The Snacktory
The opportunity
In 2014, while working at DigitasLBi leading the Accenture account, we quickly realized two major challenges:
Accenture was a prolific thought leadership producer, however, all roads ended with the big PDF… which took forever to produce and severely limited distribution possibilities.
There were 2000 client marketers, with 40 marketing leaders - each with their own budgets. However we only had 3 account people to try and service them all across the globe.
If we could address both, it would be a windfall for both our clients and for our agency. But it required a completely new model that didn’t exist in the agency ecosystem.
The idea
We created The Snacktory, a rapid content production model which repackaged approved long-form content and turned it into short, snackable content, built for modern marketing - in just 1 week.
To make it work, we needed to make it easy…
It had to fit inside their existing campaign workflow and be dead simple to use. The agency engagement had to be no hassle - giving Accenture high predictability for budget planning and execution timelines. And of course, it had to deliver consistently high quality, fast, efficient production.
Our solve had four key components:
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One way to scale the product… the web. After signing a scope with us, clients could log into thesnacktory.com where they could see how many deliverables of each format type they had available to request in their bank.
They would initiate a project by uploading their approved long-form content (word or PDF) and picking one or more formats to produce.
They filled out a simple web-based brief with 3 inputs…
The key message
Any visual requirements
Anything to avoid
Once they ordered their “snacks”, the website acted as a workflow experience, providing status updates and emailing the client when the assets were ready to review and when the final was ready for download.
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At large companies, production speed is typically bogged down by layers of approvals - so we convinced our clients to cut that out entirely.
We limited client feedback to what was factually or legally inaccurate only. All other feedback was applied to the next set of deliverables requested.
That cut out the burden on the client to get layers of approvals and allowed them to get to market much more quickly and efficiently.
As a result of this agreement we were able to guarantee a 1-week SLA on all deliverables.
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We wanted to make it as easy as possible for clients to buy from us - making annual agency budget planning more predictable and eliminating the need to haggle before or after individual projects.
So we built a fixed ratecard for each client account where deliverables were the same cost for everyone as long as the agreed process was followed.
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While we needed creative specialists across different formats to execute the production, with the more standardized and predictable snacktory model, we were able to remove layers of account and project management and assign a single PM across an entire client account.
The PM acted as our CSR - driving client delivery, governing and analyzing the production process to recommend adjustments and updating the website to reflect the latest deliverable status.
The PM would support the client account leader (e.g. me) to ensure the snacktory business as a segment of the overall account remained profitable and ensured we evolved the product to meet our clients needs and keep them happy with the service.
We also allocated a portion of time for the existing Creative Director on the account to conduct periodic quality reviews and review outputs for brand alignment, providing coherance across the account.
Initial formats offered
1-2 min video summaries
Downloadable Infographics
Industry stat cards (web and PPT)
Slideshare decks
Hero images for web and social
“Self-interviews” (via physical kit sent to the leader to record themselves)
Accenture Strategy (compilation vid)
Accenture Security - Cyber Resilience
“Self-interview” training video to teach clients how to set up their recording
Industry stat cards
Goodyear
In year 2 we scaled to new clients with new formats
Comcast
AstraZeneca
American Express
Pitney Bowes
Emerson
The results?
Year 1 brought in $4MM revenue at a 48% operating margin
Ultimately it scaled to over 30 clients across the Publicis network
DigitasLBi partnered with Group Nine Media to bring clients a unique combination of media distribution with rapid content production to enable modern social marketing.