From the moment that time management became a must-have discipline, we’ve been obsessed with making better use of our time, streamlining processes and priorities and boxing our day so that more gets done for less. When Apple started the ‘there’s an app for that‘ campaign, it played beautifully into this mindset that we want everything to be digitised, automated and speeding things up. My life on my mobile.

Of course there’s occasional rebellion against the go-faster stripes. It’s not always the hare that wins – some things want that extra input and thought that can’t be rushed. But in Creative Services are we sometimes convinced by the idea that Creative can’t be rushed and allow extended timescales where in other disciplines we’d be less forgiving. Imagine if the IT support desk asked for two weeks to sit down and brainstorm your data recovery problem?

But that’s been just what’s happened for ever with the Creative Services industry. Brands have been treated to protracted processes in the name of Creative. There is a whole smoke and mirrors process over which a brand owner has no control. But how much of it is down to the creative process itself and how much to the peripheral activity? That’s the 64,000 dollar question.

You see, it’s in the interests of the traditional networked agencies to wrap up the creative costs in process. After all, you don’t want to think that of the 200 hours you’ve been billed for a project only 10 were actually in the bit that ultimately is going to matter to your brand campaign. In fact, the traditional agency model is rife with these time swamps, swallowing up your budgets for little value in return.

From the moment you submit a brief to receiving the concepts, or to the final deliverable there are steps that you know are being taken, but that you’re not really sure of what’s going on. Is your Account Director being paid to manage your project, or to manage the phone calls from you asking where your project is.

It’s not actually a Creative issue at all. It’s a retention issue. By broadening the project duration the client perceives more attention and value. Whereas, anyone who’s sat on the other side of the door in Madison Avenue knows that a creative pitch can be the equivalent of a university essay – the big stuff is left to the last possible minute.

So, does it need to be like this. Would shortening the process, or improving the efficiencies, detract from the overall deliverable? Would we be denied the great ads if we were denied the wraparound activities?

Of course not. The traditional large agency model is designed to be fat. Which means there is a thin alternative. As one of our Exchange users put it – he wants to be focused on execution and delivery, not on Charlotte Street splendour.

When we developed the Creative Services Exchange we wanted to make transparency our watchword. It’s behind every part of our process. We saw no reason to spin out the unnecessary, preferring to focus on the necessary. As the exchange has developed, we’ve increased the visibility of the stages from brief to pitch. Our whole philosophy is about focusing on the Creative and removing the padding.  blur Trading means not just a detailed view of your own project but an overview of all live activity.

The transparency and transactional nature of the exchange means that you know exactly what you’re paying for and the agencies on the exchange have adapted to the new way of delivery. You’re not in a void wondering where your project is developing and if someone can’t deliver the work to you on time and on budget then they’re not going to make it through the pitch process. Now there is a way to be creative and time rich. Why not submit a brief and start seeing creativity not overheads?