Executive Summary

In an era where digital marketing's speed and creativity are crucial, a leading omnichannel pet retailer sought to overcome significant production challenges for their shopper marketing programs. These included long production times, high costs, and a scarcity of HTML5 expertise within its teams. The retail partner engaged ScaleCreative to revolutionize its production process, producing dramatic improvements in time to market and overall cost which resulted in additional revenue for the retailer and their partners.

The Challenge

The retail partner faced several obstacles in its digital marketing efforts:

Extended Campaign Lead Times: The production of campaign creatives previously took up to four weeks, significantly limiting the retail partner's ability to quickly launch campaigns. In this case, the delay in launches affected both revenue from their retail media network, and sales lost.

High Production Costs: The considerable expenses associated with developing advanced HTML5 ads restricted the frequency and diversity of the retail partner's advertising campaigns and prevented them from growing their programs.

Technical Talent Shortage: A notable gap in specialized HTML5 skills within the retail partner's in-house teams prevented partners from using more dynamic and engaging advertising and represented an opportunity lost for the retailer.

Objectives

In collaboration, ScaleCreative and the retail partner aimed to:

Slash Campaign Production Times: To improve time to market by reducing the creative development cycle from four weeks to less than one week, including revisions from the retailer and their partners.

Significantly Cut Production Costs: To enhance overall marketing efficiency and provide better ROI to partners.

Augment HTML5 Creative Talent: To elevate ad quality by leveraging ScaleCreative's vast pool of specialized talent, thus filling existing gaps.

The ScaleCreative Solution

ScaleCreative crafted a multi-pronged strategy to tackle each of the retail partner's challenges, employing technology, optimizing workflows, and tapping into global talent:

Optimized Workflow Processes: Working closely with the retail partner, ScaleCreative revamped the creative development workflow including implementing review tools and approval processes to eliminate inefficiencies, thereby facilitating faster turnaround times and fostering agility.

Access to ScaleCreative Resources: Deploying ScaleCreative's extensive pool of HTML5 experts to inject creativity and technical skill and flexibility into the retail partner's campaigns, effectively bridging the talent gap.

Partner Integration: By integrating into the retailers existing systems and supplementing them when necessary, ScaleCreative was able to act as a seamless extension of the existing creative department.

Transformational Outcomes

The partnership between ScaleCreative and the retail partner delivered remarkable results:

Dramatic Cost Reductions: Achieving over 60% savings in production costs, thereby allowing the retail partner to reallocate its budget towards more strategic marketing efforts.

Lead Time Reduction: Decreasing the time to produce creative by 75% from four weeks to just one, significantly enhancing the retail partner's agility in responding to market trends.

Bridged HTML5 Talent Gap: ScaleCreative's specialized expertise supplemented the retail partner's in-house capabilities, driving creative innovation in campaign materials.

Enhanced Consumer Engagement: The innovative and interactive HTML5 ads produced led to a significant increase in consumer engagement and improved campaign performance metrics.

"Partnering with ScaleCreative has transformed our approach to creative production for our shopper marketing programs. Their dedication to client service and integration and their deep pool of technical talent helped us meet and exceed our goals.

Director of Creative Operations

Conclusion

This case study exemplifies the transformative impact of strategic collaboration in overcoming digital production challenges. By significantly reducing costs, improving lead times, and enhancing creative quality, ScaleCreative has helped the retail partner achieve a competitive advantage in the pet retail industry. This initiative underscores ScaleCreative's commitment to delivering innovative solutions and exceptional value to our clients, marking a milestone in the evolution of digital marketing within the pet retail sector.