How CreativeX Helped Nestle Align Agencies, Markets, and Leaders Around Its Creative Standards
Written by
Elissa Ha
September 12, 2022
5
min read
In 2019, Nestle Indonesia had digital marketing KPIs to improve but no consistent way to see whether its teams and agency partners were applying creative standards across their assets.
Arush Kochhar, then eBusiness Transformation Lead, and Dienda Andrianie, Head of Media, made Indonesia Nestle’s pilot market for CreativeX. The platform helped them identify where assets met platform requirements and where changes were needed, giving Nestle and its partners a common starting point for improvement.
CreativeX made previously difficult-to-track requirements measurable across large volumes of creative.
“As soon as we saw it, we knew it would help tackle one of our Digital & Media KPIs (ensure assets are optimized for each platform). We were impressed that this could be automated at scale,” Arush shares.
CQS summarized those assessments in a measure teams could follow over time: “it’s the overall Creative Quality Score (CQS)...with CQS we are able to simplify a large set of rules, percentages and more into a single number (which becomes an excellent KPI).”
Creative Quality Score (CQS) measures adherence to validated best practices for image and video content. It is calculated in real time by dividing the number of best practices present in a piece of content by the total number tracked.
For Nestle, the score provided a baseline and a way to monitor progress. Indonesia’s CQS increased from 30% to 92%, a 207% increase and the highest score in the Nestle organization, where CreativeX is live in 2000 brands and 186 markets.
Nestle needed each audience to understand what the data meant for its work. Arush and his team adapted their explanations accordingly: clearer expectations for agencies, local relevance for markets, and business implications for executives.
As Arush explains, “once you have champions that speak the same language…that’s how you achieve scale.”
“Here's a gift from us, let’s all work on it…it’s not [us] shouting at [you] but now we have this impartial way of measuring and fixing.”
Nestle introduced CreativeX as practical support for its agency partners. Both sides could assess assets against the same requirements and identify what needed attention.
“we know that we’ve asked you for certain metrics that are hard or impossible to measure, so we’re enabling you with this tool in order to do it…we’re here to make your lives easier,” shared Arush.
The data helped Nestle explain its guidelines and turn broad instructions into specific requirements.
“when we were able to justify all the creative guidelines (for example YouTube’s ABCDs)...through data, we knew it would be a game changer,” Dienda added.
Agencies could better understand what Nestle expected and how to achieve it: “it brought in a lot of simplicity, so when I say design mobile first, that’s a big statement, what does it mean actually? But now we’ve codified it…there’s no ambiguity, CreativeX is really clear and made things black and white,” said Arush.
Turning that clarity into improvement depended on trust. As Arush explained, “you need to be close to people, it’s built on trust.”
CreativeX gave Nestle and its partners an impartial basis for identifying issues and addressing them together. Arush’s message was: “Here's a gift from us, let’s all work on it…it’s not [us] shouting at [you] but now we have this impartial way of measuring and fixing, and measuring and fixing, that’s why Indonesia is still the best in our markets.”
Following the Indonesia pilot, Arush took the approach to KitKat. Different regions needed different reasons to engage with the data.
In Asia, he framed CreativeX around “achieving excellence.” For KitKat, he also emphasized efficiency through the language of “wasted money.” The emphasis changed to reflect each market’s commercial priorities.
Arush explains, “in Indonesia and Asia in general there was fast growth… in a part of the world like Europe…it’s not about growth, it’s maintenance, how do you do more with less, and with Latin America it’s about all the competitors, how do you outshine them…how you frame [CreativeX] helps people get it.”
“It needs to be a number that the most senior people get, [and what’s unique about CQS], it’s one number, it’s not 15, they don’t need to be experts they just have to understand the broader meaning,”
Senior leaders needed a clear picture of how creative standards were being applied without having to interpret every platform requirement.
CQS summarized those assessments in one measure. It gave teams a starting point for conversations about asset creation, agency processes, and where closer attention was needed. Separate performance analysis connected that measure to business outcomes.
Arush linked the measure to the business priorities his audience understood: “so you explain the concept behind it, making the money work harder, and if everybody gets it, everybody loves it.” His advice was to “find the angle most pertinent to your business and focus on that.”
When speaking to executives, “it needs to be a number that the most senior people get, [and what’s unique about CQS], it’s one number, it’s not 15, they don’t need to be experts they just have to understand the broader meaning,” Arush said.He illustrated his approach to communicating urgency with the phrase “a low CQS…It means X amount of campaigns failed.”
Read more → How Nestlé Brought 2,000+ Brands and 186 Markets Into One View of Creative Execution.
The Indonesia pilot provided a model for using creative data across Nestle’s markets. Its global team also examined how adherence to creative standards related to media performance.
In partnership with Meta, Nestle’s global team found that campaigns with high CQS had +66% higher ROAS. Regression analysis by CreativeX found that every 10% increase in CQS could see a 10.9% decrease in Cost Per Completed View (CPCV) and a 2.1% increase in ad recall.
CreativeX made previously difficult-to-track aspects of Nestle’s creative activity visible. The Indonesia team turned that visibility into practical guidance: agencies could understand expectations, markets could focus on local priorities, and leaders could see the business relevance.
That approach helped Nestle extend the value of creative data across its global organization.
Has the Nestlé Indonesia team’s success inspired you to bring the transformative power of creative data to your team? → Sign up for a product demo today.
Arush’s experience shows how CreativeX helped Nestle track previously unmeasurable requirements, establish a common baseline, and pinpoint what needed to change:
Acknowledgements:
Arush Kochhar, Global Digital Confectionary Lead, Nestlé
Dienda Andrianie, Head of Media, Nestlé Indonesia
