Alternative To Hogarth Worldwide : Global Digital Creative Localisation And Marketing Implementation Services

Hogarth Worldwide is a WPP-owned global company that provides marketing Implementation services, including all-channel production and language services to blue-chip international companies. While Hogarth is beyond doubt a proven leader in its field, when thinking about using a partner for global brand marketing implementation services and global creative adaptation and localisation at scale , there are many important reasons why you should consider SO DIGITAL | Global Brand Excellence Solutions as a viable alternative.

Competitive Concerns

In case Hogarth WW already works for brands or companies who are your competitors, there's certainly reason for you to explore alternatives. Global brand marketing campaign roll-out capabilities are a crucial element of global brand marketing operations and the speed-to-market is often one of determinants of competitive position and ultimately market share. This is, for example, especially true in highly competitive service industries like telecommunications where market participants often compete directly with each other and replicate, upgrade packages competitor just came out to market with. Similar if not same is true within CPG markets.

In case HogarthWW already is working for a brand that you compete with, it would make much sense that you look for alternatives.

In case HogarthWW already is working for a brand that you compete with, it would make much sense that you look for alternatives. Other industry and market players need a viable alternative for global brand implementation, localisation and digital creative production. With our experience in global brand creative adaptation and localisation provided by remote creative content factory teams placed at lower cost countries that have worked for clients like Nike EMEA, Uber EMEA, AS Monaco, TomTom and many others, SO DIGITAL could be a great alternative.

Digital Born for Digital First Times

In a digital first world, you want a a digital first partner. Established back in 2008, Hogarth is rooted in times when print & TV were dominant and digital was just an another channel. Founded in 2014, SO DIGITAL (as it is clear from the name) focuses on digital channels and digital execution.

In a digital first world, you want a a digital first partner.

Screenshot of Hogarth WorldWide website from 2008 when they focused on TV and print

Our core capabilities are tied to global brand campaigns, global creative and digital brand marketing implementation services. While we can provide services for print and TV in all honesty we're a digital first partner.

Industrial Scale vs Digital Scalability

HogarthWW prides itself on its industrial scale capability. We are much smaller, nimbler and in no way want to resemble or evoke any associations to industrial age. While we are a small team, part of our core value proposition are tailored platform technology solutions which act as a capability multiplier and enable scalability - management of exponential workloads with incremental costs. Aside of bespoke platform solutions, we also leverage productivity potential of broad range of digital tools which helps both us and clients to work most effectively. Combined with remote creative teams placed in lower cost countries but on European continent we combine technology, skill, and international talent resource pools to create best outcomes for our clients.

Part of our core value proposition are tailored platform technology solutions which act as a capability multiplier and enable scalability - management of exponential workloads with incremental costs

We are much more than a global brand creative implementation, localisation and adaptation partner - we act as a scaling partner for your global brand marketing operations to help you take advantage of digital channels and meet rising content demand streams.

We act as a scaling partner for your global brand marketing operations to help you take advantage of digital channels

Continuous Improvement in Global Brand Implementation

SO DIGITAL is first and foremost a continuous improvement company. This means that even though we have digital brand creative content factory teams and digital production hubs placed in lower-cost countries, content factory services provided to clients - global creative adaptation, campaign implementation and localisation are inherently part of and subject to continuous improvement programs. Our content factory services are almost always provided through tailored technology solutions which not only facilitate global creative production, localisation and adaptation, seamless delivery across globe but also enable tracking and measurement of brand operations - providing input for continuous improvement - both in terms of process and output.

Content factory services provided to clients - global creative adaptation, campaign implementation and localisation are inherently part of and subject to continuous improvement programs.

We benchmark our service provision to internally set KPIs and standards but also to industry best practices. We believe that any service, especially in rapidly changing times, is a continuous improvement effort and that perspective is embedded in our global digital brand implementation, localisation and adaptation efforts. When working with clients we'll continuously monitor the operations for waste - in terms of time, money and effort and provide improvements to both processes used and resources leveraged.

We believe that any service, especially in rapidly changing times, is a continuous improvement effort and that perspective is embedded in our global digital brand implementation, localisation and adaptation efforts.

Offshoring vs Nearshoring

For adaptation and localisation HogarthWW leverages its global network of offices spread across different regions. Its safe to assume that the actual creative production facilities for localisation, adaptation and brand implementation are in its offshore locations such as India, and Philippines.

Problem with offshore creative production service providers in Asia or India and clients in Western Hemisphere is that there's often too big of a cultural, communicative and business principle gap to bridge.

Problem with offshore creative production service providers in Asia or India and clients in Western Hemisphere is that there's often too big of a cultural, communicative and business principle gap to bridge. While differences are not impossible to overcome, it often takes a lot of administrative and operational effort which eats away into the cost-saving purpose. Namely, most often cited reason for not offshoring creative production is time lost by the clients in the operational, communicative alignment with offshore creative production staff - increased number of reviews, misunderstanding gaps etc.

Namely, our three digital production hubs are placed in Eastern Europe, or Balkans peninsula to be exact - Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Strategically placed in lower cost countries out of which one (Croatia) is in the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are on the borders of EU, we're able to achieve sizeable savings needed for large scale digital brand production while also retain cultural, communicational, time-zone alignment with Western Europe / North America markets.

Strategically placed in lower cost countries out of which one (Croatia) is in the EU and Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia are on the borders of EU, we're able to achieve sizeable savings needed for large scale digital brand production while also retain cultural, communicational, time-zone alignment with Western Europe / North America markets.

While our staff may not be as cheap as in India or Philippines for average Western Europe / North American client they will be easier to work with and time will be more productive. We believe that Balkan digital production hubs deliver best of global creative optimisation potential - large enough talent pool of skilled employees, cultural and time zone alignment to Western Hemisphere clients, sizeable enough pay gap difference and physical proximity to markets. For example, when working for Nike EMEA part of our staff was once per month having face2face meetings with clients in their HQ staff in Amsterdam (Hilversum).

SO DIGITAL remote office staff from Sarajevo (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Zagreb (Croatia) visiting Nike EMEA Running Category Brand Team in their corporate HQ in Hilversum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Agency Network vs Independent Provider

HogarthWW is a part of a global advertising agency network WPP. While this is obviously a big factor explaining its success and large scale of operations, given that it ensures client business inflow from WPP advertising network by default, it can also mean that the WPP clients aren't getting best possible service and solution in the market. Namely, there are strong financial incentives in place to keep as much of business as possible under the same roof and within the same group. While this doesn't mean that the service provided isn't best in the market, it may mean that their clients could benefit from a more competitive service - even just for benchmark sake.

There are strong financial incentives in place to keep as much of business as possible under the same roof and within the same group. This can mean that the WPP clients aren't getting best possible service and solution in the market.

In case you already work with HogarthWW we'll be happy to offer a respective benchmark to the service, terms and conditions provided to you by HogarthWW. In case you're not legally bound to work with a WPP affiliate agency, as an independent provider of global creative localisation and marketing implementation services SO DIGITAL can be a great alternative.

A More Holistic Approach To Rationalisation of Global Brand Marketing Implementation

HogarthWW provides industrial scale global creative production services driving efficiencies in decoupling - separation of advertising creative and advertising production leveraging its network of global offices. HogarthWW mostly focuses on global creative production & postproduction support of global advertisers - mainly focusing on the resourcing element of global creative production. SO DIGITAL on the other hand believes that no optimised, global creative production can be successfully enough if it focuses just on the global resourcing element, while disregarding global brand marketing operations - global campaign execution processes in place. That is why when we work with clients we usually look 'under the hood' of global brand marketing operating and execution models and provide suggestions for improvement - both in terms of processes and resources used. In case of global digital brand implementation and execution across markets - which requires digital adaptation and localisation services, we'll never suggest just resourcing optimisation without taking into account how these resources will be engaged and leveraged into the campaign execution operations. HogarthWW service is built on centralisation and specialisation of global creative production under one roof. However, we believe that the optimal results for clients are achieved only if the speed in production in this case is matched with clients internal ability of fast enough go-to-market operations and campaign rollout capabilities. The latter goes beyond just ability to acquire many campaign assets at speed and scale.

We believe that the optimal results for clients are achieved only if the speed in production in this case is matched with clients ability of speed to market.

For example, that is when working for Nike EMEA brand digital wholesale. com department aside of leveraging our three digital production hubs to delivery hundreds of digital brand creative assets, supporting 10 categories seasonal launch campaigns, across partner e-commerce properties in 14 WE countries, we also created a platform to help clients streamline the campaign planning, production, distribution & reporting toward a heterogenous and complex network of e-retail partners.

Without the platform that enabled scalable campaigns support to retail partners, creative production at scale would be meaningless as they couldn't have been deployed in proper manner, speed and scale nor provide reporting - data insights on their performance. Platform enabled much needed vertical organisational visibility and streamlining of operations (global-emea-country-retailer).

Diversifying Global Digital Creative Adaptation Partners For Best-in-Class Marketing Implementation Capabilities.

HogarthWW is a a leader in global creative production and marketing implementation. It offers a broad and an inconclusive number of digital creative production services, trans-creation, localisation and technology innovation. As a large organisation HogarthWW boasts a broad range of capabilities. "All your eggs in one basket" was never a smart strategy as being tied up with just one vendor exposes you to multiple levels or business risks. Having your global creative adaptation & implementation program tied up with a single partner means having strategic business capability tied up to single source, business delivery method and single line of thought. Even brands which are currently working or considering working with HogarthWW should think about strategic advantages of diversifying their global creative implementation programs with different vendors.

We're not trying to be everything to our clients, just best in class provider of global digital brand implementation services

HogartWW range of services : screenshot website

SO DIGITAL on the other side is a great choice for more focused area of work in digital brand implementation and campaign execution across markets. Our core capability is digital brand execution and campaign implementation in global-to-local context. We don't do creative photo shoots, print production, or print-postproduction. We don't make apps, CGI nor 3D modelling. If you have a global brand campaign and global brand creative that prevalently will be rolled-out and used across digital touch-points we're definitely up for that task. Even though comparatively smaller in size, our embedded technology and global-to-local workflow consulting enables clients and us to work at scale and speed of global markets execution. We don't try to be everything to our clients, just best in class provider of global digital brand implementation services.

Nimbler than HogarthWW

As companies grow their operations and staff swells making operations slower, more layered and complex. As a result organisations move slower. Hogarth Worldwide is a large agency with more than 5000 employees so compared to SO DIGITAL which is just around 50 moves at a much slower pace. As a smaller organisation we are by default nimbler - can move quickly and at the pace of more agile customers.

With size of its operations, HogarthWW probably isn't the best choice for smaller organisations and brands which are looking to leverage capability multiplier of creative resourcing optimisation .

Even though we're comparatively small that doesn't mean we can't handle big clients - we've successfully managed demand for Uber EMEA in-house creative team and support towards 47 EMEA countries, by leveraging our unique approach of process digitisation and scalability enablement. This means that we can punch much above our weight. On the other side, HogarthWW with size of its operations, probably isn't the best choice for smaller organisations and brands which are looking to leverage capability multiplier of creative resourcing optimisation .