creativity and efficiency since our formation in 1999. We have specialised in meeting the requirements of modern business where creativity is key but cost and time-to-market are equally important factors.
We now have many years experience of working with clients with high efficiency demands and this lean approach is applied to all our departments and locations.
A lean agency? Almost a contradiction!
Not for us, because we believe in meeting the exact needs of our clients. For local and global clients we understand the requirement to provide an organizational structure that matches the precise needs - no more, and no less.
No lean agency is credible without a lean production engine. We have a state-of-the-art full service hub in Copenhagen and a production hub in Dhaka where we provide 24/7 service.
Enhanced by technology
To support and enhance the agency offering we utilize every possible aspect of supporting technology including our own software agency, SoftwarePeople, where we develop web marketing platforms that enable us and our clients to work in the most optimal way.
Every process in the agency is supported by cutting edge technology. By utilizing the right combination of people, processes and supporting technology we have, together with our clients, achieved fantastic results - delivering best-of-breed creative campaigns while optimising production lead times by more than 60%.
To further strengthen and improve our unique lean position in the market, all our employees are Lean Six Sigma certified.
Lean Six Sigma is a marriage of two otherwise distinct business management strategies, lean manufacturing and Motorola’s Six Sigma system.
Eliminate errors and improve quality
Lean manufacturing methodology concentrates on creating more value from less work, while the Six Sigma system strives to identify and eliminate errors in the development process.
Lean Six Sigma seeks to improve output quality by identifying and removing the causes of errors and minimizing variation in manufacturing and business processes.
It uses a set of quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organisation, namely the “Black Belts” and the “Green Belts” who are experts in these methods.
So yes - we will be proud to wear belts in the future in order to deliver the most efficient agency services in the industry.
A world without geography
One of the temptations of online communication is to exploit low-volume distribution costs and saturate the market with high-volume messages.
This hit and miss approach usually fails. The focus should not be on volume, but rather on producing contextually relevant elements which influence business and consumer decision processes.
It’s also about understanding the nuances of a global market as, with online strategies less ruled by geography, budgets can be planned globally or regionally and handled by a centralised team. The team monitors which audiences have the best level of engagement per communication spend and where the best efficiency and ROI is being achieved.
Implement rapid changes
A centrally-managed solution with a digital workflow process and asset management system allows communication to move faster. The team can quickly adapt to changes in content and implement rapid changes to formats and media channels. The challenge is to keep ahead of the target group at a price the brand can support.
With these tools, a centrally-controlled process can adapt more effectively to deliver relevant communications to an audience than local agencies, where multiple, repetitive manual processes are too slow and too expensive.
Execution, evaluation and interaction
For many years, AdPeople has provided a proven and sophisticated centralised offline setup for production, activation and delivery. This has been the keystone for the development of our effective online approach, giving us a unique ability to produce globally relevant online elements - and to be effective in scaling and localisation.
Our biggest advantages are our pragmatic approach and proven track record. Anyone can talk about big ideas, but our trusted model is about execution, evaluation and interaction.
United colours
Our expertise in global production standards lets us work more effectively in handling documents, files and images. If a global standard doesn’t exist in a company, we’ll create one.
Our unique RGB process was the result of a client’s need for a global image-bank. The requirement was for a system to deal with all the different colour standards for images used around the world in a more efficient way. As with many global companies, the existing image-bank consisted of masses of region-specific images. As locally-generated images optimized to specific needs, they needed to be converted or retouched for use in other regions. The process was costly and time consuming.
The solution was to identify and specify a new cost/time-efficient image management system. The RGB standard was chosen, as RGB is the only global standard that can be simply converted to all local standards for all media formats.
A common alignment to RGB standards within BrandShare™ - our Marketing Operation Management System, saves considerable time and cost in both localization and retouching processes.
The pragmatic approach
AdPeople is the first agency to use RGB standards to share images globally. It’s not rocket-science, just an example of how we approach every job in a pragmatic and holistic way – and a big endeavour which none of our competitors can match.
The RGB workflow offers:
- Better image quality
- One image for multiple usage globally
- Cost and time efficiency
And, more specifically:
- Low cost retouching for all production requirements
- Smaller image libraries and lower demands on server space
- Optimized synch time and time-to-market
- Truly global production support and image alignment with quality enrichment
In BrandShare™ a synchronisation mechanism makes it possible for all parties to access images and interact dynamically. All synchronisation is done overnight, taking advantage of different time zones.
The Marketing Operation Management System
BrandShare™ is our Marketing Operation Management System.
It is designed to create better brand consistency and brand integrity in produced materials. By increasing knowledge management, reusing materials and sharing best practices, it creates transparency and accountability for all stakeholders and allows them to operate independently of time and place.
Wide variety of features
We have program managers located in every region. Their job is to work with the business process owners in agencies and clientside. They adapt the tools to work with a specific process, help resolve day-to-day issues and collaborate on process refinement. Our system comes with a wide variety of features:
BrandShare standard solution
| Collaboration | Production | Marketing assets | Reporting |
| Briefing Workflow Notification Proof rounds Archiving Activity planning |
Letters Invitation Facts Sheet Ads Catalogues Web graphics Emails Banner E-DM Landing Pages |
Texts Translations Images Templates Product & Pricing Media information |
User management System set-up # Proof rounds # Archiving |
The system provides the essential tools for a “workflow system”:
- Activity planning
- Workflow briefing
- Proof rounds and approval
- Archiving and history
- Publication of finished work
- Content repository
- Product database
- Copy bank for marketing text
- Storage of translations against any product or marketing copy
System capabilities
The system has the capability of producing InDesign and PDF files for print work as well as HTML emails and Flash banners via a self-service automation feature.
The tools create output directly to Adobe InDesign, giving our studio the ability to pour all the content directly into an InDesign template and subsequently into different language versions. With the use of templates, the system reduces traditional studio time by as much as 60%.
Reporting is automatic, so it is possible to track all material produced. If a piece of work is marked as “final” in our workflow system, it is saved on our digital asset management system and is searchable in seconds.
The system that hosts the website with source assets is the same system that the studio works on, and is directly linked to the workflow management system. This means that when our project managers mark a file as “final” the system saves a copy directly to the finished work area.
Open collaboration towards shared goals
To handle or manage a workflow process in an efficient way, a workflow management system is required. This is a system that manages and defines a series of tasks within an organisation and between partners to produce a final outcome.
A workflow management system can automate redundant tasks and ensure uncompleted tasks are followed up. The system reflects the steps required for the completion of each task and produces documentation of every step. This creates transparency – a vital tool for efficient workflow.
With mutual agreement regarding the depths of transparency, the relationship between client and agency is less open to misunderstanding as roles and procedural steps are available for all to see and follow, and responsibilities are clearly defined. AdPeople’s experience with transparency and workflow has pushed our organisation towards constant optimisation of our internal processes as well as our workflow and performance for clients.
Experience and knowledge feedback
Transparency provides quantifiable experience and knowledge to feed back into the system to further the development of the workflow engine module in BrandShare™, our Marketing Operation Management System. This system allows users to cooperate on the design, creation and execution of marcom activities from simple briefings to multielement campaigns.
Working with AdPeople gives the following benefits:
- Transparent marcom management via sophisticated monitoring/auditing tools
- Accurate measurement of the value of all activities
- A sound foundation for measurement/benchmarking through documentation of workflow and responsibilities
- Integrated data warehousing and B.I. through workflow processes
- Insights to scalability become evident through transparency
Optimizing for the globalized world
To cope with and take advantage of the globalized world, you have to adapt. Not only by adjusting your marketing communication, but also by optimizing your marketing setup. You will have to develop global creativity with local relevance based on universal insights. Strengthen Brand Governance by centralizing your marketing operations. Deploy connection planning to reach target groups via their preferred channels. Enhance your competitiveness by improving efficiency, time to market and cost reductions
We help our clients to be optimized for the globalized world.
Our lean global agency offering and services include:
- Market and industry analysis
- Brand and communication strategy
- Creative development of regional or global ideas
- Activation and localization of creative ideas
- Delivery of marketing elements to market-specific conditions
- Change management process for centralization of marketing organizations
- Development of efficient marketing infrastructures and workflow processes