Ogilvy is a leading advertising & marketing agency and have used Smartsheet to help manage the creation of advertising assets for their clients. Mame McCutchin, program director at Ogilvy has given a ciouple of interviews over the last year detailing how Smartsheet makes her life easier, resulting in better outcomes for her clients. It’s been really interesting to hear her insights how Smartsheet can help professional service companies execute their work better. I’d suggest viewing the video first – I have then outlined some addition take outs that resonated with me. Ogilvy – Transforming the client experience for the digital age
How Smartsheet powers the advertising agency Ogilvy
Ogilvy is a leading advertising & marketing agency and have used Smartsheet to help manage the creation of advertising assets (primarily images and videos) for their clients. They create hundreds of assets for clients – without organisation and a decent system there is chaos. They have achieved this ‘calm’ by organising themselves using Smartsheet. Mame McCutchin, program director at Ogilvy has given a couple of interviews over the last year detailing how Smartsheet makes her life easier, resulting in better outcomes for her clients. It’s been really interesting to hear her insights how Smartsheet can help professional service companies execute their work better. I’d suggest viewing the video first – I have then outlined some addition take outs that resonated with me.
Takeouts from the interviews with Mame McCutchin from Ogilvy re Smartsheet:
1. Smartsheet helps Ogilvy deliver for clients
As you will have heard from the video, the Ogilvy team works with a huge volume and variety of data and assets. Smartsheet improves how projects are managed at the agency resulting in not only on-time high-quality deliverables to clients, but also greater transparency, clearer communications and trust for both clients and agency team members. The team can see at a glance the status of every detail of a campaign. This also reduces the need to continually chase up the status of each task, as everyone knows the status at all times.
“It really is everything at your fingertips,” McCutchin says. “You might say, well, a shared drive is at your fingertips; yeah, but you need a flashlight and a map to find anything. This is a much easier way to get around and access your own data. It’s just more efficient.”
2. Clients expect them to bring new technology to them
Advertising agencies work at the cutting edge of technology, and clients expect them to deliver innovation and best in class tools. Smartsheet has helped. “Our larger brands are like us: They also don’t turn on a dime, but they expect us to lead them with technology and changes in the way we work. And across the board, Smartsheet has been a solution many times over,” McCutchin says. Clients love the transparency, and the feeling that their agency is in total control.
3. Smartsheet calm
Ogilvy uses Smartsheet primarily to track the creation of media assets and to track financial spending (actual vs budget). Everyone knows the status of the assets at all time, and the finances are clear – there is no debate. It has eased communications, especially across different time zones, so disparate teams can carry on with their work effectively. McCutchin calls this the “Smartsheet calm” – they always feel in control, and well organised.
McCutchin says “Now using Smartsheet we’re all planning for the same thing and we all have the same line of sight to it. It has brought us this Smartsheet calm. A calmer team is a more productive and motivated, and helps the on-time delivery of high-quality branded media to Ogilvy’s clients.”
4. Team onboarding hub
Smartsheet has made it easier when bringing in new team members. They can see the process and structure within Smartsheet enabling them to get up to speed quickly. Collecting documents and contacts in one place for new hires to review as they get started in their roles. The more details she collects and shares using Smartsheet, the more confidently her team can work, knowing that the answers to their most pressing questions are easy to find.
5. Building transparency for the client
McCutchin is working to develop a dashboard offer similar transparency for clients, a view that will show project completion against scope—much like the ones utility companies offer to show customers how much energy they’re using compared with previous months or local averages. The industry is moving toward greater transparency. Smartsheet helps help Ogilvy lead the way and set a standard for clear communication and trust. That not only makes clients happy, it increases job satisfaction for everyone at the agency.
6. Archiving projects
Teams change regularly in professional service companies. The knowledge is often lost when team member move on. Some campaigns don’t always book when first discussed, but surface a year later, and all the history and background of the conversations still exist within Smartsheet.
McCutchin says ”So one of my favourite things about Smartsheet is, not only does it help us track, and there’s transparency and automation, and all that stuff, but when we finish a project, if we’ve used it correctly, it’s beautifully archived. So not only can you find all of the assets, even the little itty-bitty ones, but you can see a chat trail on which one was used this time, and you can, I like also you can right-click on a cell, and see the cell history, like, who made that note? You know, or who put that number in? It’s perfect.”
7. Culture
McCutchin has made some really interesting points on company culture. The culture within a company can differ team by team, and is also different when working with clients. Due to Smartsheet’s ease of use, it’s very easy for teams to adapt the sheets to create reports / dashboards for things that really matter to them.
McCutchin says “Ogilvy has a culture, but so do our clients, and when you work with the client closely, you adopt part of that culture. So I don’t want to say to anybody in the company, “This is how it’s going to be, “and this is how you have to do it.” I think that kills moral, I think it kills creativity, I think it kills innovation. So that’s one thing that I love about Smartsheet. Is that it helps you preserve culture, it helps even like underscore it.”
