In May 2021, Microsoft announced a new partnership with creative agency WPP. The centerpiece of this partnership is Cloud Studio. Although this platform is currently only intended for WPP’s network, it is an exciting development that may have implications for a much broader audience. The following are six key things that you should know about Cloud Studio.
For most of its history, the advertising industry has relied on company-owned facilities to house the tools, technology and infrastructure that allow the creation of large-scale, high-quality creative content. Professionals primarily work in offices where they have access to the tools that they need to satisfy client needs.
Cloud Studio breaks this paradigm.
WPP’s technology for the production, creation and editing of content is now housed in the cloud instead of on an in-house framework. This means that the British creative company and its network can access its content production technology from almost anywhere. Plus, they can easily scale their infrastructure resources to meet demand.
It is important to note that this is a bespoke cloud platform for WPP. It will first be rolled out to around 5,000 employees within the WPP network between 2021 and 2024. After that, there are plans to increase the scope to around 25,000 users. However, it does not appear at this time that there are any plans for a general release of the platform. Despite this, the news is noteworthy, even if you are not in the WPP network or even the advertising industry.
This project was built using Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing service. In particular, it uses Azure compute and storage to give creative professionals efficient access to the assets, tools and resources they need to produce high-quality content.
WPP will also use GitHub and Azure DevOps to rapidly provision new Cloud Studio instances as needed.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this announcement for the broader professional world is that it will allow WPP to adopt a more modern, hybrid working model. Advertising is one of many industries that has often felt tied to traditional offices due to the need for on-premises production environments.
WPP’s move of its major, bespoke systems to the cloud could serve as inspiration for many other organizations. If Cloud Studio proves to be successful, it will likely encourage many other businesses to explore how they could transition to a cloud-supported hybrid work model. With many professionals seeking positions that allow remote work, making such as transition could become a major competitive advantage in the hiring market.
Among the many interesting features of the platform is the application of artificial intelligence to index and organize metadata. By categorizing content using AI, Cloud Studio can serve up resources to creative professionals more easily. For many advertising and creative companies, keeping assets organized and easy to find is one of the most challenging backend operational needs. AI-powered indexing could help increase efficiency while also cutting costs.
WPP has also worked with Microsoft Azure AI to make its client work more accessible. The artificial intelligence solution creates and runs checks for inclusivity to help make WPP’s work useful and available to a wider audience.
Like many organizations, WPP has been trying to grapple with its impacts on the natural world. The WPP team hopes that the release of this platform will help them to achieve their sustainability goals. Having on-premises production environments in locations all over the globe means significant inefficiency in terms of energy consumption.
Using Azure as the foundation of Cloud Studio means that WPP can easily scale its platform. New instances can be created and deleted as needed. Similarly, storage can be provisioned for new clients and archived for completed campaigns. This means that WPP can significantly increase its computing resource efficiency across its network. Furthermore, the AI-based asset management system can help to reduce redundancy, wasted materials and unused collateral. All of this translates to more sustainable operations.
Although Cloud Studio is a bespoke platform only intended for the WPP network, it is a great use case of the power of the cloud. At Cloudficient, we are excited about any development that will help organizations around the world to realize the power of cloud-based infrastructure.
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