For marketing and design agencies, a huge part of delivering projects on time relies on gathering feedback and approvals from clients in a timely manner.
How do you ensure that approvals are signed off – by the right folks and on time?
Los De Idea is an agency out of Mexico City that delivers award winning graphic, communication and marketing strategy work for some of the world’s biggest brands. They’ve also been using ReviewStudio to deliver this work for over 6 years.
We asked Brenda Sesma, director of operations at Los De Idea, about how their team manages the review and approval process with marketing and design clients. We spoke about how they save time on the “back and forth” between clients, managers, and creatives – leaving more time for the creative process, leading to better work and happier clients.
Here’s how Los De Idea efficiently manages their marketing and design proofing process with the help of ReviewStudio.
Daniela – Los De Idea specializes in taking creative concepts and making them a reality. Can you tell us how Los De Idea does this, and what makes your offering unique?
Brenda – We approach our work with clients as if we are part of their team. I think it’s part of the success formula we have. Some of our clients have been with us for 10+ years. Even though people from their teams may change, we remain a steady force for the client.
Often, when new people join our client companies, they will come to us and ask how to do things on the brand management side – because we’ve been working on the brand for a long time.
We really become part of the clients’ brand – we learn it, embrace it, use it. We work with Nespresso, for example, and I love their coffee. We like to feel part of their team, and their story. That’s why we know the company so well and able to bring their projects to reality. And we can execute in a way that we know will be better for the brand.
That formula has been working.
You’ve been with Los De Idea for about 17 years and have been using ReviewStudio for 6 years. Do you remember your process before then?
At the start, it was all through email. The process of getting from one approval to the next was long and confusing. Largely because the comments had to describe the changes and what was wanted. It was not as precise as what we have now using a proper online proofing tool. Now, we can see exactly what the client is referring to.
Having everyone on the client side seeing the Review – at the same time – saves a lot of time. For example, previously, one person would be okay with the design, then it went to the supervisor who says, ‘you have to change x, y, and z’. And then the file would need to go back and forth multiple times, on multiple timelines.
Now, everyone sees the visuals and leaves comments at the same time.
At a high level, can you walk us through how ReviewStudio plays into your production process? What stages do you lean on it the most?
We mainly use ReviewStudio for client deliverables. Loosely, we start with the brief, then the team gets together to brainstorm, followed by the production of the first draft of a design. It’s at that stage that we upload it to ReviewStudio and send it to the client.
We then look to gather the approvals from a group of stakeholders on the client side. To do this, we use the “Submit Decision” feature, so we know the client is done commenting and ready for us to either move forward or action changes. When the client has submitted “Approved”, we know with certainty that everyone is okay with the design, and we can ship the deliverables. That’s all we need.
Are there any ReviewStudio features in particular that are having a significant impact on your production workflow?
I don’t know what we’d be doing without this tool. The fact that we can all see and interact with feedback at the same time – client side and our side as well – is what makes all the difference. We save a lot of time by knowing everyone is looking at the same Review.
Even the small things, like the ability to attach files to comments is useful for us as well. With visual content, the client may want something specific that requires an image to illustrate what they mean.
Centralized proofing of all the deliverables of a campaign in one single Review, has a big impact on our production workflow. Between PDFs, JPGs, and video, everything works in the same Review.
This way, the client doesn’t have to navigate around to find all of the materials for the campaigns. Having everything together in one place is helpful to ensure the branding is all aligned. You can see the changes and content needed to launch the full campaign.
The versioning is also very helpful. When a client says something like “I never said that”, we have proof of what was said with a full history of what was requested on previous versions.
Helping clients build their style guides can be a big undertaking. How does having centralized feedback on assets facilitate the process?
We can go back to older Reviews any time. This serves as a backup and archive where we can go back to previous projects. It really helps us understand how we got to where we are today.
When we hire new employees, they always take a few days to go through all the Reviews to see the comments and versions, to learn what we do and how the team works. This also helps them see who is who on the client side. They get to learn about the decision makers and approvers – getting to know the project dynamics through the comments.
Seeing what we did and the comments, and what the client liked or didn’t is so helpful when working with long-term clients.
You work with some amazing brands like Disney, Pixar, Marvel, and ESPN. How important of a role is having a solution like ReviewStudio in place?
This proofing tool has been a gamechanger. It even leads to some clients choosing us over other providers. It’s amazing how not every agency uses ReviewStudio. I don’t know how they work without it!
The fact that we use ReviewStudio for gathering feedback is something we share on our credentials and our presentations for new prospects and clients.
We tell them that we have ReviewStudio as a tool because it’s something that they value.
Do you think ReviewStudio has improved your bottom line? And if so, how?
It’s useful for leaders on our side. For example, for a creative director who is supervising 10 designers, it’s impossible for them to be available all the time. With ReviewStudio, they can review different projects on their own time, finding the most important and urgent tasks easily. Everyone on the team can focus on what they have to do. The designers create, upload, review, and repeat. The team leader can review and share. It can all be done knowing that there’s a process and it will move forward smoothly.
And it makes for less meetings. The number of meetings we need would probably double or triple without ReviewStudio.
You “use creativity to reinvent reality” – do you think ReviewStudio helps you be more creative?
We use other tools for our creative production flows and brainstorming – but we use ReviewStudio to deliver our creative work to our clients.
When we save time on feedback and reviews, we can invest that time to the creative process.
So, saving time by using ReviewStudio helps us put better creative together by saving time on the back and forth.
Finally, with all your experience using ReviewStudio, what tips would offer people getting started with ReviewStudio, and Proofing in general?
I think having everyone educated on how the workflows and processes work before starting is key. The tool is very intuitive and easy to use but it helps to know what happens on both sides before diving into the platform. Ensure everyone knows how to use it – in the way you need it to be used.
We are happy with the service. Everything has been great. We’re excited to see some of the new features coming up – especially the productivity tracking and reporting!
