Automation at Channel 4: An Interview With Emily Latham
Emily Latham is spearheading the adoption of automation in marketing.
As the former Head of Digital Marketing and Martech at Channel 4, she harnessed data ingestion and creative automation to facilitate the optimization of quality content at scale and unlock new channels. As the Co-Chair of Programmatic and Performance for ISBA she’s helping brands navigate the challenges of today’s content landscape - advising on tech-driven solutions to meet demands, while not losing sight of what’s really important: Creativity.
We took the opportunity to sit down with her for the first episode of Automation Innovators. Spoiler: It’s inspiring.
Read the interview in full below.
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Tell us who you are.
Hi, I'm Emily Latham, formerly Head of Digital Marketing and MarTech at Channel 4.
What was your role at Channel 4?
I helped set up a team of digital experts whose focus was to extract value from our marketing tech stack, to drive performance of our digital media and creative.
Tell about the processes you automated.
For us, it was all about trying to meet the demands for content at scale and personalization. That was very much a problem, as our operating and creative services model just wasn't able to handle this (the kind of scale that platforms were demanding).
The two processes we focused on were:
Our data ingestion - unlocking the ability to get sight of our media and creative in flight, so that we could actually start to make decisions and optimize for performance.
And our creative versioning - adopting automation to help us resize and version assets at scale; to get us into platforms we previously weren't even able to access because we just didn't have the resource, time or budget to spend in those spaces. It got us back into display and creating funnel assets, for example.
So really, it wasn’t just about reducing manual tasks, but enabling us to do stuff we hadn't done before.
What was your team’s reaction to the tech?
No one ever understands what MarTech is. To be honest, I didn't even really know what it was when I first started. it's just such a broad term. So therefore education became our biggest barrier because people didn't really understand and were scared of the space that we were operating in.
Channel 4 has an excellent award-winning creative department and the idea of automation and data can feel particularly jarring for that type of high-end production team. Initially, there was maybe a little bit of fear and concern about what we were trying to do, and particularly around quality. Because fundamentally, this isn’t a low end performance brand. I've worked in these sorts of places before where it's all just about performance and clicks. For a brand like Channel 4, premium quality has to be high on the consideration list when we're thinking about our marketing assets. There was definitely a skepticism about the ability of these sorts of tools to replace the craft of the creative process.
How did you get them on board?
We put in place a process that enabled us to educate teams. I think hearts and minds is a really big part of the adoption of tools; getting the creative teams to see the benefits, getting them excited, helping them to understand how it can help their jobs vs. it being something that might replace them.
Fundamentally (right now) they have to do more with less. Personalization, scaling, there's no way that humans can meet the current demand - they need the tools to aid them.
What’s driving the need for creative automation?
With AI machine learning and the evolution of the digital ecosystem becoming so much more complex, scale is becoming just the basic requirement to entry.
For example: Meta now demands at least a minimum of six variants per ad set. And then you’ve got to think about your creative variants within that. And then you’ve got to think about the same for all the other platforms - the different variants, different sizes, whether you're upper funnel, mid funnel, lower funnel. The days of simple deliverable lists are gone.
For us (at Channel 4), the kind of asks that we were putting on the team were becoming untenable. You know, create the hero campaign, the big campaign, the master artwork, but then there’s also all the mundane tasks of resizing, reimagining assets, CTV, email, on product, off product, social - this list was so long, it was taking the joy out of the process in many ways.
I saw a stat the other day that said that 80% of creatives are spending time on tasks that are not creative. Automation is very much the opportunity to help tackle that. It’s about how we put the AI or the tool in the loop to help relieve creatives from the mundane and boring to meet that demand of scale, and let them focus on the exciting ideation.
For me, that's what the biggest opportunity (with creative automation) is: getting those creative brains and the craft of creativity back into the digital ad experience. So that we actually deliver delightful and premium messaging, at the right time and in the right place.
What were your big automation wins?
In terms of the wins we’ve seen…
There’s the time and money saved, which I’ve spoken about - and being able to unlock the things we weren't able to do previously; like accessing new platforms and channels. And then there’s increased benefits in terms of traffic, conversions, clicks we saw too.
There's also something about learning (as a win) for talent and teams - getting them excited about the opportunity to embrace and work with this technology.
It (tech) is changing at such a pace. There’s a great quote: “AI won’t replace your job, but someone who is using AI will”. So, it's really about how we make sure that our designers, our creatives, our marketers are able to work with these types of tools, these types of automations, and make them equipped for the marketplace. Because, fundamentally, businesses will expect it and it's not going away. It’s probably a sub benefit but I think there's something around engagement and satisfaction as well - because you're educating and growing your team (and their knowledge).
What’s your take on the AI hype?
I grew up in creative agencies. I'm a huge fan of the creative process. It’s something I've always really enjoyed.
And for me, performance marketers in the past have been too obsessed with clicks, links, CPAs and LTVs - the numbers have dominated too much.
Now, with the demise of the cookie, post-ATT and attribution models changing it's really shaking up our industry and forcing a real clash of cultures in some ways - where creative is suddenly having a resurgence and the need to scale creative to drive performance is becoming the central playground.
So, personally, I am really excited about how we can bring some of that craft and delight back into the ad experience by trying to get creative people excited about how they can harness automation and AI to meet demands and get quality back into that experience.
The rules still apply, we're all marketers - the right message, right time etc. But it has to be a good message, a quality message, and an engaging message.
If we can free up the creatives to be more creative, and help them understand that automation can get the message to the right person - in the right size, in the right format - then they can really focus on what that message is, and how will it delight that customer, in that context, in that environment.
I personally am quite excited about bringing the craft and science back together again (and how we use AI and automation to do that).
What do you think about Generative AI? Is it ready for brand adoption?
I think the tech is probably starting to get there, but the people and process and operating model is far behind. For me, that needs work. We'll see how the next few years go.
That's where brands have a lot more nervousness - because of the risk; the wrong message, no brand safety policy, legal, I think it's a much scarier space, but I can see how it's going to play a much more important role.
What’s the biggest challenge facing automation?
Obviously, video was and is very important on Channel 4. And, if we go back to compromising quality, I think fundamentally (using creative automation to version) statics is there - it's scalable, and brands should be taking advantage of it today.
However, we were always very cautious around video because of quality. Templating video assets, particularly when you're telling a story and emotional scene, makes it staccato, it doesn't breathe and you lose the flow of that engaging asset. So for us, we were always a bit nervous about automating video, and hadn’t really found - or hadn't yet found - the place that was able to seamlessly integrate into the creative process to help us get those assets at the right quality and premium for us.
What excites you most about ReMake?
So I guess, for me, the real opportunity from looking at ReMake and what I got quite excited about was its template-less model.
Given the biggest pain point for creators on our journey was templated assets and the concerns around quality - I think there's something (exciting) around the ease of being able to drag and drop your AfterEffects files into the system and drive the automation from there. It feels like it starts to solve that problem.
Why should brands be using creative automation?
Why wouldn't you? It's very much the direction of travel that everyone's heading in; personalization, automation at scale.
We all, as marketers, understand that we're being asked for more and more all the time. So finding a way to do it in a simpler, more efficient way that helps you get the results that you need is essential.
I think you need to make sure you tread carefully on that journey though, and just recognize that it's difficult for some people within your business and that it's going to change the dynamic. I think you have to really project manage that process.
We tested very small, we started with a small proof of concept, we bought in the hearts and minds of the creatives, the producers, the media agency - built those relationships, really spent a lot of time in wash ups; what was going well, what needed refining. You know, really listening to your people, and not just pushing the technology on them and expecting them to use it - because I think adoption is the most important part of this.
Fundamentally, there's no point having tools if they're not being used, and you're not buying the right tool for the right purpose.
Finally, can you tell us a bit about your work with ISBA?
I've been working with ISBA for a couple of years now. I chair a Performance and Programmatic Group, with Dan Larden and Sam McDonald, and together we've been looking at the demands on digital marketers in a post-cookie world, and thinking about the challenges that brands are facing today.
Something that's really been a growing conversation over the last year or so has been around what we've been calling the ‘CreaTech’ space.
With so much change and flux in the ecosystem, and the depreciation of traditional models of attribution and targeting, what we're finding is that, to drive efficiency, people are having to really think about the creative part of the process again, which I love - having come from a creative background.
It’s really bringing creativity back to the fore. It’s having a real resurgence with digital people really recognizing the importance of the quality of those assets; really thinking about the right environment, the right context, making the right message - all landing at the right time to really drive the right kind of resonance with an audience.
At the moment I’m leading a workstream for ISBA on CreaTech specifically, and really leaning into this space, because a lot of brands are very interested (in it). What does it mean for them? How can they get on board with creative automation? What kind of business value can it drive? What are the tools and who are the tech people required to get there? And so what we're trying to sort of build is an industry framework to help brands navigate the space and understand how they can bring the value back into their business.
Thanks, Emily!
Look out for the next episode of Automation Innovators. Coming soon.