Auto sector lessons in cutting waste for international marketers

International marketing campaigns are full of waste or “Muda” – what can global marketing teams learn from the auto industry to reduce wastage and inefficiencies in their international campaigns?

I was stunned to learn that until around 2018 Mini cars were offered in 15 trillion possible combinations – yes, TRILLION – different colours, wheels, engines, styling, comfort options. And every car had to be produced to the most exacting standards because quality is a life and death matter with cars.

How was that possible?

Toyota led the way – the Toyota Production System with its emphasis on total quality and just in time manufacture was developed by two Japanese industrial engineers between 1948 and 1975. The goal of TPS was to banish “muda” – waste – across the manufacturing process and in so doing improve quality, reduce costs of errors and improve customer satisfaction. Muda is anything that does not add value to the end customer – so this includes rework, delays, overproduction, bad quality parts, cars that don’t meet customer specs.

The TPS was so successful it spawned a whole industry of quality management across multiple sectors.

You are probably asking why I am talking today about Toyota and car manufacturing. What is the possible relevance to International Advertising and Marketing Procurement?

Here’s why.

There are some equally stunning, or perhaps appalling is a better word, recent statistics on the level of muda in advertising.

• Up to 50% of global assets are not used by the markets (source ExtremeReach)
• 55% of media budgets are spent on digital assets that are not optimised (source CreativeX)
• Local markets spend up to 30% of their time reviewing poor quality localised content (source Google)
• $m’s of media budget waste on Made For Advertising sites (source Adalytics)

Can this be true? So for every £1m spent on creating and producing campaigns, brands may well be wasting 50%.

Why is this happening?

In our industry creative ideation and development is paramount but often the wrong people (or no people) manage the campaigns process. No one is watching the knock on impact of problems later in the process – no one is responsible to bridge the gap. Solvable problems are normalised due to ignorance of what is possible – untested global concepts that don’t resonate locally, multiple rounds of approval across a campaign cycle, assets that markets don’t want to use, last minute changes and reworks for marginal gain, commercials that don’t pass local clearance standards, sub standard media plans due to lack of right assets. The list goes on.

And don’t fall into the trap of thinking it will all be solved by GenAI systems. Martech systems were supposed to solve this and knit everything together in a seamless way – but they don’t, you end up with multiple silos of data and processes with increasing overhead to maintain these in sync.

The Freedman solution.

At Freedman we work with global brands, marketers and their agencies to remove the complexity of getting international campaigns to market. Our unique solution drives out wastage and helps brands to become fitter and more efficient.

Key principles of Freedman’s International Campaign Scaling solution include:

• The right process will produce the right results
• A culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right from the start.
• A learning organization through relentless reflection and continuous improvement and never stop

For over 30 years some of the world’s most famous brands have trusted us to work closely with their teams and systems. Freedman’s hands-on management ensures we continually drive efficiencies and improve the cultural fit of campaigns across the world.

Ready for pain-free campaigns? 

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