Asda’s new internal Studio 368 partners with Specle

Today we are delighted to announce our new partnership with Asda, and their internal studio: Studio368. At Specle, our role is to help advertisers validate and deliver their material to improve the quality of workflow and streamline their productivity.

Background

Founded in the 1960s in Yorkshire, Asda is one of Britain’s leading retailers and helps customers save money and live better in stores, online and through their mobile devices.

Each week more than 18 million customers visit its 639 stores — including 30 Supercentres, 394 Superstores, 159 Supermarkets, 33 Asda Living stores, and 18 standalone petrol stations — and websites, and are served by 145,000 colleagues. www.asda.com and www.george.com deliver to 99% of the UK’s homes and to its 505 click and collect sites across the UK.

Its main office is in Leeds, Yorkshire and its George clothing division is in Lutterworth, Leicestershire. Asda joined Walmart, the world’s number one retailer, in 1999.

Asda launched Studio368 following an extensive evaluation of their agency eco-system to gain better control, transparency and cost efficiencies of their artwork outputs.

Studio368 has been established to manage artwork production for advertising, POS and leaflets across various media channels, yet, needed to be able to cope with all types of campaigns — print, press and OOH. This is where Specle steps in.

“We wanted a scalable and flexible system that would allow studio368, our in-house studio, to seamlessly control colour management and upload validation of our press advertising throughout the end-to-end process — from studio to publication house”. — Andy Steer, Senior Manager, Studio368.

With thousands of ads being sent every week, designers, brands, and studios need assurance that their ads are meeting specification requirements without sacrificing the integrity of the brand. With Specle, companies like Asda can have full control of their production output with a transparent and cost-effective solution to ad validation and delivery.

Since their partnership with Specle, Asda can now:

• Manage multiple ad delivery channels
• Use the campaign tool to send artwork to different publications
• Colour manage their brand with ease and confidence
• Validate and deliver advertising material to newspapers and magazines worldwide

Studio368 now has a platform that can grow, develop, and integrate with other MRM systems. Specle’s technological flexibility will allow Asda to further automate other processes resulting in a seamless and universal system providing all stakeholders in the business with visibility and control; a workflow that lets them manage their campaigns and integrate with their existing systems.

“Ultimately this is about providing more efficient marketing services to enable us to provide the best value products to our customers. Saving money internally enables us to pass savings onto our customers” — Scott Cusworth, Systems Manager — ASDA Marketing Operations.

Outcomes

Already, Studio368 has streamlined the validation and colour management process for Asda’s print advertising. Having an internal team has seen a huge improvement in accountability, reporting, and output. The early success will now allow Asda to investigate further automation across its marketing function in order to generate even better savings.

Find out how you can partner with Specle to increase your workflow and streamline your ads, please email sales@specle.net