Careful and detailed planning at this stage can significantly reduce revisions later and provides clarity for the brand and creative teams as to how their materials are installed.
Creative Analysis Explained
What is a Creative Analysis?
A creative analysis is the review of the template artwork that is going to be installed in CampaignDrive. It is used to determine the following:
- How the physical artwork is going to be installed (template installation)
- How the data will be managed (content management)
- How the user will interact with the template (user experience workflow)
The creative analysis will be used in all subsequent steps of the installation sequence.
Why is Creative Analysis Important?
The creative analysis is the foundation for template installation in CampaignDrive. Careful and detailed planning at this stage significantly reduces revisions later in the process and provides clarity for the brand and creative teams as to how their materials are installed.
Who Should Participate in Creative Analysis?
- System Administrators
- Template Installers
- Designers
- Anyone else that could be involved in content management or brand management who has an interest in the installed creative.
When to Do a Creative Analysis
A creative analysis should be done any time new/unique artwork is added or installed into the system and should be done on finalized layouts. The creative analysis comes after layout design work is complete and before any CampaignDrive installation begins.
A creative analysis doesn't have to be done for all templates - it's possible that a new template will follow an existing creative analysis. Teams should use their discretion on how they want to proceed in such cases.
For teams or individuals that are newer to creative analysis, it's recommended to do the process more often and with more detail to build muscle memory. As the team/individual becomes more experienced, the need to do creative analysis will lessen.
What Materials are Needed to Perform a Creative Analysis
- Completed layouts in native file packages with all graphics and images present
- All supporting data that will be used
- All supporting copy that will be used
The Creative Analysis Process
Creative Review
Layouts are reviewed to identify editable and non-editable content for both the template composer community and the End User community. The creative analysis is done for each individual piece of creative or for creative groups (such as flyers, posters, postcards, etc.) based on layouts that could be considered reusable and should include the following information:
- Details of what is not editable by end users (these get "locked down" in CampaignDrive).
- Details of what is editable by end users, and how (copy only, copy and font color, copy and font color and size, copy block position, image, image size, image position, etc.).
- An explanation of how editable content will be presented (some examples: open text field, in a drop-down selector, in a drop-down selector as a result of another selection, automatically filled in according to the user or location tables.).
- Information on the source material for the managed content and how it will be brought into CampaignDrive (one-time import, daily feed, manually entered and maintained by the customer, etc.).
- Identification of any new brand elements such as logos, font sets, or colors that need to be added/managed as part of this installation.
- Details (if known) of potential future impacts on installation (such as revisions to creative or additional template options)
The Creative Analysis Document
The result of the creative analysis review will be a document with design specs and content management considerations that everyone can refer back to during the rest of the template installation process. This document can be done in any number of ways and can also be more than a single document. Often creative analysis documents consist of a commented creative and a supporting text document or spreadsheet. Some examples of creative analysis documents:
- Commented PDF
- PowerPoint deck
- Word document
- Using an online commenting/sharing tool, such as Miro.
- Excel spreadsheet for data
- Word document for text content
Creative Analysis "Don'ts"
A creative analysis is not a creative review and should not include any edits to content or layout (such as - “add an editable paragraph here or re-size this image.” It is important to ensure that the creative analysis is performed on the FINAL approved layout and content, not placeholder content. The evaluators should have all of the editable content as well as the layout when performing the analysis.