In today’s economic climate, there are many realities that brands are forced to navigate. These challenges generate an enormous impact on business and creative teams, with business units feeling pressure to deliver cost savings and revenue growth, while creative teams are expected to produce more content at a faster pace and lower cost. However, the truth is that business and creative teams need to work synergistically for brands to be successful.

Leveraging data and technology can be an incredibly effective way to bridge the gap between business objectives and creative processes. By integrating with new technologies and harnessing the vast amount of data available, we can build efficiencies and break down silos and processes that no longer serve us, ultimately growing revenue while giving creatives the headspace they need to produce great work.

When it comes to each phase of the creative production process, from brief to creation, approval to publication, data and technology can play a significant role in making the process more integrated and agile. First and foremost, deliberate, consistent metadata management is critical for all search and analysis, forming the foundation of any data model. Additionally, products need to openly integrate with different APIs to allow teams to remain agile. Collaboration tools can facilitate better teamwork and streamline processes. Meanwhile, machine learning applications can eliminate many avoidable, repetitive tasks (e.g. tagging), while artificial intelligence can help with production processes by predictively resizing assets for all marketing platforms.

When looked at through this lens, applying data and technology to the creative process isn’t a revolution, but an evolution. We have been breaking down silos and adding integrations in the creative process for years. The addition of AI and data is just further optimizing the system.

It’s important to recognize that this isn’t something new but rather something we’ve been growing with and using for years. By fully integrating data and technology advancements into our creative, production, and business process, we can build efficiencies and streamline processes while giving creatives the headspace they need to produce innovative content that drives results.

And that is exactly what sets the creatives apart from AI; innovation and creativity spurred by EI (emotional intelligence) and out-of-the-box thinking are human qualities that AI isn’t capable of. Embracing technology and data strengthens the case for the need of a human, creative team because they come up with new ideas instead of algorithmic rearranging of existing things.

To hear more about how technology can be applied to creative workstreams, join me at Creative Operations New York on May 25 #CreativeOpsNY where I will dig deeper into how data and technology can build efficiencies throughout the entire creative process. Reserve your seat today and use my speaker code GLOBALEDIT100 for a $100 discount on your registration.