The famous quote by Lord Leverhulme, the founder of soap and detergent giant Lever Brothers, that "50% of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which 50%" is often used to illustrate the difficulty in accurately measuring the efficiency of marketing communications.

Notwithstanding this, marketing spend has continued to increase almost unabated for decades and is now normally the largest area of discretionary spending in any company yet is less systematised and has received less IT-enabled process optimisation than just about any other business function such as finance, manufacturing, sales and distribution; this is mostly attributed to the traditional view of marketing as a creative process, not a logistical science. However, more recently the marketing function is increasingly under pressure to be as accountable as other business functions; the focus of any cost reduction is often upon the supply chain. The marketing communications industry has borne the brunt of this in recent times, with many providers forced to accept lower margins or risk losing Clients and revenue entirely.

Both brand owners and creative providers are now recognising that new processes need to be implemented to achieve greater cost efficiencies, notably using technology.

Our Brand Centres can perform much of the logistics and coordination role that is traditionally manually performed, at greater speed and significantly lesser cost:

• Assets can be instantly shared, adapted and re-purposed online
• Workflows can be optimised and suppliers can be rationalised
• The process employs far fewer people, for less time, and requires the generation of fewer materials
• The associated cost savings can be significant