Creative
Automation
What currently feels like a new trendy term in marketing is much more than short-lived: creative automation in the content creation process.
Marketers and brand managers want to address customers in an increasingly targeted way, but this requires more and more content for an increasing number of channels. This exceeds the effort, on the one hand monetarily, but also in terms of time.
Serving interests and needs on-demand is hardly possible and yet a wish of customers as well as brands and companies.
Creative Automation helps you build your in-house production pipeline according to your content strategy and generate content efficiently, scalably and on-demand thanks to automation and the use of AI.
What is Creative Automation?
Creative automation describes a partially automated production of media content. It is a marketing strategy that uses technology, data and algorithms to streamline, scale and improve the creative content production process.
It can encompass a range of tools and solutions designed to automate tasks traditionally performed by human creatives, such as graphic design, copywriting, video production, voice-over recording and more.
But there is also the option for multiple functions to be bundled together in an ecosystem to speed up production pipelines and produce content on demand as soon as you need it.
The main goal of creative automation is to produce high-quality, personalised and data-driven content at scale. This is to engage customers or target customer segments according to their interests and needs and present solutions.
Creative Automation
The focus is on creating creative content such as images, videos, ad copy, voice-overs and design layouts for social media posts, video content, HTML banner sets, etc. Creative automation tools can use AI, but the basis is on specially developed templates to create visually appealing and engaging content tailored to specific target groups.
Content Automation
Is an overarching category and includes all aspects of content creation and distribution. That is, not only creative content, but also content planning, scheduling, distribution and analysis. Content automation solutions manage the entire content lifecycle, from idea to implementation to evaluation.
The future of Creative Automation
The future of creative automation in marketing is extremely promising and is determined by several key factors.
Dynamic Content
The ability to create dynamic, data-driven content that responds to real-time information and user behaviour is a game changer for marketers and pays dividends in brand success, measured in sales, but also brand awareness and most importantly brand loyalty.
Personalization
Consumers expect tailored experiences, to be entertained and informed, and above all, to have their questions answered.
Creative automation enables brands to deliver personalised content at scale and be direct to the customer, increasing customer engagement and loyalty.
Efficiency & cost savings
Automating creative processes reduces production time and costs by reducing or eliminating coordination with external trades. This allows marketers to use their resources more strategically and focus on creative content strategy instead of spending their time on coordination, feedback loops and general waiting.
Another important advantage: dependencies and long lead times are reduced, which leads to more flexibility.
Multichannel Marketing
Creative automation plays a crucial role in adapting and delivering consistent content across different platforms and channels.
This results in the fact that more relevant content can be created in less time and also delivered directly, so your brand can expand its digital presence.
Data-Driven Marketing
Consumer data provides valuable insight and information. Creative automation uses this data to create content that resonates, increasing engagement and conversion rates, which in turn leads to more valuable data being collected and used.
This means that data is constantly improving and therefore becoming more valuable.
Technological advances
As AI and machine learning evolve, creative automation tools are becoming more sophisticated and can create highly personalised and contextualised content.
To do this, it is important to know, use and, most importantly, orchestrate the right tools so that they mesh perfectly and can map use cases more efficiently.
To start with creative automation, you need to build a solid foundation based on several key elements and minor changes in the previous process.
Here are some questions which help you to create the perfect strategy for a solid creative automation production pipeline
1. The Basis
Before you start implementing strategies or integrating new approaches and tools, you first need to know what you want to achieve with Creative Automation. Therefore, ask yourself and your team the following question:
What are the goals for Creative Automation? Do we want to increase brand awareness, improve engagement, drive conversions or some other specific outcome? Or do we primarily want to improve our processes to become more efficient?What might a strategy look like that outlines how creative automation will support our overall marketing or business goals?
After the answers have been determined, the foundation needs to be reviewed. Because in order to realise the full potential of creative automation, the following requirements must be met:
Scalable thinkers in your team or external parties with this capability. Overview of all formats that need to be created.
2. Sustainable asset production
Creative Automation is not only about the creation of new content, but also about the re-use of existing assets. Content assets should be produced with the answer to the following question: How can I use them repeatedly and thus sustainably for different content and formats?
In some cases, even simple decisions are crucial:
Do I have assets photographed with shadows, for example, or do I have shadows generated automatically within the production process for the respective format in order to be able to use the product shots in a more versatile way?
Do I really photograph all products or do I rely on the creation in 3D, e.g. to be able to exchange labels easily (keyword internationalisation) and to be able to generate animations easily in addition to still images?
Will I also need shot backgrounds in the future or do I prefer to work with simple, e.g. coloured surfaces that give me more leeway? Or do I perhaps also use AI-generated images that offer more scope for testing?
All these questions, and of course the answers to them, lead directly to more scalable thinking. Sit down with all creative teams to define synergies and best practices based on pros and cons.
3. Scalable Design
For creative automation, applicability across many formats should be the goal. This means, for example, that a marketer creates a content piece based on one format (e.g. 16:9), but this is translated and adapted directly for other formats in an automated way and played out directly. In this way, a complete banner set with different sizes (portrait, landscape, square) can be created on the basis of an HTML banner.
To make this possible for different campaigns with different final formats, it is important to define a structure that covers many content types and to develop a design that behaves responsively. Therefore, you should:
Take an inventory of your existing creative assets, including images, videos, text and design elements.
Organise and categorise assets to facilitate reuse and repurposing.
Know your brand CI for each format and check that it can be implemented for as many formats as possible. Involve your design and creative team or consult with external experts on this topic.
4. Data Structure & Insights
A clear storage of data is crucial for reusability, but above all for findability for all teams (national and international). A DAM system or at least a well-structured filing system - ideally in the cloud - should be used for this purpose, where external producers can also store their data. With clear naming and precise filing, assets are used more often because they can be found directly.
In addition to a clear filing structure for creative data, user data is of course also essential for greater efficiency. Use data-driven insights to inform your creative decisions and personalise content for different audience segments. A/B testing, for example, can enrich data and better inform decisions, leading to sustainable success in terms of customer engagement, cost efficiency, scalability and responsiveness.
Get in touch
Would you like to request information for your own project or explore varycon yourself in a demo? We are looking forward to your message!
.svg)