Creative Production

Are you engaged?

“Arm’s length engagement via RFPs is not the way a marketing procurement process should be run if it is to create an optimal solution,” insists ITG Chief Growth Officer, Dan Birks.

Obviously, a certain to and fro over the nuts and bolts in proposals and contracts is necessary but what Birks is referring to is a detachment between the solution provider and the client organisation.

Where success lies, he believes, is when procurement, the wider marketing team – even the wider business itself – and the solutions providers come together to get to the heart of the challenge at hand and shape potential solutions.

“The more transformational solutions we’ve created all have a commonality in the way the process was run. Genuine dialogue with potential suppliers generates living solutions that really work and deliver value back to the business.”

Naturally, not every paperclip and coffee cup needs to go through a stakeholder engagement process. However, many marketing solutions today upend traditional working models.

They introduce technologies and systems that are without precedent, that don’t fit standard KPIs or remuneration models. They solve challenges that are new and evolving.

“Ultimately, what we’re doing is shaping a solution with a brand. It’s not like brands come to us saying ‘this is our problem, what’s the solution?’.

It’s about understanding the symptoms of a problem and the choices we will make together to refine a solution.”

Putting in the legwork

“The consumer landscape that marketers operate in has changed immeasurably in the last five years and continues to change exponentially, particularly with the rise of AI. Solutions that deliver real value are much more bespoke and configured.

That means more complexity and so these things must be created together.”

“Together” is the key word and it means brands may be shocked to find they’re being asked to put a lot more time and effort into the procurement process than they’re used to.

Suddenly marketers are being asked to find half an hour in their diary to talk through their challenges. Teams are being quizzed on their processes and roadblocks, workflows, technologies and goals. This is a big ask.

Marketing teams are some of the most time-pressured around. Nearly two-thirds of CMOs (63%) say they miss opportunities because they can’t make decisions fast enough. But in the to-do list tug of war, Birks believes supplier discovery calls need to come close to the top.

“If marketing and stakeholders are not engaged enough with a small number of potential suppliers during the process (in addition to the obvious need to attend pitch and chemistry meetings), I would argue that the brand isn’t ready to go to market.

“A couple of succinct conversations with stakeholders to talk them through the process, to help them understand the more subjective elements and to understand the people involved is what drives adoption and makes a fundamental difference to success.”

Whether the business is looking at total transformation, or simply adopting a new technique or technology, the principle is the same: doing the legwork up front pays off in multiples further down the line.

Global hygiene and health company, Essity, incorporated just this approach when integrating technology and teams to deliver content more efficiently. The company used ITG’s Storyteq technology but also involved the supplier’s expert teams in creating a whole new operating model.

“The solution was looking into the opportunity to work with a vendor that would allow us to essentially create economies of scale, efficiency and effectiveness of our asset adaptation.

When the hero agencies and when the local markets start to see how this new process can deliver more personalised content, that’s when things change because there’s the opportunity to do more,” suggests Alessio Babolin, global digital marketing director for Essity.

A roadmap to somewhere

Another reason why real engagement is necessary is to burrow beneath the hype. Understandably, the chatter is all about what AI can do, the promise of immediate automation, of intelligent production and creative and only the lightest of human touches.

Unfortunately, this view rarely survives an encounter with reality.

“Our marketing clients are beginning to understand where AI can provide real value and conversely, where it can’t.”

The view of AI adoption has, in Birks’ view, become too binary. It isn’t ‘do AI or don’t’. Instead, he is inviting clients to develop a roadmap with a series of sensible steps along the way.

In this, he comes back to the idea that every AI and automation implementation has to be configured to the client in some way.

Indeed, Essity used a carefully phased, strategic rollout to make sure there was successful adoption across the different brands and regions.

“Geographic requirements are often under thought and there does need to be clarity on what you wish to do before you come to market,” Birks advises.

“We’re looking at very different, blended commercial models. Putting people in the right areas where they deliver value and using technology to manage the more objective tasks.”

This, naturally, leads the conversation to cost – how much implementing AI-enabled technology should cost, on what basis it should be calculated and how the value of the output should be measured.

“Brands value certainty and marketing is not an area where that is easy to provide. It’s one of the reasons we still see retainer-based and hourly pricing. It may not be the most commercially effective but it gives teams a base and the consistency they’re looking for.”

For Birks, this naturally leads to the blend – where a retainer may still have its place or also thinking about asset-based pricing or technology charging. “Models based on impact, managed together with stakeholders, can be really powerful.”

The hard work pays off

Having established that perspiration in preparation pays off in execution, there is one more hurdle brands have to overcome before their procurement partnerships really take off.

“We can’t deliver the solution on our own,” Birks admits.

This is not a failing but it is at the core of why we hear about so many tech-enabled implementations have stumbled in the past.

“I don’t think there’s enough consideration in marketing procurement around how relatively small investments and small projects from a transition and change point of view on the client side, make a huge difference to the speed and success of the solution.”

Whether it’s education, bringing on board a new skill set or simply an attitudinal piece to help those client side adjust to the implications of a new solution, these seemingly insignificant investments generate “a very, very fast return on a relatively small spend that is very often underestimated by marketing”.

Critically, Birks insists that the impetus for client-side training and change management must come from the client themselves. “While we can deliver it, it’s not as credible or impactful as it would be from senior stakeholders client-side.”.

There is no doubt that the marketing procurement process appears to have been made much more complex with the introduction of AI-augmented tools and solutions – but perhaps it is a sea change that has come not a moment too soon.

Standard elements remain – RFPs and remuneration models will always feature. Only now we’re seeing a move from procurement to partnership. A process that now takes its time to examine what the real issues are.

Not a simple ‘our lead times are too long’ but diving into why, a process that reveals where even more savings can be made, opportunities explored and value added.

Stakeholder engagement is at the heart of procurement success, now and in the future.