Mediabrands taps automation to advantage

Mediabrands Australia has launched an automation program it claims is a first within the media agency sector and one it hopes will deliver it a competitive advantage in the coming months.

What’s it doing? 

Over the past 20 months Mediabrands has worked with partners UI Path and Cognizant to automate repetitive internal tasks in its media agencies, from inputting data to campaign tracking. 

Why it matters

The media industry hasn’t altered the way it works for 20 years or more, points out Mediabrands’ CEO Mark Coad, but the world has utterly changed in that time. He sees two primary benefits from automation: i) better media performance as staff are able to spend more time discussing strategy with media owners and clients; and ii) better staff retention as new recruits are relieved of the need to “spend two or three years doing some kind of administrative apprenticeship”. 

Takeaways

• Since launching, the network has automated almost 13,000 tasks and saved over 3,300 hours.
• Over the next 12 months the program is set to save more than 25,000 hours in total.

Key quote

“(This) 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” – Mark Coad, CEO, IPG Mediabrands Australia, as reported by Campaign Asia.

Sourced from Campaign Asia, Australian Financial Review [Image: Getty]