Hasta La Creative!

Timing is everything, especially in the advertising world. In the blink of an eye, three more videos have gone viral since you last ate. So if keeping an ad relevant with timing is so important, why isn’t anyone talking about ad delivery? It is an essential aspect of ad placement and can be the determining factor in the success of an advertising campaign. If managed correctly, advertisers can reap the benefits of a well-oiled ad delivery machine. Done poorly, advertisers risk their ads being irrelevant due to out-of-context placement or poor timing.

Advertisers and ad agencies know how difficult it can be to get an ad file from a creative house to the ad’s final destination. The process involves many parties, which in turn means limited control over how the message is delivered to its final destination. Given all these moving parts throughout the entire life cycle of the ad, it should come as no surprise that the process becomes increasingly complicated toward the final stages of the campaign’s timeline. But this doesn’t have to be the case. Brands and agencies that want or need to plan campaigns months in advance can guarantee their ads will remain relevant within the content it is matched with, even in the earliest stages. Here’s how:

Know the process that your ad goes through in order to be placed. Do you know the journey your ad will take before it goes live? Once you’ve hired your ad agency every ad goes to a creative team within that agency that is then responsible for the development of your ad. This team will actually make that ad into multiple ads, as advertisers often create variations on ads from market to market. Then there’s the media buyeroften working for a completely different agencywho decides where the ad will run. There is also the traffic departmentsometimes within the creative agency, sometimes a third partywhich coordinates the media buy with the commercial assets and the media outlets, sending letters of instruction and creative rotations, and ensuring delivery of the ad. And finally, there is the agency account team, which often has to check with the talent department to make sure each commercial actor’s contracts are up-to-date and that it’s OK for the ad to run. Quite a lot to wrap your head around, especially in the middle of a campaign.

Continue reading at AdAge.com