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Creative/Booking Deadlines

Guidelines for managing creative and booking deadlines during holiday periods.

This article provides guidelines for managing creative and booking deadlines during holiday periods.

Christmas/Xmas/Easter:

Hello all,

Hope you’re well and INSERT NICETIES HERE

As you may know the INSERT HOLIDAY PERIOD HERE is very popular for our advertisers, which means an influx of bookings as well as a squeezed schedule with an extra XX days OOO. The public holidays fall on the INSERT DATES HERE this year ADD ANY ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS HERE, meaning resource is even more constrained than usual. Due to the impending Easter close down, we have established a soft deadline for INSERT DATES HERE for any bookings, creatives and Brief Me requests going live between INSERT DATES HERE and ask for any known late delivery of creative to be communicated to the ad ops team as soon as possible. This is for our INSERT AFFECTED TEAMS/CLIENTS/REGIONS HERE bookings.

What is a soft deadline?

A soft deadline means that we will accept bookings and creatives after this date, but we will prioritize those that come in before the deadline and any Priority1 bookings (e.g., Single day tenancies, high value campaigns or clients). The idea of a soft deadline is to open up the channels for clearer communication and organization between all parties during busy periods, by creating more structure around workflow and prioritization. We completely understand if the client cannot deliver before the deadline and won’t be turning away budget. We just ask that you plan and communicate to our digital operations team where possible.

Then why have a deadline at all?

If just a small percentage of clients get their booking in early because of the deadline then it’s a win for everybody, by reducing strain on our human resource and minimizing potential errors.

Can I still get late money in?

Absolutely. We don’t want to turn any money away. This soft deadline is set to get bookings, information, and assets in for known campaigns earlier, so we can free up time for those late bookings. Please flag any known late bookings to your digital ad ops team as soon as possible so we can plan resource and prioritization.

Your cooperation and understanding are appreciated. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding this deadline or any other matter, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Thanks,

NAME

Rebuttal for pushbacks:

As I understand we chose the date based on xxxx. INSERT HOLIDAY PERIOD HERE booking deadlines 2 weeks before shutdown is fairly standard.

Both commercial and ad ops teams will have to answer more briefs/set up more campaigns in a rush in the last INSERT INFO HERE weeks leading up to shut down. Last year the traffic team had a xxx% increase in tickets in the first week after the Xmas deadline. You can imagine that by pushing back another week, then that increase in tickets would be even higher and almost impossible to manage within xxx weeks before COB.

The idea of the earlier deadline is not to say a hard no to anything after that date, but it helps create a bit more structure and priority around incoming bookings when everything is manic and it gives clients a clear target to work towards. We completely understand if the client cannot deliver before the deadline, and then it opens up the channels for clearer communication between all parties.

In my experience, if just a small percentage of clients get their booking in early because of the deadline then it’s a win for everybody from a resource and minimizing errors perspective.