How MNTN’s Creative-as-Subscription™ Drives a Force Multiplier Effect

3 Min Read

We’ve explored the business impact of creative variation on performance here before, but what about the human impact? A strong creative pipeline improves in-house teams as much as it does revenue, all while giving performance marketers full control and flexibility over their creative process, without sacrificing time or budget.  

How a Creative Pipeline Solves the ‘Lean Team’ (Or No Creative Team) Challenge

According to the Nielsen Norman group, for every 300 employees hired, just one is a designer—in other words, creative teams are lean. This ratio stays constant regardless of company size.

A separate research study by McKinsey also revealed that businesses that invest in design teams and processes generate 32% more revenue and 56% more shareholder returns.

If lean teams are a constant, but creative teams are also known to generate higher ROI for businesses, then there’s a disconnect (and a challenge) for businesses. Whether they’re in-house or external partners, creative teams can’t do everything—and that’s where having a solid creative pipeline in place is essential.

In the case of Connected TV advertisers, the right creative pipeline needs to solve for the following:

• It needs to establish a streamlined way to produce Connected TV creative that creates more assets with the same (or less) budget.
• It needs to give time back to in-house creative teams or external agencies, yet giving them transparency into their creative production–whether this be through reviews or  involvement in creative concepting. 
• It needs to drive better performance on Connected TV, but also have a positive impact or ‘halo effect’ across the rest of the marketing mix.

The Force Multiplier Effect

In addition to lean (or non-existent) creative teams, there’s also an industry-wide problem of speed, volume, and value, as revealed in a recent survey of over 600 people in content-focused marketing and creative roles, including graphic designers and creative directors.

Creative pipeline models like Creative-as-a-Subscription™ (CaaS) were engineered to address these challenges—to help brands produce more, for less. The “less is more” adage doesn’t apply here, either—CaaS fuels the creative production pipeline by supplying a steady (quarterly) stream of assets for brands to test, optimize, and iterate. The end goal is quality and quantity, which drives a compounded effect on revenue and performance over time.

These models aren’t created to replace in-house teams altogether—rather, they’re meant to act as an extension of them. Creative teams who may be concerned about maintaining creative control over their production, are still embedded in the process—including review rounds and creative concepting. Meanwhile, operational elements that prove a time suck, like project management, can be removed from their plates, freeing up time to work on the next big idea.

Creative Teams Need a Creative Pipeline (and Vice Versa)

The great AI debate asks whether machines will one day replace the work of creatives—but ultimately, one cannot exist without the other. Creativity isn’t the issue—the way it is executed is what’s broken. Creative models like CaaS support these teams, to produce better creative, more often, to keep the performance engine running at its best.