monday.com implementation at Ads & Data: from scattered tools to one central workspace

About Ads & Data

Ads & Data is the Belgian media sales house of Telenet, Mediahuis and Proximus. It sells the advertising space of brands such as Play, De Standaard, Nieuwsblad, Gazet van Antwerpen, Het Belang van Limburg and VRT MAX, and combines strong local media, content and data to help advertisers grow.

With around 130 employees, Ads & Data brings together sales, media expertise and creativity. By working closely with both advertisers and media partners, the organisation helps brands reach their audience at the right moment and through the right channels.

Creative campaigns call for structure

Within Ads & Data, the Brand Studio is the creative heart of the organisation. This is where campaigns are developed that go far beyond a classic advertisement. From video campaigns and podcasts to social formats and integrated content: every project is fully tailor-made.

What sets the Brand Studio apart from a classic advertising agency is its close collaboration with its own media channels. Campaigns are not only conceived, but also integrated into programmes, news brands, podcasts and digital platforms. As a result, sales, creative, production, planning and aftersales work together on every campaign, all the time.

That integrated approach also brings considerable operational complexity. Every campaign has different stakeholders, schedules and deadlines. To keep the overview, a structured way of working together became increasingly important.

From scattered tools to one central workspace in monday.com

Every campaign in the Brand Studio starts with a briefing. Once a briefing had been submitted, the follow-up ran through emails, meetings, Excel files and various separate tools.

According to Annelies, Production Lead at Ads & Data, what was missing above all was one central place where all project information came together.

“Every team had its own way of working, but we lacked a central overview of the whole campaign flow. The goal was not simply to replace a tool, but to help our teams work together better.”

Following up on campaigns became more and more complex. While sales wanted to keep track of progress, production, planning and aftersales needed the same up-to-date information. To support that collaboration better, the Ads & Data Brand Studio went looking for a central workspace. The choice eventually fell on monday.com.

Processes first, then the platform

For Ads & Data, the implementation was about more than setting up monday.com. The challenge was to translate the way the Brand Studio works into a platform that supports that collaboration as well as possible.

“We did feel we needed an outside party that could look at how we work from a bird's-eye view and translate that into a planning tool.”

That bird's-eye view formed the basis of the implementation. By mapping the processes, roles and collaboration first, the result was a solution that fits the daily reality of the Brand Studio.

Together with Tryve, the team then explored how those processes could be translated into one central workspace in monday.com, with enough flexibility for very different types of campaigns.

“Where most people would have said something was too difficult, together we always found a way to make it work in the end.”

The power of dynamic briefings

Today every campaign starts with a detailed briefing through monday WorkForms. Depending on the type of campaign, the right questions are asked automatically, so all relevant information is collected centrally right away.

From the briefing, the right project boards, planning and responsible team members are linked automatically. Everyone has the same information from the start, and each team can continue in its own workflow.

Because all boards are connected, changes to planning or deadlines are shared automatically. Everyone stays informed throughout the whole project, without constantly having to look up or pass on information.

Real-time insight into every campaign

Beyond day-to-day follow-up, the Brand Studio also gained more control over and insight into its entire campaign portfolio.

Dashboards bring new, ongoing and completed projects together in one overview, while reports make progress visible.

As a result, the team spends less time on manual reporting and can adjust faster when schedules or priorities change.

Ready for the next step

Today the Brand Studio has one central workspace in which campaigns are followed up from briefing to delivery. Teams work together more smoothly, have more insight into ongoing projects and can respond faster to change.

For Ads & Data, the monday.com implementation is not an end point. The organisation keeps refining its processes and optimising its dashboards, and is exploring how AI can support collaboration and communication even further. That way the solution grows with an organisation that is constantly on the move.

Would you like to centralise your creative campaigns in monday.com, just like Ads & Data? As a monday.com implementation partner, Tryve is happy to think along with you.