ad: Annual 2024 Now Open For Entries!
*

Content is everything - Why old tech leads to off-brand content | #TechMonth

Published by

Christian Lund, Co-Founder at Templafy, discusses how outdated legacy tech is getting in the way of brand reputation, productivity, employee happiness and revenues. 

*

Content is - and always has been - a critical business asset. No one knows this more than those working in the creative industries. Yet businesses aren’t giving creatives the right tools that will allow them to quickly and accurately create and distribute branded content.

The 2022 Content is Everything Report surveyed almost 2,500 workers across the UK, US and Germany and revealed just how big an impact legacy tech is having on content. 

Unsurprisingly, 68% of UK respondents said content is the most important driver of business success, with 87% saying content is essential to their business’ financial wellbeing. And yet companies still do not invest in the processes and tools necessary to make content creation and distribution easier, faster and more accurate.

Managing content is no small feat. Despite acknowledging content’s integral role in business success, companies are not prioritising content infrastructure. 

Nearly half (41%) of UK respondents said their company struggles with content standardisation and added that when creating new materials they are not confident they are using the latest company-approved assets. 

How many hours have you spent creating new logos or illustrations only for your team to use old outdated versions throughout a new document? This lack of consistency and integrity across all business content is called “content anarchy”.

The brand impact

*

Think about when you’ve created a new logo for your company, an ad for a client, or maybe a pitch deck for a prospect. How many rounds of review were you forced to go through before sending to your CEO or client for approval? How many times have you later spotted mistakes or inaccuracies despite the numerous rounds of review? 

Well, you’re not alone. 78% of workers admit that despite extensive reviews, content often reaches clients and customers laden with errors - critical when pitching a new campaign. In some cases it's much worse.

Over half have shared highly sensitive information to unauthorised third parties, which is a major cyber and brand reputation risk.

Hindering a rebrand 

*

When poorly executed, rebrands can cost more than budgeted, take longer than expected, and drive less business impact than envisioned. Not understanding how big a job content plays in a rebrand will set anyone up for failure. And yet it’s still highly undervalued.

Poor document governance is rife across all businesses, let alone the creative industries. An example of document governance would ensure new on-brand content from a rebrand is used company-wide with no errors or use of old and outdated branding. 

But it also covers something called backward compatibility, such as making sure that materials and templates in use are routinely updated with the latest information. 52% of respondents indicated their company struggles with this. 

Imagine investing in a global rebrand or refresh only to find the updates you spent days and weeks creating are not reflected across all existing collateral. For that reason, tech solutions that streamline the distribution of updated and on-brand content is essential to any rebrand. 

The new business cost

*

It’s not only your creative work for clients that is being harmed by poor document management, it’s hurting your ability to secure new campaign work, too. 

88% agree inaccurate or outdated information in content can harm sales. Even so, a whopping 97% said their team has pulled outdated information into sales pitches and content, including 59% who admit to using Google to search for company images or logos. 

The slow review process mentioned above also hampers a business - nine in 10 believe slow, manual review processes are hurting revenues. In fact, 88% of respondents said that company revenue would increase if content bottlenecks were eliminated.

When the average UK worker spends a staggering 15 hours - or 41% of their working hours - each week creating content, making sure they have the tools in place to guarantee that content is on-brand and accurate is essential to increase productivity. 

For example, contextualised content should be actively served to employees within the places they already work to actively support business processes. That way business documents consist of the right pieces of content like the latest logo or legal disclaimer. 

The proliferation of legacy tech that is not fit-for-purpose in a digital world leaves workers in a state of constant content anarchy. Without the right tech solutions in place, companies risk jeopardising brand reputation, violating security requirements and losing out on content-associated revenue.

Header image by Kristina Forrest

Comments

More Workshop

*

Workshop

Obsessing over the Story with Wardour #CompanySpotlight

This week, we sat down with Martin MacConnol, Founder and CEO at the Covent Garden-based creative agency Wardour. How was your company born and where are you based? We began life as a content marketing agency on Wardour Street, Soho, in 1996 - the...

Posted by: Creativepool Editorial
*

Workshop

The anxiety attacking earplugs #CreativeCaseStudy

Design agency Matter has collaborated with University of the Arts London to develop a concept for a bio-inspired sustainable earplug using the natural form of a helix to reduce material needed to efficiently block out sound. The concept takes...

Posted by: Benjamin Hiorns
ad: Annual 2024 Now Open For Entries!