Creative Marketing is Measured in Impact, but Businesses are Highly Dependent on Small Teams Answering to Many Stakeholders, Finds Study by InSource and inMotionNow

Challenges Emerge at Project Intake as Demand for Volume, Variety and Velocity of Creative Rises in Tandem with Trends Towards Content Marketing and Marketing Automation
Raleigh, NC – March 13, 2018 – Most businesses measure and value creative work based on its impact to the business, according to the 2018 In-House Creative Management Report, which queried 400 marketing and creative professionals.  While businesses say creatives perform important work, most are highly dependent on small teams serving a large and complex ecosystem of stakeholders.
For example, the majority of respondents said the top three ways their organization values creative work are as follows: 1) business impact (55%); 2) audience feedback (51%); and 3) internal stakeholder satisfaction (48%).   At the same time, it’s not uncommon for a team of fewer than 10 creatives to support the demands of 50-plus stakeholders in businesses with $500 million or more in revenue.
“The level of dedication and performance these creative teams present is remarkable and generally under-recognized by marketers, especially in light of the results they help businesses achieve,” said inMotionNow CMO Alex Withers.  “Creatives provide an essential fuel business must have to propel their often large and highly automated sales and marketing teams forward.”
The study was fielded by InSource, the largest professional organization for in-house creative teams, and inMotionNow, a leading provider of creative workflow solutions.  Other key findings included the following:

• Volume, velocity and variety of creative work mushrooms. The volume and velocity of work were identified as the top challenges facing creative today; variety of work – accommodating the plethora of new creative specifications across digital channels and social media – ranked among the top five challenges.

• Creative briefs and project intake lead the list of process challenges.  The creative brief and project intake – the first steps in the creative process – are also the biggest challenges in creative workflow (42%).  Some 67% of respondents said obtaining the necessary information just to begin work was difficult or very difficult.

• Making time and headspace for creativity is squeezed by administration.  Most respondents (46%) said they spend between 3-7 hours per week on administrative tasks; about one-third (24%) said they spend seven or more hours per week on admin tasks.  That’s about one full day every week, or 20% of creative time spent annually.

“We are very much running a creative agency within the company we work for, accountable to business goals like any other business unit; kind of a business within a business,” wrote said Andy Brenits, president of InSource in an introduction to the survey report. “As we begin to master our operations, we have also seen that there is more time to be creative.”
The full report explores five key findings and illuminates the data with commentary from a wide range of thought leaders from across the industry.   The 2018 In-House Creative Management Report is available for download here:  https://www.inmotionnow.com/project-workflow/2018-in-house-creative-management-report/
In addition, the research partners will host a complimentary 30-minute webinar to review the data in depth. The webinar will be held on March 28, 2018 at 2:00 p.m. Those interested in attending can register here:  http://explore.inmotionnow.com/webinar-2018-in-house-creative-management-report-key-findings.
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About inMotionNow, Inc.
inMotionNow is a leading provider of workflow management solutions for marketing and creative teams, facilitating efficiency and productivity from project kickoff to final approval. inMotion, the company’s flagship SaaS product, simplifies every phase of the creative production process, delivering measurable value to enterprise clients. The application allows project stakeholders to manage, track, and collaboratively review their print, video, and interactive projects in a centralized online environment.  With a user-friendly interface and dedicated customer success team, inMotionNow helps creative and marketing teams of every variety automate their workflow and do the work they love.  For more information please visit www.inmotionnow.com.
About InSource
InSource is a non-profit professional trade association with a mission to provide resources, support, professional development, and advocacy for those in creative leadership positions and for those who aspire to move into leadership positions within corporate in-house creative departments. With nearly 7,000 members in the U.S. and across the world, InSource is the largest network of in-house creative leaders anywhere. Since 2002 InSource has been leveraging the shared experiences and perspectives of in-house leaders – through events, books, and content – to help all of us manage our creative departments, and careers, to be the best that they can be.  For more information please visit www.in-source.org.

Media Contact:
Frank Strong
for inMotionNow
202-352-5920
[email protected]