Groundbreaking New Study Reveals That Creative Asset Workflow Lags Years Behind Innovations in Media Buying and Negatively Impacts Advertisers, Agencies and Publishers

NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Extreme Reach, the cloud technology platform for TV and video ad workflow and Talent & Rights management, today released a comprehensive new report illuminating just how cumbersome and inefficient it is for ad ops teams to find and prepare creative assets for video campaigns. In fact, 93% of ad ops professionals on the front lines of activation cite issues with sourcing and preparing assets, underscoring how vital it is that the industry address this issue. The most common issues cited were late starts, formatting errors, video quality degradation and missed ad calls.

Extreme Reach commissioned Advertiser Perceptions™, a leading market research firm, to quantify the current state of sourcing and preparing creative assets for video. Despite Herculean efforts by skilled teams, nearly 60% of those closest to campaign activation reported that mistakes are likely to happen because the process is manual and there's a mounting matrix of specifications required by all the destinations and devices on the media plan. Over half of respondents say their digital video campaigns start late due to asset issues arising from disconnected hand-offs.

The study further revealed that these issues are driving mid-to-high levels of job dissatisfaction inside the ranks of activation teams, 85% of whom cite improvement in this area as important to increasing their job satisfaction.

When asked to identify the pain points in the campaign activation process, survey respondents pointed to:

• not enough lead time
• the scavenger hunt required to track down all the creative assets
• the dizzying array of specs/formats required by all of the various partners/publishers on the media plan

"We've come so far in leveraging data and technology in media for precision targeting," said Melinda McLaughlin, CMO of Extreme Reach. "However, in the race to that advancement, a system was never established for how the creative assets would be sourced and prepared for digital video activation. In the absence of a system to handle this complexity, we collectively find ourselves in a mess that serves no side well and most importantly, is affecting campaign success."

As a whole, this study underscores that while media can be bought and sold in mere fractions of a second, the creative part of the equation—the workflow to source and prepare assets themselves—is sluggish and cumbersome and must be brought up to speed with innovations in media planning and buying before things get even more complex ahead. In fact, 70% of survey respondents say the industry should reinvent the process from scratch, leaning on technology to transform the asset workflow. When asked, "Would a service that allows the media agency, creative agency and client to share and access creative assets from a central, permissions-based cloud location be helpful?" 88% said yes.

The Extreme Reach platform integrates TV and video ad delivery, and the company works with virtually every advertiser, agency and end destination in some way today. As such, Extreme Reach is uniquely qualified to see the extent of the rapidly growing disconnect between the creative asset and media fulfillment process and the resulting impact of broken workflow on campaign success.

Methodology
The Advertiser Perceptions online survey was fielded from September 25 - October 12, 2017, achieving a representative sample size of 150 qualified respondents. To supplement the quantitative survey, Advertiser Perceptions completed three qualitative one-on-one interviews with mid- to high-level agency ad operations professionals. The survey sample was curated from the agency contacts in The Advertiser Perceptions Media Decision Maker Database and third-party databases as needed.

To qualify for the survey, respondents had to meet all the following criteria:

• Digital video decision-makers
• Involved in cross media advertising
• Involved in campaign implementation and optimization
• $1M+ past 12 month digital ad spend
• Job titles that are responsible for digital video campaign execution

About Advertiser Perceptions
Advertiser Perceptions is the world leader in providing the media industry with research-based advertiser insight and guidance necessary for strengthening brands and increasing advertising sales, market share and competitive advantage. We specialize in determining, analyzing and communicating what advertisers think—their plans, opinions and motivations.

Our proprietary database of media decision makers is one of the largest in the world. The advertiser survey and questionnaire development process that we employ ensures optimal response. Singular focus and media industry expertise enables us to effectively analyze and accurately interpret the research that we conduct on behalf of our clients who represent many of the largest international media companies.

About Extreme Reach
Extreme Reach offers the only enterprise technology designed distinctly to bring together the TV and video ad workflow and all aspects of Talent & Rights management in a single, easy-to-use cloud platform. One platform and one process make brand advertising easier, and analytics more insightful, with the assurance of rights compliance wherever ads play. Founded in 2008, Extreme Reach proudly serves the world's biggest brands, agencies, post-production houses, all media destinations, and the talent community, altogether simplifying the process for every team that touches an ad campaign from start to finish. Headquartered in Needham, MA, Extreme Reach has offices in 19 cities worldwide.

Press Contact
Tess VandenDolder
Clarity PR for Extreme Reach
413-695-7458 
[email protected]

SOURCE Extreme Reach