Home /Featured Articles / Tips from a Creative Director: The Future of Integration in Advertising
By Vincent Kao, NEXT.0 Senior Creative Director
One of the biggest frustrations in advertising is how much the proposal changes with each stakeholder. Everyone thinks they know what the client wants and they continuously change their ideas only to realize that the client has a very different direction in mind.
The great thing about this technology is that if you throw something onto the Jamboard screen, it instantly shares this with everyone who has the app, no matter where they are in the world. This powerful connectivity allows everyone to view the screen in real-time and make changes simultaneously. Discussions can be held via Google Hangouts Meet and every modification is instantly synchronized and tracked. This has truly made communication and workflow much more direct and efficient.
I remember this campaign where it involved everyone from the client’s marketing manager, to its director, VP, and even the GM. The process included several rounds of changes, and with each round, everyone had their own ideas and input. After our creative team implemented numerous changes, the film was finally ready to be shown to the GM for final approval.
The GM took one look at the film and asked, “I like this idea, but maybe we should go in a different direction.” We all looked exhausted and deflated by that time.
The problem wasn’t that the GM had his own views, but that he didn’t follow the series of adjustments, and was not able to understand the logic behind how we came to the final idea. To add to the frustration, we weren’t able to bring up the previous ideas to explain the whole creative process. The room was tense and in the end, we had to find another time to go through the presentation with the GM — pushing back everything.
After that incident, I asked the AE to start collating all the proposals with the final presentation. However, this also had its challenges. Now, we have an even better solution: Jamboard. It’s a digital whiteboard that integrates with Google G Suite to ensure that our creative team is more efficient and professional. By downloading the Jamboard app (now on Android and iOS) on your mobile or tablet, you can easily send PDFs or various office files on Google Drive to the Jamboard digital whiteboard screen anytime and anywhere.
Before Jamboard, we had to search for changes made to documents by opening up previous versions. The screen was messy and hard to follow. Now, in one document, we can see and review previous ideas and track the changes. We can easily go back to an older proposal as well and access everything on one screen.
At the end of the meeting, the AE can simply convert the content on the Jamboard screen into a single image file or a compiled PDF file and directly email this to everyone! There’s no need to type up notes or take photos.
Now with Jamboard and the app, it’s easier to reach a consensus with the different stakeholders. I really cannot imagine how I’ve managed to integrate work efficiently in the past. If your agency still uses a whiteboard, projector, TV, and computer separately, you should rethink the way you’re collaborating.
