Creative Hype Train
Project
Creative Hype Train
Services
Discovery, Research
Members
Cintia Bortolucci (DesignOps Specialist)
Year
2023
The Creative Hype Train is a strategic initiative designed to revolutionize the creative process within the International organization. By focusing on three core pillars – efficiency, scale, and consistency – this project aims to optimize creative workflows, ensuring that deliverables are not only high-quality but also produced in a timely and resource-efficient manner.
It is more than just a project; it’s a transformative approach to how creative work is produced and delivered at International. By focusing on efficiency, scale, and consistency, the project ensures that creative teams can operate at their full potential, delivering impactful, brand-aligned content that drives results.
Main goals
The Creative Hype Train enhances creative deliverables by focusing on efficiency, scaling processes, and maintaining brand consistency.
Efficiency pillar
- Performs a task or activity using a minimal amount of resources (time, money, and people).
- Involves streamlined workflows, eliminates redundancies, and automates repetitive tasks to boost productivity and reduce costs.
Scale pillar
- Frees our creative teams to focus on important and strategic work, ensuring their happiness.
- Moves from manual processes to automated ones and from independent tools to those that integrate with our technologies.
Consistency pillar
- Standardizes, harmonizes, and simplifies.
- Maintains consistency in brand application, logo, tone, style, sizes, resolutions, and proportions when executing a variety of campaigns targeted at different audiences and channels.
Creating Strategically
Means creating with purpose, questioning, and being part of business and marketing decisions to develop campaigns, Key Visuals, shootings, and strategic projects that bring greater visibility to the creative area.
It’s about continually innovating without wasting time and effort on spin-offs and operational tasks that can be automated, optimized, or delegated to others.
Discovery
The Creative Hype Train enhances creative deliverables by focusing on efficiency, scaling processes, and maintaining brand consistency.
To guide us in creating this project, we used the Double Diamond framework.
Effort dedicated to the project
From April to June, we revisited research, interviews, and shadowing sessions. We also mapped channels, different formats of assets, analyzed the organization, various digital and graphic materials, and reviewed media and CRM creative deliverables across all countries, resulting in an average effort of 232 hours.
4
Countries and shared drivers analyzed
Colombia, Global Partners, Portugal, and United States
+100k
Items analyzed
Files of various extensions (PNG, JPG, GIF, MP4, AEP, AEF, PSD, AI, XD, INDD, PPTX) and folders
4
Organizational aspects considered
Folders, naming conventions, margins, and layout within programs
12
Tools analyzed
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, After Effects, Premiere, XD, Creative Cloud, Adobe Library, Google Drive, Visto, Jira, and Figma
+20
Types of brand and miscellaneous assets
Icons, Patterns, Seals, Logos, Typography, Photographs, Products, Packaging, Labels, Samples, KV’s, Pack shots, Stock Images, Shorts, Kits, Videos, Music, Secrets, among others
+90
Formats of digital materials mapped
Emails, banners, and images for Ecommerce, SEO, media materials, digital displays for physical stores, acquisition media for Direct Sales, organic materials for Social Media, among others
+50
Formats of print materials mapped
Conventions, Catalogs, Beauty Consultant Guide or Beauty Book, giveaways, physical store materials, uniforms, packaging, among others
1171
Average number of materials created
Taking into account the materials created from Month 03 to Month 06 of 2023, Colombia, and Portugal
Creative team big picture
A self-assessment survey was conducted with all the creative teams at International to understand their levels of technical knowledge. This survey guides us in proposing workshops, making more precise hires, and designing career plans for all teams.
5
Creative teams
DesignOps, Colombia, Global Partners, Portugal, and United States
21
Creatives
DesignOps (1), Copywriting (3), Design (15), Creative leadership (2)
Specialties
Skills & Technical Knowledge
Visuals skills
Predominant: Design theory, Social media, Digital campaigns
Opportunity: Editorial design, Landing pages, Print materials
General skills
Predominant: Innovation, Moodboards, Creative references
Opportunity: Discoveries, Design finalization, Image editing
UX & UI skills
Predominant: Interface design
Opportunity: Information architecture, Design system, Mobile patterns
Software knowledge
Predominant: Photoshop, Illustrator
Opportunity: InDesign, After Effects, XD
Estimated number of creative deliverables delivered per countries per day
Period from 03/01/2023 to 06/30/2023
| COLOMBIA | GLOBAL PARTNERS | PORTUGAL | UNITED STATES | |
| Number of creative deliverables in the period | 4.473 | 197 | 5.105 | 528 |
| Creative people: Designers, Copywriters, and Managers | 6 | 1 | 10 | 3 |
| Number of creative deliverables delivered per creative in the period | 746 | 197 | 511 | 176 |
| Number of creative deliverables delivered per creative per day (89 working days) | 8.4 | 2.2 | 5.7 | 2 |
| TOTAL ACROSS COUNTRIES | |
| Number of creative deliverables in the period | 10.303 |
| Creative people: Designers, Copywriters, and Managers | 20 |
| Number of creative deliverables delivered per creative in the period | 515 |
| Number of creative deliverables delivered per creative per day (89 working days) | 5.8 |
Estimated number of creative deliverables delivered per creative per day
During the period from 03/01/2023 to 06/30/2023, the creative teams delivered a total of 10,303 creative deliverables for the International team.
Considering that we currently have 20 creatives, they delivered an average of 515 creative deliverables each over the 89 working days, resulting in an average delivery of 5.8 creative deliverables per day, per creative.
Estimated time spent
Period from 03/01/2023 to 06/30/2023
| TIME SPENT CATCHING ASSETS INSIDE THE FILES | TOTAL ACROSS COUNTRIES |
| Number of creative deliverables in the period | 10.303 |
| Creative people: Designers, Copywriters, and Managers | 20 |
| Files opened during the period (considering an average of 15 files per day, ranging from 100MB to 4GB, to catch some asset) | 7.727 |
| Days spent per creative to catch an asset inside the files | 9 |
| TIME SPENT DOWNLOADING, OPENING, AND SHARING | TOTAL ACROSS COUNTRIES |
| Number of creative deliverables in the period | 10.303 |
| Creative people: Designers, Copywriters, and Managers | 20 |
| Digital creative deliverables downloaded, opened, and shared, ranging from 100MB to 4GB | 515 |
| Days spent per creative to download, open, and share our digital creative deliverables | 10 |
Pain Points & Possible Solutions
In order to better structure the second phase of the project, which includes identifying pain points, possible solutions, and prioritization, we used the project objectives as the main pillars and aligned them with the DesignOps focus areas.
25
Pain points
34
Possible solutions
Validation
Monitor if the solutions are addressing our paint points through metrics.
01.
Efficiency
Time spent on assets
Reduce the time spent searching for and opening files to find assets
2022: 9 days
2023: 4.5 days (50%)
2024: 2 days (80%) time estimate
Time spent on digital creative deliverables
Reduce the time to download, open, and share files
2022: 10 days
2023: 5 days (50%)
2024: 2 days (80%) time estimate
02.
Scale
Creative teams’ satisfaction
Regarding creative freedom and relationships with stakeholders
2022: 5.5
2023: 6.3 (+0.8)
2024: 8.3 (+2.0) points estimate
03.
Consistency
Training
Preparation or structuring of workshops to enhance team skills
2022: 12
2023: 12
2024: 16 (+4) points estimate