Everyone is trying to sell more online, relying largely on digital channels to survive, and perhaps even thrive, during the pandemic. It isn’t enough to just succeed in mass-producing creative assets. In-house creative and marketing teams need to be able to scale in an agile manner to hit campaign launch dates or cultural moments. Most importantly, brands can’t let design suffer in the process of content scaling. The mindset of “Done is better than perfect” can be harmful in this context. Too many brands are relying on simplistic designs or generic, templated solutions, just because they don’t have the resources or the right technology and workflows to scale in a design-friendly manner. Creative Automation is one way to overcome this production woe and it’s already being used by the likes of Spotify and adidas, brands that are renowned for their design excellence.
Why Does Pixel Perfection Matter?
Pixel perfection means protecting your brand’s carefully crafted identity and voice across every digital touchpoint. Before we delve into how you can champion it, let’s hop in the consumer’s shoes for a moment. Have you ever seen a poorly designed ad with a product you might have considered buying otherwise? Didn’t the ugly design deter you from making the purchase? Or maybe you clicked on a nice ad that led to a terrible-looking e-commerce site.
Design builds trust. 75% of e-commerce credibility comes from design. You can have the best e-commerce experience in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t give your creative and advertising assets the same love. We recognize that this may be tricky especially if you have central and regional creative teams, operate in multiple markets, and in different languages. However, it is achievable.
Challenges and Solutions to Achieving Pixel-Perfection at Scale
Challenge: the designers on your brand team took the time and effort to perfect the campaign designs with precision and intention, but the 1257 scaled assets look anything but the original.
Solution: moving to cloud-based design and content scaling tools so that designers can oversee content scaling and ensure that their big ideas look on-brand regardless of the format.
Challenge: there always seem to be visual compromises when moving into the production phase of a campaign, lowering the overall quality.
Solution: with Creative Automation software, designers can maintain the same level of craftsmanship that they receive from their current design tools with responsive layout building and intuitive animation tools.
Challenge: your creative team is always in a hurry and as a result, most of the scaled assets look simplistic or generic.
Solution: allow your creative team to take back time so that they can focus on craftsmanship. The best way to triple your output with beautiful designs is to automate repetitive tasks, such as resizing and adjusting layouts for formats and channels.
Challenge: regional marketing teams deviate from approved designs when localizing content.
Solution: cloud-based design and distribution for the win: by locking in certain elements of approved design templates, local teams can translate and edit without messing up the layout. As a bonus, brand managers over at central offices can review and approve localized campaigns.
We get that automation may feel counterintuitive to achieving pixel perfection but in reality, it is the most convenient way to maintain consistent, quality creative regardless of scale. With the right partner, you’ll be able to fully customize any design to match your brand identity so that you look your best in each marketing touchpoint.
If you’d like to find out if Celtra is the right partner for you, contact us today.