How To Maximize Creative Production

Creative is the key to differentiation and growth. High volumes of top-quality creative—delivered in record time—are needed across the entire company—from marketing to comms, product, HR, finance, etc. and there's only one nimble, resource-strapped team to fill all the creative requests.

How can they prioritize and allocate creative resources to work on 50+ concurrent projects?

When receiving a creative request, the first filter to apply is to establish the importance of the asset:

• How strategic is the asset to drive the business forward?
• How does it compete with current projects in the pipeline?
• How complex is the execution?
• How critical is the delivery?

If the asset is tactical, simple or low-priority, there’s an opportunity to leverage a template or other existing assets from a design library or creative hub.

If the asset is strategic, complex or critical, it moves to step 2.

The second filter assesses the available in-house creative capacity:

• Do you have the creative bandwidth to execute internally?
• Do you have the creative speed to deliver on time?
• Do you have the creative capabilities or skills required to execute internally?

If the answer is yes to all of the above, you can add the asset to your internal creative pipeline.

If the answer is no to any of them, the solution is to outsource it to a design subscription service (step 3).

Creative-as-a-Service (CaaS) is a design subscription designed to get you top-quality creative that performs. With complete pricing transparency and live quotes and estimates, this service was formed as an antidote to the legacy, agency model.

When you partner with a CaaS provider like Superside, we take care of your creative and design overflow, as well as become a creative thought partner for your campaigns and channels. Built for ambitious marketing and creative teams, Superside's CaaS solution gives you the scale and speed you need.

You can send to Superside three kinds of projects:

1. Production work—with a dedicated creative team that leverages templatized assets to deliver in as little as 12 to 24 hours.
2. Creative work—with additional staff and a dedicated design director to design from scratch a landing page, video, etc.
3. Concepting work—with additional staff and a dedicated art director and copywriter.

A creative hub or design library is a collection of templates and digital assets to streamline the production of creative such as:

• Landing pages
• Banners
• Social posts
• Emails
• Presentations
• Etc.

They're all part of the visual style guide included in the brand guidelines—the rules a company sets for how it expresses itself in the marketplace.

Templates make it easier to execute for non-designers, equipping anyone in the organization with simple tools to create their own assets when they need them. This allows you to scale creative production efficiently without overtaxing your in-house creative team.

So, the last step after you create a new asset —or your CaaS partner does it for you, is asking yourself: Could this be stored as a template in the design library?

The flowchart below illustrates the strategy to prioritize and allocate creative resources with your augmented, extended team.

In the following video, Monica Benson, Head of Brand Creative Production at Reddit, explains how she applies this playbook.

You may also like these resources...

Brand Guidelines Examples To Inspire You
How TransACT Achieved 70X Design Capacity