Sydney, Australia – Mediabrands, the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group has announced the launch of the media industry’s first major transformation of automated systems for more than two decades. To bring the 20-month project to life, Mediabrands partnered with global software company UI Path, and information and technology services company, Cognizant. The transition fully automates repetitive manual tasks across Initiative and UM using robotic technology, providing an enhanced career path for talent and a stronger value proposition for clients.
The game changing transformation marks a complete automation of all systems and processes, firmly cementing Mediabrands in a unique space ahead of its competitors and is supported by a bespoke Centre of Excellence allowing the agencies to tap into the capability.
Mark Coad, CEO of Mediabrands, said the results of the transformation positions Mediabrands as a true innovation leader, having now advanced or improved many of the investment and partnership practices that have been in place for the last twenty years.
“The uncomfortable truth is the media industry has not changed the way it works for more than two decades. Our transformation unburdens our people of the time-consuming and tedious tasks of day-to-day operations and frees them up to do intelligent, creative work that drives growth,” Coad said.
“For those of us who have been in the media hot seat for a long time, we know it’s pretty tough starting out in media agencies. By investing heavily in finding ways to remove some of the less glamourous and more menial tasks from daily workloads, gives our people time to spend learning and developing in areas that drive business growth. Yes of course this benefits our business but more importantly it provides opportunities for our people to improve their career path and self-esteem growth,” Coad added.
Key business tasks have been automated to make processes more seamless, accurate and timely allowing teams to add value with their strategic input and creativity and provide a stronger value proposition for clients.
Coad concluded, “Staff turnover remains a key on-going problem across the industry and the future will be won by the group who can deliver true career value, and improved career pathing. If you are working for a media agency still riddled with repetitive menial tasks like loadings, TV campaign tracking and post analysis, etc. – then you are putting your career development into slow motion, and not using the bright mind you were recruited for. Our Young Guns now have confirmation that Mediabrands offers a great career path.”
Meanwhile, Geoff Clarke, Mediabrands’ project leader, shared that the transformation was a true collaboration between Mediabrands and its technology automation and software development partners, and he was excited to see the results of nearly two years of development finally come to fruition quickly yielding obvious benefits to staff and clients.
“There is no doubt the complexities of our industry continue to rise so as an industry leader we have proactively changed what we do, to improve what we produce. This has meant implementing significant transformation to prepare our people for a new era in media,” Clarke said.
Clarke adds, “The robotic technology facilitates time for our team to produce higher quality work, which has a direct roll-on effect to increase the value of individual IP, increase craft skill diversity across each business and creates opportunity to shift client relationships from largely a commodity-based arrangement to a true business partnership,” he said.
Recent data extracted across several of the Mediabrands automated solutions (BOTs) since launch, has saved more than 3,300 hours automating nearly 13,000 tasks that were previously manually completed. The program is on track to deliver more than 25,000 saved hours across the next 12 months.
Clarke continued, “By modernising and automating the way in which our media buying services are managed and recorded, we provide more efficient and timely services for clients. Our series of BOTS make up the only end-to-end solution that works across the buy/book/pay aspect of media agencies – and is the only one in existence in the industry. It makes a major statement to the market.”
