At Manchester Digital, we like to interview our members to find out a bit more about what they do and their work in the Greater Manchester digital and technology sphere. This week we're speaking with Luke Taylor and Calum-MacDonald-Ball, joint heads of McCann Content Studios Manchester.
Understanding McCann Manchester’s Role in the Digital and Tech Ecosystem
McCann is a leading advertising agency with a strong focus on social content. How does your agency leverage social media platforms to drive engagement and ROI for clients?
Today, Social Media is a critical channel for any brand looking for growth. McCann launched McCann Content Studio’s as its specialist Social capability to deliver best-in-class solutions. MCS offers end-to-end Social, including strategy, creative and agile production, page management, paid social, influencer management, analytics and Social commerce from its McCann Manchester campus.
MCS has a 5-pillar approach which includes defining a Social voice and content strategy to build culturally relevant brands like Aldi and L’Oréal, and commerce strategies to drive direct sales and leads for brands such as Beaverbrooks and Zoflora.
Can you elaborate on the role of data and analytics in your social media campaigns? How do you measure success and optimize performance?
Social channels collect more data than others and this is a fundamental part of our approach. At MCS we have best-in-class marketing tools, and proprietary data and analytics tools, combine these with our excellent strategic relationships with partners such as META and TikTok and our analytics credentials are first class.
A few to highlight; Social Voice uses Social Listening and OpenAI to objectively measure and identify brand’s social media behaviours; Seismograph is our tool for automated live dashboard analytics; and Muse AI is our predictive Social trend tool to enable us to be on the pulse of cultural conversations as they spark. This allows us to make sure our brands understand the landscape, know how and when to react, and how to build their communities through culture.
McCann Content Studios is focused on driving measurable business results for clients, and McCann has been the Effie Number 1 Most Effective Agency Network for the last 7 years running. We create KPIs designed to directly impact client commercial objectives and evaluate performance against these targets, through live dashboards for transparency.
How does McCann collaborate with other tech companies or agencies to deliver comprehensive digital marketing solutions for clients?
We have a strong history of partnering with tech and social platforms. We are Meta’s number 1 creative partner and were the first agency to launch Facebook Blueprint training. We are a strategic partner with all major platforms including TikTok, X, LinkedIn, Google, Pinterest, and Snapchat to name a few. These partnerships keep us at the forefront of developments and allow us to keep our clients one step ahead too.
Our Enterprise level technology partner is Microsoft and we also have partner-status relationships with both Salesforce and Adobe, including several hundred specialists around the globe.
As a national agency with a presence in Manchester, how does your local team contribute to the overall success of the business?
McCann Manchester has led the way from a social perspective and is recognised by McCann World Group as the social centre of excellence. The team based in Manchester plays a huge role in the success of MCS worldwide as with all flavours of creativity across the network. We are particularly proud of our roots in Manchester- we work with many clients based in the region but equally many based outside of the city.
What are the biggest challenges and opportunities you see in the digital marketing landscape, and how is McCann adapting to these changes?
AI is the biggest opportunity currently, and not just in the case of creative output. McCann is already using AI for analytics, creative concepting, production automation and pre-testing, and are working with various AI partners on further opportunities – watch this space!
There is a platform overload taking place with ever-growing channels and formats such as BeReal, YouTube Shorts and Threads, and an increasing need for high-quality, channel-optimised and regular video creative. This is challenging clients to create more and more content cost-effectively. Our Platform Perfection pillar in MCS is designed to solve this.
There is a growing lack of distinctiveness on Social today. The success of TikTok has pushed Social further into an entertainment space and brands have responded by all doing the same thing; reacting to the same trends and adopting the same personas. This has also changed consumer behaviours, moving more into DM spaces. Our Social Voice and Trends and Affinities pillars help brands define their behaviours and become distinctive.
Thank you Luke and Callum!
Learn more about McCann Content Studios, McCann Manchester here.
