When CMOs and marketing leaders talk about speeding up campaigns, the usual suspects appear: legacy systems, data silos, and the perceived complexity of AI. But if you take a closer look, you’ll see a different, quieter challenge causing greater frustration: outdated Creation Operating Models.
What exactly is a Creation Operating Model?
A Creation Operating Model is the structured workflow organizations use to take campaigns from ideation through to execution. In large enterprises, this workflow defines how fast your content moves, how consistent your brand stays, and how effective your campaigns become. But as AI accelerates content production, traditional workflows are struggling to keep pace and high-volume enterprise marketing teams are paying the price.
According to recent Gartner research, 77% of marketers are already experimenting with generative AI, yet nearly half aren’t seeing significant benefits. Worse, 27% are holding back entirely due to fears around brand risk and governance issues.
Three dominant Creation Operating Models (and why they fall short)
Most marketing teams currently operate under one of these three traditional models:
- Design-to-Code: Designers hand off polished files to developers for coding into emails or landing pages. Great for creativity, but painfully slow (typically 2–4 weeks per campaign).
- Brief-to-Template: Operations teams copy content into pre-set templates. Strong oversight, but inflexible and slow (3–12 days per campaign).
- Distributed Model: Marketers build directly in deployment platforms (like Marketo or Eloqua). Fastest, yet often risky and error-prone due to lack of oversight.
These legacy approaches weren’t designed for the current era’s demands for speed, control, and scale—especially with AI accelerating the rate of content production. None of these models adequately embed the necessary governance and compliance, creating hidden bottlenecks that sap efficiency and performance.
The hidden cost of outdated workflows
Outdated Creation Operating Models create silent but substantial problems:
- Emails taking days instead of hours to build
- Constant battles with brand consistency
- Endless review loops that delay launches
- Heavy dependency on technical resources, creating bottlenecks
- Poor personalization due to inefficient processes
These pain points slow teams down and diminish the effectiveness of campaigns.
Governance isn’t your enemy; it’s your accelerator
Far from being a hurdle, governance is actually your ally—when it’s embedded directly into the workflow. Modern Creation Operating Models transform governance from a manual chore into automated guardrails that enable teams to move faster, safely harness AI, and stay compliant effortlessly.
How to modernize your Creation Operating Model: Meet the SPEED Framework
Stensul’s proven SPEED framework provides a clear path forward:
- Scan & map your current process
- Pinpoint bottlenecks
- Evaluate economic impacts (hidden costs, lost time, missed opportunities)
- Expose opportunities for integrating AI
- Democratize creation with built-in guardrails
This structured audit transforms your Creation Operating Model into an agile and AI-ready workflow.
Flip your workflow script
Stensul enables high-volume teams to modernize workflows through a no-code creation platform with built-in governance. This empowers marketers, removes dependency on technical teams, and accelerates time-to-market dramatically. The result? Teams can safely use AI, speed up campaign launches, and shift from executional chaos to strategic clarity.
How you create is just as important as what you create.
Take control, influence outcomes
The biggest hurdle isn’t a lack of creativity, tools, or AI readiness. It’s how you’re working. By addressing the hidden inefficiencies in your Creation Operating Model, you unlock the true potential of your team, your technology, and your campaigns.
Ready to discover where your hidden bottlenecks are and turn workflow into your competitive advantage? Explore how Stensul can transform your marketing process for the AI era.
