Exploring the Key Elements of CaaS (Creative as a Service)

When speaking to brands about Shuttlerock’s CaaS (Creative as a Service) model, one of the common questions thrown back to us is: how does it differ from other creative models, such as agencies or creative marketplaces? 

That’s a fair question to ask. Most creative models are in one way or another providing a service: a creative service. What separates CaaS, however, is that it combines human creativity with SaaS-inspired processes and technology in a way that provides marketers with the speed, scale, quality and affordability that is needed in digital creative today.

This probably sounds great to Marketers like you, but what does this actually look like? Well, let’s cut to the chase and show exactly how CaaS works by walking through four of its key features.

#1 Fixed-cost subscription pricing

Traditional creative pricing structures—whether it’s unit-based costs or billable hours—are simply no longer suitable for today’s digital-dominated landscape. Creative volumes are soaring and the landscape is so volatile that it's extremely difficult to precisely plan how many assets you’ll need for an upcoming quarter. Most likely you’ll need more creative than anticipated. Under traditional pricing structures, this leads to a budget blowout.  

CaaS takes a different approach: fixed-cost subscription pricing plans. We can’t claim too much credit for this idea: there has been a wave of subscription models being applied to various industries over the past decade. We just think it’s time for ad creative to join the party.

Paying for creative on a subscription basis offers three key benefits to marketers:

1. Cost-certainty: fixed-costs provide a clear view of upcoming creative costs allowing teams to plan ahead with confidence. 
2. Creative agility: the ability to quickly jump on new opportunities that present themselves without the hurdle of added cost.
3. Test, learn & optimize: the freedom to refine creative by testing multiple concepts, analyzing performance and then fine-tuning elements in order to boost performance.

We offer our CaaS solution on three different pricing tiers depending on your volume requirements, with the higher tiers allowing you to have more deliverables in production at any given time.  

#2 Dedicated creative tech

Today’s marketing teams have a need for speed when it comes to creative. The volatility of digital platforms means that creative needs to be produced rapidly in order to meet tight deadlines. 

However, when we talk about the speed of creative, we don’t just mean how long it takes for a designer to complete a project. In fact, it is often the briefing and revision stages of the production process that cause the most delays. 

To remove these bottlenecks, our CaaS solution incorporates a dedicated creative technology platform: ShuttlerockCloud. The platform has been specifically designed to streamline the client-side stages of creative production: briefing, revision and delivery. By integrating this tech, marketing teams are able to work more efficiently on creative projects and easily handle higher volumes with ease. 

#3 Consistent quality

Speed & scale are undoubtedly important. However, all the assets in the world produced at lightning speed isn’t going to help you engage audiences if the creative itself is of poor quality. 

This is especially the case in today's environment due to weakened targeting capabilities and declining ad spend. Put plainly: for campaigns to perform, creative quality is more important than ever. 

CaaS is able to deliver high quality video creative day in, day out, due to the following reasons:

1. Our in-house designers are highly trained in platform best practices.
2. We have a rigorous QA process that each deliverable has to pass. 
3. Our creative team develops a deep understanding of brand guidelines.

These three factors result in the delivery of world-class digital ad creative, giving your campaigns the best chance of performing to their potential. 

#4 Ongoing support

Along with access to a world-class team of designers, adopters of CaaS are also paired with a dedicated Client Solutions Manager. They're there to assist with any questions you have and help plan out what deliverables you may need for an upcoming campaign. 

Your Client Solutions Manager will also develop a strong understanding of your brand and keep fully up to date with newly released ad formats and platform best practices in order to identify opportunities that could be applied to your brand’s creative strategy.

This ongoing support is put in place to help take your creative to new heights. 

The proof is in the pudding

Now you should have a clear picture of the key components of CaaS: fixed-cost subscription pricing, dedicated creative tech, consistent quality and ongoing support.

If you’d like to learn more about CaaS and see how it compares to traditional models of creative production you can visit our CaaS solution benchmarking landing page where we have a bunch of resources including an independently commissioned report and a calculator for you to discover your potential cost savings & scaling opportunities first-hand.