Starcom has developed what it claims is a unique automation bot that eliminates the tedium and employee time spent manually entering data for ad bookings, thereby cutting costs and freeing up senior account executives to focus on strategy and creativity.
Dubbed Abacus, which stands for "Automated bot for amendments to campaigns and uploads", the bot is a form of RPA (robotic process automation) that Starcom says is the first of its kind in adland.
Abacus is able to book and edit digital and print media campaigns, verify media plan data, check purchase order numbers and budgets, upload information to campaign booking platforms, traffick ad servers and communicate campaign information to media owners. It then reports back to the team at Starcom
Nadine Young, Starcom's chief executive, told Campaign that execs across the media industry typically spend about half their time on booking systems, carrying out tasks such as the above, booking media plans line by line and resolving invoice queries.
"It's expensive and not rewarding for the employee," she said. "Abacus allows us to liberate our teams from the more repetitive administrative tasks and unleash further opportunity to focus on more strategic and creative growth opportunities for our clients."
Read the full story in Campaign UK here.
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