Developing a CustomMedia-Planning Platform

The Challenge | Creating a New Service Delivery Model for Media Planning

How do you bring the value of a full-service media and marketing agency to companies with a smaller purse? This was the challenge faced by Empower, a nationally recognized leader in media planning and buying and analytics. Always one to embrace fearless exploration as a way to push away from the pack, Empower believed it could create an automated self-service media planning platform for smaller clients. The portal would provide world-class media performance at an affordable price by allowing clients to take on a greater share of the campaign management themselves. This would enable companies that don’t require a high level of service to tap into the power of Empower’s performance benchmarks, measurement tools, and media teams for planning and execution.

Our Solution/Approach

The CoStrategix team kicked off the visioning process with a Digital Strategy Workshop. This planning session enabled the CoStrategix team to deeply understand Empower’s business. It included an audit of all of the company’s current technologies, processes, and approaches – along with a gap analysis. From this strategic planning session, Empower and CoStrategix developed a plan for a digital media planning platform, along with a roadmap for future enhancements.

The new Empower Media Agent platform

Is built on a Microsoft Azure serverless environment that automatically scales as the business grows. That way, Empower pays for only the resources they actually use.
Includes a customizable workflow engine with cascading logic to power the back-end processes associated with media planning, scheduling, and execution – including sending the files to the media buyers.
Leverages CoStrategix’s expertise in experience design for an intuitive user interface.

Creates a business API layer to connect a resource across different technologies and operating systems.
Utilizes Azure native services and security models and external scans for ongoing security.
Incentivizes clients through gamification – by awarding points and voucher rewards for staying on schedule.

Results

While still in its infancy, Empower Media Agent has already enhanced the agency’s service to an underserved group of companies.

The first beta client reported improved business results, with a 4.1% increase in traffic to their stores and 19.7% increase in advertising return on investment.
Now, clients don’t have to search through emails to find the latest updates, since all of their creative assets, communications, and tracking information are organized and located in one centralized place.

Plus, scheduled due dates with automated reminders help keep the process on track and avoid missing critical deadlines
The system’s UX is a stand-out feature, with another client noting “the platform is really intuitive and easy-to-use. It saves me a lot of time.”

On Empower’s end, Media Agent has already proven to be a strong margin driver. It makes taking on smaller clients a valuable strategy, reducing the time spent on those clients by more than double and thereby greatly improving bottom-line impact.

But more than just enhancing service, Empower Media Agent is also improving internal operating efficiencies. Empower used to rely on Excel spreadsheets to track client requests, calendar media buys, and results. Digital assets were scattered across many sources at the company. With Media Agent being implemented as an internal operating system by the entire servicing team, all of their data is being standardized and can be centrally available on the cloud. It is helping to standardize and streamline operational processes.

“It’s a chess game, and you have to imagine 10 steps forward. We’re always imagining new ways of doing things, trying new stuff to see what works. That’s what led us to create our custom-developed multi-tenant product platform that is above and beyond anything that’s available in the marketplace.”

Ryan Derrow

Chief Product Officer at Empower