Today’s brands face an incredible pressure to do more with less: there’s a need for always-on content spread across a vast number of channels to support. While this isn’t new, many traditional agencies still aren’t equipped to deliver that level of efficiency; many of them build businesses around a model based on tracking time spent rather than on success and attribution, stunting their ability to build long-term, collaborative relationships with clients.

The tailspin of the industry is well-documented. It’s the new-age, new-era advertising companies where industry action and growth is. In their “Predictions 2020: Agencies” report, Forrester Research urges that agencies finally disassemble what remains of their outmoded model and reassemble centralized structures and new capabilities strengthened by scaled data, technology and creativity.

This includes “[leveraging] in-house production capabilities, networks of creators, and dynamic creative engines to begin building the capacity to develop hundreds of assets that yield thousands of dynamically built creative iterations” and “[using] partnerships and white-labeled tech stacks to power just about every media type to enhance their scaled production capacity.” Forrester’s proposed model demonstrates that future-forward agencies have the potential to become the content engine uniquely equipped to power any channel supported by the brand.

The days of eschewing digital-first content for the traditional “big idea” are over. But don’t take it from me, take it from the largest advertiser on the planet, Mark Pritchard, Global Chief Brand Officer, P&G. “We’re breaking down the boundaries of functions, and operating in a fast-cycle, integrated, multi-skilled way, where speed matters and where every aspect of the consumer experience is created from the start.”

Don’t get Mark (or me) wrong, a (high quality) TVC can still be useful for broad reach for some audiences. It is, though, ill-equipped to achieve the relevancy required by today’s consumers, who are trained to tune out information that doesn’t immediately purport to serve them. One need only look at a widescreen TVC awkwardly cut-down into a vertically consumed, 6-second social ad to see why it doesn’t work.

What brands need to do instead is connect data and media strategy with creative ahead of moving into production. This enables a strategy for producing content that’s fit for format, fit for purpose and fit for moment. While that might sound overwhelming for brands that aren’t fluent in the nuances of different channels and how users interact on them, this approach is often cheaper and more efficient.

Efficiency isn’t just a matter of getting things done quickly. It’s about optimizing your media budgets at the same time. It’s a win-win situation for everyone. Brands that take a more strategic approach to their channel strategy and integrate it into the earliest phases of the creative process can likewise optimize their production to drive results. Fit-for-format blows traditional creative out of the water in terms of results. To quantify that: on average it’s typically above 30% – which is significant.

According to Dynamic Logic and Google, studies show on average that media placements only account for about 30% of a brand campaign’s success while the creative drives 70%. While creative freedom is important, an impactful campaign comes from testing out the channel strategy before putting the media spend behind it.

One might think that when it comes to speed, quality and value, you can only have two of the three. But new partnership models empower brands to achieve all three—precisely when close collaboration is valued by both brand and digital partner, they can both enjoy a seat at the table during strategic planning, resulting in better quality work.  For example, when both a media and agency partner join together early-on, that media plan serves as a starting point to strategize assets at scale, because your production team is equipped with knowledge needed to economically produce content for each of the formats you already know you need, rather than cut things down as an afterthought.

We’re in a new era where consumers demand a lot from today’s brands, who have a constant need to offer relevant content without cutting corners. As digital penetration continues to grow in the APAC region (with an appetite for content growing with it), it becomes all the more critical that brands select agency partners that are better equipped to pay them the care and willingness to collaborate that they need to succeed.

This post was originally published on CIO Advisor.

In a fast-moving world with teams spread across a myriad of partnerships (and across the globe), effective communication and collaboration are critical to success. To ease the friction felt between teams, Firewood Marketing, now part of MediaMonks, recently released their guide to getting the most out of digital campaigns by communicating more effectively: “Talk.”

Because effective collaboration is a group effort that requires alignment of all teams, we thought, “What better way to discuss collaboration than by collaborating across MediaMonks and the partners we’ve merged with throughout the past year?” We picked the brains of leadership from across our various teams, getting their own take on some of the points and strategies readers encounter within the guide.

From the start, “Talk” identifies several things that businesses miss out on when teams don’t communicate as effectively as they could. Could you summarize the imperative for better communication?

Kristoffer Belau (VP Digital Media, Firewood): A lack of communication means you risk making errors: the creative isn’t to spec, the campaign is not targeting the right way, you’re competing with other parts of the company. These are all ultimately errors, and they come from this lack of coordination from the various parties involved. Team alignment mitigates these risks.

“Talk” offers a handful of strategies in different situations to establish stronger collaboration. What’s your go-to strategy?

Mansi Mehta (Business Development & Global Expansion, WhiteBalance): We don’t wait to align and join together teams. Often, brands and their partners face long gestation periods before the concept is refined. This is predominantly because conventional agencies do not have their go-to artists in-house, which risks causing a game of “telephone” that results in something other than what they first envisioned.

Vera Cvetkovic (Managing Director, BizTech): Over the years working with various clients in different verticals, we learned the importance of asking the right questions, clearly setting expectations and guiding our clients as trusted advisors. Great listening skills are also very important before finding the best future-proof solution that is aligned with clients’ specific requirements. Given the complexity of what we do that spans client silos of business, IT and marketing, we have to go the extra mile with our communication to be crystal-clear within the context of the audience. Each of the clients’ silos are likely to have a very different lens on the same problem and potential solution, so it’s our job to bring them all together and be that “translator” that binds the common strategy and execution.

The guide also cites internal silos as one of the greatest challenges that many organizations face. What are some strategies or benefits to getting everyone a seat at the table?

Lieseloth Wisbraun (Brand Partnership Manager, IMA): We host workshops with all teams to get everyone in one room. From there, we aim to be clear, stay nice and share knowledge.

Louise Martens (Global Head of Embedded Production, MediaMonks): Any concerns about silos can be nipped in the bud when establishing a team architecture. When the team is partially in-housed, for example, the lines naturally blur, making a really positive impact on the nature of the collaboration. It’s less scary to hand over power because it feels like one unified team.

Managing expectations is the true test of effective communication. How do you establish expectations from the start?

Jason Prohaska (Managing Director, MediaMonks NY): Understanding through education is one of the best ways to afford great collaboration together and on behalf of the client—and this isn’t something we treat as a one-time event. Everyone benefits when we can try, test and learn together with opportunities to dialogue openly throughout a project. We set these up at the outset as a mandatory part of the scope, letting us frequently revisit shared understanding across the arc of collaboration.

Martens:  I’m a huge fan of partnerships in which gaining efficiency is among the KPIs. This unlocks a totally different type of conversation, and both parties benefit from better workflows and ease of working. When these efforts gain speed, a great relationship naturally follows. Our first step to achieve this is diving deep into the brand. We establish brand ambassadors that truly live and breathe the brand.

Belau: We strive to offer a very clear vision of what the experience could look like when everyone pools together, aiming to make the process getting there as comfortable as possible for the client. On our end, this means getting everything nice and organized with no uncertainty, so the client still feels control in the situation.

There’s so much more to talk about.