Given the privacy and regulatory issues endemic to the financial services industry (FinServ), it’s taken the industry a bit of time to figure out exactly how to leverage marketing technology (Martech) to reach, retain, and inform its audiences. In line with other sectors like education and retail, FinServ is investing in Martech, and it’s paying off.

What is Martech?

Martech refers to a number of digital tools companies and entrepreneurs deploy to market their products and services to consumers and other stakeholders, from bespoke project management and design software platforms to full-fledged campaign automation and customer relationship management (CRM) platforms. This category includes some of the more well-known digital advertising platforms like Google Ads/Analytics, Microsoft Advertising, Twitter Ads, and YouTube Ads, as well as CRMs such as Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics. All of these tools serve to streamline digital campaigns, collect and analyze data, enable automated scheduling, reporting and statistics, and produce website heat maps, schedule social media content, and more. Grouped together, these platforms are known as a Martech stack.

How pervasive has Martech become? According to online software marketplace G2, the Martech solutions marketplace has grown 27.8 percent year-over-year, increasing from just over 11,000 solutions in 2023 to more than 14,000 in 2024: this reflects both the evolving complexity of marketing requirements as well as the constant innovation in the space.

If we focus in on FinServ, recent investment activity by major industry players — like Citi, Chase, JPMorgan, and their competitors — underlines the growing importance of Martech stacks in the industry.

  • In March 2024, StarTree, a cloud-based real-time analytics services company powered by Apache Pinot, announced Citi had made a strategic investment in the company. Citi uses the open-source Apache Pinot and StarTree to access trade and risk monitoring for its Markets business.
  • In April 2024, JPMorgan Chase launched Chase Media Solutions, a new digital media business. This bank-led media platform, the first of its kind, enables advertisers to send relevant promotions to around 80 million of the bank’s customers.

Implementing Martech that’s Right on the Money

FinServ’s second-most important currency is, of course, data. Thanks to strategically built and implemented Martech stacks, FinServ companies can work with vast amounts of data to gain insight into the behaviors and preferences of their customers. By adopting a data-driven strategy, these organizations can design individualized marketing campaigns for their specific audiences and deliver them via the most effective channels at the best time. And, yes, AI is a huge contributor to the data-driven results and effectiveness of FinServ Martech stacks, given its ability to analyze and process massive amounts of customer data — effectively democratizing the use of marketing technology.

Implementing Martech that’s right on the money can transform your marketing efforts to produce tangible results, but it’s important to follow the right steps. Similar to the healthcare industry, FinServ is under strict regulations and requirements when it comes to marketing, largely for the protection of investors. There are several laws governing FinServ outreach to consumers, including the Truth in Advertising Act, the Truth in Savings Act and Fair Lending Laws, among others. In December of 2020, the SEC finalized reforms under the Investment Advisers Act to modernize rules governing advertising and marketing by investment firms. Although these rules remain in place today, FinServ organizations are expected to keep up with any changes in the regulatory landscape.

FinServ companies need to invest in the right Martech strategy to be able to follow these laws while still executing marketing campaigns that perform, simultaneously maintaining a seamless ecosystem of interconnected digital marketing tools via strategic integrations to help increase adoption and effective usage. To truly optimize a Martech stack and maximize ROI, these companies need the right roadmap, and the right talent, to get them there. But what is a Martech roadmap, particularly in the FinServ space?

The Martech Roadmap: Your Path to Success

According to Gartner, a Martech roadmap helps CMOs, Marketing Operations Directors, VPs of Strategy and Innovation – and other marketing executives – communicate current and future Martech capabilities to their teams and/or throughout an enterprise. These executives can leverage their roadmaps to plan, compile business and user needs for use-case development, review and acquire new technologies, build fresh capabilities, and predict and adapt to evolving technology, potential risks, and other marketplace disruptions.

What’s the best way to start building a roadmap and begin leveraging everything a Martech stack can do for your FinServ company? You need the right people to help you put the right stack together, experts with real depth in marketing and technology who can provide your organization with the solutions it needs, such as:

  • Platform assessment and implementation
  • Business setups for Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) builds
  • Workfront-to-Workfront project management configuration
  • Integration of Workfront with Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Impeccable, on-brand, user-friendly dashboards
  • Salesforce operations, program, and project management, and administration
  • And so much more…

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Bottomline

Martech strategy is, simply put, one of the most important investments a FinServ company — or any organization for that matter — can make. Thinking about putting together a Martech stack that drives measurable ROI and turns your FinServ organization into a formidable competitor? Need a team to activate, maintain, and/or evolve it? One that understands the myriad compliance issues innate to the financial services industry from investment banking and trading services to wealth management and beyond?

At Creative Circle, we have the talent and expertise you need to effectively leverage Martech and stay at its ever-evolving vanguard. We develop tailor-made, talent-driven solutions that meet your organization where it’s at today, and we can build out teams to prepare your brand for tomorrow. In other words, we’ve got Martech expertise and consulting-level support that you can bank on.

We are living in an era of unprecedented tech innovation — one where artificial intelligence, once an elusive sci-fi dream, is increasingly becoming an integral part of our daily existence. Tech companies are touting their latest AI innovations, and soon, AI will likely be woven into the fabric of every platform.

Financial sector companies are always seeking to fast-track insights, improve predictive analytics and forecasting, optimize engagement, and uplevel their overall customer experience. So, naturally, AI’s data-crunching capabilities and lightning-fast analytics sound like the industry’s dream come true.

It’s true there are many compelling use cases for AI by financial services companies in particular, as they strive to differentiate their offerings with technology and deliver increased value by leveraging data-driven insights. We’re talking about everything from improving fraud detection and exploring AI-based assistants as productivity enhancers to optimizing lending parameters and fine-tuning risk assessment.

The question remains: How do they handle this immense potential while operating in such a tightly regulated space?

Real Life Financial Sector AI Use Cases

The financial industry is made up of many subsectors, from banking to fintech, insurance, investments, and more. It’s a highly competitive sector, with companies constantly looking for an edge over one another. Today, leaders in this sector are innovating to bring AI to the forefront of their business.

AI-based lending platforms like Upstart and C3.ai seek to approve more borrowers, lower default rates, and reduce fraud risk. According to the Motley Fool, Upstart uses AI models to screen potential borrowers and establish forecasts on creditworthiness that the company considers to be more accurate than using credit scores.

Where some are focused on creditworthiness, other finance companies are intent on improving fraud detection, which is a severe problem for financial institutions, and companies are looking to AI for new solutions. Machine learning algorithms can sort through vast volumes of transaction data, flagging suspicious and potentially fraudulent activity and recommending risk parameters to help block identity theft attempts, suspicious logins, and fraudulent transactions. IBM’s AI-driven Watson Studio does just that, improving fraud detection, prediction, and prevention for its customers.

Investment platforms, too, are turning to AI to help recommend stock picks and content for users. Robinhood may be the best example of a platform seeking to differentiate itself from competitors by recommending investment opportunities based on things like investing style, history, and risk tolerance, personalizing the user experience, and ramping up engagement.

AI in the World of Finance

AI has historically gained relatively broad adoption in financial services through chatbots and machine learning algorithms, but today’s leaders are setting their sights on deeper applications to supercharge their external offerings as well as enhancing internal operations. Still, finance and other heavily regulated industries like healthcare will always require human judgment. Humans are the most important element of an AI strategy, whether it’s for creative and marketing or financial applications, meaning organizations cannot solely rely on technology to make decisions that significantly impact people’s lives.

The cost-saving potential of AI, however, is not lost on the financial industry, only ramping up the appeal of AI to financial institutions. While companies have made some in-roads to AI adoption in various ways, unique challenges in implementing AI because of compliance concerns and opaque algorithmic processes persist. Here’s how some industry leaders are paving the way, and there are ways to help surmount these hurdles through defined guardrails, transparency, and more.

Top AI Challenges — and Solutions — for Highly Regulated Industries

As highly regulated industries grapple with how to tap into AI’s full potential, it’s important to examine the obstacles that arise. Here are some top challenges — and ways to mitigate them — to implementing this technology that are all too common in highly regulated industries.

1. Challenge: Lack of transparency

Many AI algorithms lack sufficient guardrails and controllability. Their opaque decision-making processes and inner workings make it challenging to detail how a system arrived at a particular output. When it comes to people’s money and health, a lack of transparency simply poses too many risks.

Solution: Provide openness and transparency

AI tools that provide clarity around their conclusions are essential for regulated industries. Consider the training data the model receives, how the system uses the data, how the data is secured, and ensure that a large enough data set is used. This level of openness will allow companies to do audits and ensure the system operates as intended, per regulatory guidelines.

2. Challenge: Risk aversion

Highly regulated industries typically have high-stakes operations, where people’s livelihoods, health, and safety are on the line, which means mistakes come at enormous costs.

Solution: Set expectations

Establish AI’s specific purpose and scope to help align stakeholders and provide a quantifiable framework for measuring success. Ensure there’s ample time to lean into new AI-aided workflows slowly to ensure that they are meeting their mark and pivot if needed.

3. Challenge: Implicit bias and unfairness

AI algorithms actually inherit and even amplify biases in the data sets on which they were trained. While fairness in AI is commonly defined as providing fair or impartial treatment, fair can mean different things in different contexts to different people.

Most AI that is built by outside companies does not give users the ability to detect bias or inherent flaws, which means conclusions can’t be examined or audited. If a doctor uses AI to recommend a course of treatment for one patient, but another patient with a similar diagnosis is given another diagnostic approach, what does this mean? Are they both correct? Wrong? What are the factors that led to divergent recommendations?

Solution: Set guardrails

Whenever possible, control the inputs into your company’s AI platform. By using predefined rules and processes, AI systems are far less likely to deviate from the established norm or violate regulatory policies, improving transparency, enhancing auditability, and trust. Some AI tools have certain guardrails built into their framework to help users avoid non-compliance.

4. Challenge: Hesitancy to change

Finance and healthcare industries often rely on legacy systems, and overhauling them to integrate AI can seem daunting, requiring significant money, time, and resources. Adding to the pressure, any changes must also comply with an ever-changing regulatory landscape that necessitates extensive testing, validation, and documentation.

Solution: Crawl, walk, run

Start small and ramp up slowly. Large-scale adoption before your company is ready could lead to regulatory violations and non-compliance that can set your organization back. Consider the crawl, walk, and run approach as an on-ramp to AI success.

Crawl: Investigate the potential business applications to find low-risk, high-impact functions that can act as test use cases.

Walk: Start with specific cases or departments or apply the tech at just one office or branch. Pressure test how initial forays into using AI are going and learn what is working and what is not.

Run: Once you’ve successfully tested, refined, improved, and verified your company’s selected AI tools, begin to explore integrating it and other AI tools into more complex use cases and larger ecosystems.

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Bottomline

AI is sweeping the world — and highly regulated industries like finance and healthcare are still looking for new ways to leverage the power of this technology while remaining compliant with stringent industry regulations. While hurdles exist for more full-throttle implementation, humans remain the most critical element in building and maintaining an AI strategy. Experts must interpret, assess, and verify AI outputs, using critical thinking and judgment to determine the best course of action.

Creative Circle can help your team crawl, walk, and run their way to adopting AI workflows, helping to create seamless and effective interdependencies between your human talent and AI. We have experts ready to get your organization up to speed in carefully calibrated steps so that you, too, can thrive in the fast-evolving world of AI.

Creative Circle is thrilled to announce the release of our 2024 Client Pulse Report, offering a comprehensive analysis of artificial intelligence’s impact on creative and marketing teams. This year’s report illuminates how AI has rapidly become embedded in daily workflows, but leaders still seek support in deploying the groundbreaking technology to its full potential.

To develop the report, Creative Circle collected survey responses from 463 creative and marketing leaders. The survey was conducted in March 2024 and received a near-record response rate, demonstrating business leaders’ continued investment in the subject more than a year after AI entered the mainstream.

The Results Are In

Resounding consensuses emerged around several of the topics addressed in the survey:

  • AI is now a staple in creative and marketing teams, with 82% using it to some extent and 45% using it daily or weekly.
  • Leaders would like to further implement AI into their work, but 89% face barriers to increased adoption.
  • The necessity of AI today is undisputed, as 83% of leaders say they need to develop new AI skills and competencies in order to achieve their goals.
  • Businesses are eager to close their AI gaps, with 66% of respondents seeking AI-specific training, hires, or consultants to upskill their teams.

“This study makes clear that marketing and creative leaders recognize AI’s extraordinary potential. But for the most part, they’re only scratching the surface,” says Creative Circle President Matt Riley. “Teams need direction, training, and subject matter expertise in order to fully integrate AI technology and realize its many benefits.”

Creative Circle’s insights and solutions offer an ideal set of skills and knowledge that marketing and creative teams need to realize the benefit of today’s AI technologies.

Katherine Forbes, Creative Circle’s Senior Vice President of Marketing, states, “We are actively partnering with our clients to bring out the full potential of AI within their marketing and creative teams. Our people have the right solutions at their fingertips and the necessary insights to implement AI effectively and securely.”

Read the full report for all the detailed findings on topics including the top AI use cases, barriers to adoption, and upskilling strategies. And, if you’re ready to harness the power of AI for your team, contact Creative Circle to tap into a wealth of resources and expertise.

About Creative Circle

Creative Circle provides marketing and creative services for companies looking to solve business challenges of all sizes. Our strength comes from our talent community, and our power lies in leveraging this network to provide flexible custom solutions for our clients.

Creative Circle is part of the Commercial Segment of ASGN Incorporated (NYSE: ASGN). To learn more, visit creativecircle.com.

Safe Harbor

Certain statements made in this news release are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and involve a high degree of risk and uncertainty. Forward looking statements include statements regarding our current and future support of client AI needs, claims pertaining to internal and client efficiencies created using AI tools, and statements about how marketing and creative professionals may leverage AI tools within their own organizations. All statements in this news release, other than those setting forth strictly historical information, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results might differ materially. For a full list of risks and discussion of forward looking statements, please see ASGN’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, as filed with the SEC on February 23, 2024. We specifically disclaim any intention or duty to update any forward-looking statements contained in this news release.

Today’s AI capabilities are yesterday’s science fiction — AI technologies can now generate text, images, music, and video with simple prompts. As they evolve, the world of what is possible keeps changing at breakneck speed.

In education, AI technology has already started to influence how students learn, teachers teach, and, ultimately, what our educational system will come to look like in the years to come — revolutionizing teaching and learning as we know it. AI-powered tools and strategies will personalize learning and may even improve student outcomes by better preparing students for success in the digital age.

Sal Khan, founder of the Khan Academy, a nonprofit that provides free, world-class educational tools for use by all, boldly declared in his 2023 TED talk that AI has the potential to catalyze “the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen.” He sees a new era in education, where every teacher has an AI teaching assistant, and every student has access to an AI-powered personal tutor.

While there are ethical concerns around bias, plagiarism, appropriate use, and fears that AI will enable the spread of misinformation and cheating — issues that AI developers will certainly need to address — a growing group of educators are enthusiastically looking to a future of education that includes AI.

The challenge? Harnessing the immense positive potential while mitigating or avoiding harm.

Universities Build Their Own AI Tools

Taking these concerns to heart, colleges and universities have begun developing their own Chat-GPT-like tools for faculty and students to overcome concerns about intellectual property rights, equity, and privacy. The University of Michigan, Harvard University, University of California San Diego, UC Irvine, and Washington University have all created their own version of Chat GPT for use by students and faculty in the past year.

WashU GPT was launched last year, spearheaded by Albert Lai, deputy faculty lead for digital transformation at Washington University. They, along with the University of Michigan and UC Irvine, built their AI tools using Microsoft’s Azure platform, which is based on open-source software available for free to mitigate equity concerns. Proprietary platforms, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, on the other hand, impose upfront fees. What’s more, having a closed system can provide faculty with peace of mind that their intellectual property remains protected. “Any faculty member — including myself — would be very uncomfortable in putting a lecture and exams in an OpenAI model (such as ChatGPT) because then it’s out there for the world,” shared Ravi Pendse, University of Michigan’s Chief Information Officer.

Art Schools Get Creative About AI

AI is no longer just for computer scientists analyzing massive data sets and conducting predictive analytics — artists, designers, animators, musicians, video artists, and other creatives are now using it to enhance their creative processes and sometimes even generate new work. While there is a push/pull relationship between the technology and artists, leaders at top art institutions are starting to see AI as the next logical step in the digital revolution with the meteoric rise of visual AI platforms like DALL-E and Midjourney.

“This is as organic and logical as it gets, that an art institution is exactly primed to integrate this,” shared Griffin Smith, who teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. “RISD is the most punk art school, and I see this as one of the greatest punk opportunities we’ve had.”

When generative AI burst onto the scene, Jane South, Chair of Fine Arts at the Pratt Institute, looked past the ethical and copyright concerns and hoped that this technology might be the next big thing for artists and creative industries. “I thought, ‘Goody, goody.’” South sees the dawning of AI as “one of those moments — [like] when the printing press was invented, when photography came along — that art thrives on. Because it makes us think about what it is we do.”

Some liken attitudes around AI to those that surrounded Photoshop when those powerhouse programs burst onto the creative scene. “I think as soon as Photoshop became ubiquitous, faculty have been having conversations with students about Photoshop, and using it as a tool, and the difference between making all of your work on Photoshop and printing it out onto a piece of paper or projecting it onto the wall,” said Smith. “All of those conversations, I think, are very easily transferable to AI.” However, some creatives caution that there’s a big difference between what skilled creators can make using Adobe Creative Suite tools versus those without artistic skills or training.

South emphasized this point in a recent New York Times article, saying previous technological inventions that critics feared might upend creative professions only ended up strengthening them. “Photography was supposed to be the end of art, and then the Xerox machine came along, and that was supposed to be the end of art, too.”

AI as a Tool — Not a Replacement — for Creatives

Increasingly, schools are looking at AI as a multi-use tool — much like Photoshop or the camera before it — and many now see that it qualifies as its own medium for making art. For some, a consensus is forming that the act of limiting the tools available to create art is a bad practice for artists and for creativity.

To Nate Harrison, the Dean of Academic Affairs at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA), “concern” about AI is no longer relevant because it has already arrived. In other words, AI is here. “We cannot fight AI, students are already using it, many very organically and intuitively and naturally.” For him, the question should be: How can we equip students with smart approaches to using AI?

Some art schools, like Ringling College of Art and Design, are incorporating AI into their teachings instead of cleaving it off as a separate course. In one of their costume design classes, for instance, students use AI to find inspiration before crafting actual costumes.

RISD is now offering courses that prepare their students to code with machine learning and employ programs like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E, encouraging their use as foundational tools for creative projects that may ultimately involve traditional mediums like painting and illustration.

Creatives in marketing and advertising know that their work rests on the meaning of the ideas underpinning their concepts, and they’re worrying increasingly less about how the images that correspond were created and more about what they communicate to clients and others. As inventor Buckminster Fuller, best known as the creator of the geodesic dome, once said: “We are called to be the architects of the future, not its victims.”

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Bottomline

While many have described the rise of AI as “unprecedented,” that’s not exactly true. Disruptive technologies have often been seen as potential destroyers of industry before they settled into being seen as tools, just like the camera. As AI continues to become more fact than fiction, many in the creative fields are coming to the same conclusion: Yes, things will change, but new doors will also open, much like the advent of the internet.

If your team wants to infuse AI tools into your own creative work, we can help guide the way. Creative Circle has a strong bench of creative consultants who can help you craft the most adaptive and strategic way forward for your brand.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, online degree programs, such as those at the University of Phoenix, was a steadily growing trend in education. Once the pandemic took hold, however, with almost all grade school, middle school, high school, and university students taking at least some classes online, forcing education to make a major pivot to fully embrace digital disruption and its associated tools – tools which continue to bring immense changes to how students are provided instruction today. University websites have been upgraded and their functionality expanded, with portals for faculty and students.

This sea change isn’t particular to any one grade or institution, with schools of all education levels and sizes evolving to leverage the benefits of digital disruption — and to keep up with its incredible pace. More than 70 percent of higher education leaders believe digital transformation, as spurred by digital disruption, is a top priority for their schools, and global expenditure on digital transformation at higher education institutions is expected to reach approximately $3.4 trillion by 2026.

Digital disruption is bringing education into the 21st century, and institutions worldwide are undertaking this complex and crucial journey to personalize learning and improve student experiences. The key benefit of digital disruption in education is making more of a school’s instruction and services available to more students, and the first step in this direction is often rebuilding websites.

A Virtual Welcome Mat

University websites can span thousands of pages, everything from course catalogs to student resources and recruitment. Still, many universities lack the time and expertise to make their websites powerful digital tools, and sometimes people without creative, web development, or marketing experience are the ones maintaining these websites. According to Ernst & Young, digital reaches across the university community to include students, parents, alumni, employers, faculty, and staff. This of course includes websites, which are typically digital disruption’s first stop: An incomplete or ineffective website is often an Achilles’ heel for universities, as their websites serve as their virtual welcome mats — and their front doors.

Many university website reboots require dedicated content creation and web development teams with the expertise to complete CMS migrations, comprehensive site refreshes in line with university branding, development support, maintenance, web audits, web crawls, and more. Those institutions without in-house web development experience need professionals who can take full ownership of larger projects, everything from migrations to complete builds. And, once these websites have been built, refreshed, or updated, seasoned marketers are needed to make sure these websites are effectively conveying the right messages to the right audiences.

There have been some early adopters and participants who have found success when it comes to digital disruption. Early in the pandemic, NYU needed to overhaul its website to accommodate the rapid changes required to implement remote learning and enable its students to continue their studies. The university rehauled its portal and the portal’s associated digital tools, and it continues to refine them in response to evolving faculty and student needs. NYU was able to accomplish all of this with external support from content creation, marketing, and web design experts.

Digital Disruption Provides Better Outcomes for Learners with Disabilities

Core to the digital disruption of education is video and web accessibility, and this includes students with disabilities. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology is dedicated to the development of policies that ensure learners with disabilities have the necessary platforms and technology they need to access and engage with educational materials alongside their peers who don’t have disabilities. The Department’s ultimate objective is to make sure students with disabilities have the same educational outcomes as students without disabilities.

On April 24, 2024, the U.S Attorney General signed a final rule with specific requirements based on WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards . The ruling revised the regulation implementing title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) “to establish specific requirements , including the adoption of specific technical standards, for making accessible to people with disabilities the services, programs, and activities offered by State and local government entities to the public through the web and mobile applications.” The rule takes effect on June 24, 2024, and applies to public schools, community colleges, and public universities nationwide.

The Department of Justice is now establishing technical requirements to provide concrete standards for state and local entities, including public educational institutions, on how to fulfill their recently updated obligations under Title II. This secondary wave of digital disruption will bring enormous changes to public education throughout the U.S., as public schools and universities look to build and deploy the tools disabled students need too.

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Bottomline

The changes digital disruption continues to bring to education are oceanic in size. The creative, marketing, and web development teams at public universities will need best practices and upskilling support, as well as auditing materials, to make sure they make all the necessary updates to their websites and apps to fulfill these federal requirements. As universities look to provide the best possible digital experience to all of their stakeholders, they need the right creative and marketing support to make it all happen.

Creative Circle’s customized service models and scalable solutions are designed to help you reach your targets and build brand awareness as you update your digital presence and meet all of the new ADA requirements for these resources. Our studio & flex bench, agency services, talent acquisition, and consulting capabilities are the perfect solve for universities looking to add heft to their digital teams and leverage the power of digital disruption to stay ahead. We’ve got incomparable talent who can help your institution embrace the sea change digital disruption has brought to education. Let’s sail through the present — and into the future — together.

Creative Circle is thrilled to share that we have won ClearlyRated’s 2024 Client and Talent Awards for service excellence! This marks the sixth consecutive year winning the award on the talent side, and the fourth consecutive year for clients. 

ClearlyRated, a satisfaction research firm, presented these awards in partnership with Gold sponsor ClearEdge Marketing based on the 2023 results of weekly surveys that Creative Circle administered to clients and candidates. 

“At Creative Circle, our guiding principle is to deliver a uniquely outstanding customer experience,” said Creative Circle President, Matt Riley. “We’re extremely proud to see our dedication to that goal recognized in these awards from ClearlyRated. I want to thank every Creative Circle employee for ensuring our clients’ and candidates’ experiences remain our topmost priority.” 

“I’m so excited to introduce the 2024 winners alongside their verified ratings and reviews on ClearlyRated.com,” said ClearlyRated CEO, Eric Gregg. “Creative Circle again proved their commitment to providing outstanding experiences and superior service. They’re raising the bar for excellence and I couldn’t be more proud to celebrate their success.” 

Client Results 

Our clients completed 775 satisfaction surveys in 2023, rating us on average as a 9.1 out of 10. Our Net Promoter Score of 71.2% is nearly double the industry average of 36% and categorizes us as “excellent” in client satisfaction. 

Clients rated us most highly — with more than 97% rating us positively — in communication speed/responsiveness, candidate presentation, and communication clarity. 93.4% of clients agreed that they will partner with Creative Circle again in the future. 

Here are a few of our favorite responses: 

  • “As the VP of Marketing, my team balances a lot of initiatives and has high levels of accountability to drive growth for our company. I need to find ways to expand my team’s capacity and capability without breaking the budget or opening a full-time role. Creative Circle is the perfect solution to this challenge. I am to quickly scale my team with high-quality talent for specific projects or for longer-term engagements that require part-time work. I’ve worked with Creative Circle for more than 5 years at several different companies and they’ve helped source designers, PPC strategists, content writers and SEO experts. They are my first call when I need to expand my team short term or long term. Highly recommend!” 
    • Kathleen O., VP of marketing for a software company 
  • “You provided pre-vetted candidates that have a reliable level of experience in the field. You’re also very (extremely) responsive.” 
    • Amy M., creative director for an advertising agency 
  • “Creative Circle made the process simple for me. I have a lot on my plate and sourcing well-qualified talent takes time. We were able to get up and running with our new freelancers in just days. The portal made communication and selection so easy. It feels great to be supported by the team at Creative Circle.” 
    • Dawn C., senior marketing services manager for a nonprofit 

Candidate Results 

Our candidates completed nearly 4,000 satisfaction surveys in 2023, rating us on average as a 9.1 out of 10. Our Net Promoter Score of 72.2% is more than double the industry average of 30% and categorizes us as “excellent” in client satisfaction. 

Candidates rated us most highly — with more than 92% rating us positively — in Creative Circle’s communication and responsiveness, how they were treated by our clients, and how prepared they felt for their roles. 

Here are just a few of the positive responses we received: 

  • “Creative Circle is professional, friendly, and fast. I know they want me to do well. The positions are incredible opportunities. I feel they have my interests in mind as well as the interests of their employer clients.” 
    • Chris A., marketing automation manager 
  • “The opportunities I’ve received with big organizations and companies through Creative Circle is beyond compare. Being represented and having support from recruiters makes a huge difference when looking for a job. I’ve had a wonderful experience working with different Creative Circle offices and recruiters.” 
    • Jenny B., content creator 
  • “I love how Creative Circle supports their clients and resources. They were with me every step of the way during my contract and we’re quick to solve any issues that may have come about. I can always depend on Creative Circle to provide great quality service. They are #1 when it comes to recruitment hands down.” 
    • Arshaun C., information architect 

To get in touch with Creative Circle for marketing or creative services, fill out this form and somebody will be in touch shortly. If you’re a candidate looking for work, apply to roles on the Creative Circle website here. 

About Creative Circle 

Creative Circle provides marketing and creative services, including studio and flex bench teams, agency services, talent acquisition, and consulting. Our strength comes from our talent community, and our power lies in leveraging this network to provide flexible custom solutions for our clients. 

Creative Circle is part of the Commercial Segment of ASGN Incorporated (NYSE: ASGN). To learn more, visit creativecircle.com.  

About ClearlyRated 

Rooted in satisfaction research for professional service firms, ClearlyRated utilizes a Net Promoter® Score survey program to help professional service firms measure their service experience, build online reputation, and differentiate on service quality. Learn more at https://www.clearlyrated.com/solutions/. 

The last year has seen the conversation around artificial intelligence start to really sizzle. From the release of ChatGPT to the realization of self-driving cars, we are witnessing the tech-tonic plates of the world shift — opening myriad possibilities. The combination of human brainpower and machine learning is revolutionizing industries, including the consumer packaged goods space. AI is transforming how CPG companies research, develop, and market their products, manage their supply chains, and engage consumers.

CPG companies function in highly dynamic markets with countless variables that impact supply, demand, engagement, and overall performance. As markets become more complicated, legacy systems are often less efficient at handling the complexity.

Today, the CPG industry has entered an era of increased efficiency and optimization using artificial intelligence. AI and machine learning are transforming how companies of all sizes, from global enterprises to bootstrapped startups, operate. Their game-changing potential has launched the CPG industry into a new epoch of intelligent enterprises.

Questions swirl, however, about the most effective and ethical ways industry leaders can balance AI’s transformation. Leveraging a technology that is reliant on data inputs carries some risks, insensitive content creation, copyright infringement, misuse of content, and more, which could have serious repercussions for brand reputation. The goal is to “carpe diem” on business opportunities while avoiding potential missteps.

Real-world AI Use Cases

Let’s explore how AI can impact the CPG value chain, plus how industry leaders are using it to enhance demand forecasting, optimize inventory, and modernize supply chain management.

Here are five pivotal ways AI can help transform the CPG space.

Research and Product Development

Generative AI can help CPG companies research and develop new products by helping to identify and track consumer trends, preferences, and feedback in real-time. Analyzing social media, consumer reviews, and other sources with the help of this technology can provide enhanced insights into consumers’ expectations, helping CPG brands produce products that better meet their customers’ needs. Brands that implement AI will be able to remain highly competitive by optimizing their understanding of the market to drive sales.

Supply Chain Optimization

Demand-sensing is the data-driven “crystal ball” that undergirds CPG supply chain planning. Correctly estimating upcoming demand across a distribution network with AI means product supply can be adjusted accordingly to help companies better manage inventory and logistics. By optimizing warehouse layouts with this tech, industry leaders can minimize the amount of inventory that needs to be stored, thus reducing costs and improving efficiencies. AI algorithms can also help identify the most cost- (and fuel-) effective transportation modes and routes, reducing gas consumption and overtime expenses — a win for their bottom line and the environment.

Demand Forecasting

Traditionally, CPG companies used statistical forecasting methods based on past sales. However, with increased market complexity and volatility, these reactive approaches are not always the most predictive. In contrast, AI-driven forecasting can analyze market trends, historical data, and factors like holidays and weather to more accurately forecast demand for consumer products. According to McKinsey, companies that apply AI-driven forecasting methodology to their supply chain management can reduce errors by 20% to 50%, helping manufacturers and retailers optimize production schedules, reduce waste, efficiently manage inventory, and ultimately improve profitability.

Personalization

Personalization allows for deeper engagement with customers and, at its most basic level, means using what you know about a customer to make interactions more relevant to them — from personalized messaging, product recommendations, personalized content, and more. AI personalization processes are data-based, meaning CPG brands can create more nuanced products, customized marketing campaigns, content, messaging, and recommendations for individual consumers. The more personal a brand’s communication feels, the deeper the connection — which is why personalization has become a holy grail for marketers.

Customer Service and Support

It’s always critical for CPG companies to maintain strong relationships with their customers to cultivate and maintain brand loyalty. While most brands currently use chatbots, newer AI-powered versions can more effectively assist customers with simpler and more rote tasks, reducing the workload on customer service teams. By providing in-depth, optimized customer support with these new tech tools, CPG companies can ensure that customers feel supported throughout their journey, gradually building confidence and brand loyalty.

AI in CPG Today

Some well-known CPG companies have begun to use AI for crucial business processes. Manufacturing and pet care giant Mars, for instance, is exploring AI for its pet food division to predict cats and dogs risk of developing chronic kidney disease, utilizing the technology to speed up genomic sequencing to provide individualized nutrition and care.

Nestlé, along with Campbell’s, Mars, Givaudan, and PepsiCo, are reportedly using a generative AI platform, Tastewise, to help test and validate new product ideas. Tastewise is a proprietary AI platform built on a vast dataset of food consumption, providing deep-reaching insights into billions of real-life moments of consumption, best-selling restaurant items, and more, opening the door to a flood of new recipes, product innovation, marketing campaigns, and more for this industry.

As more CPG brands start to implement AI-enabled platforms — such as It’sRapid, which boasts major retail partners like Target and Kroger — the stage is set for an AI revolution.

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Bottomline

What is becoming increasingly clear is that AI has landed — and, regardless of industry, the world is fast evolving as it adapts to the inherent power of this new technology. CPG companies see that the time to harness AI’s potential is now. Business leaders who delay any further risk losing their competitive edge, while other, more pioneering brands shape the industry’s future.

If you’re interested in exploring how AI can benefit your brand, contact us. We have experts who can devise an AI game plan tailored to your specific business priorities. The future belongs to those who adapt.