The Challenge
WBD Sports was managing campaigns across continents with assets scattered across multiple tools. Feedback loops were unclear, version control was inconsistent, and creative flow kept stalling under logistical delays. Teams spent more time tracking files and decoding notes than producing high-impact sports marketing content.
Key pain points:
- Fragmented storage across SharePoint, Google Drive, and email
- Vague and delayed feedback from legal and compliance
- Frequent asset requests disrupting creative focus
The Playbook Solution
Playbook became the centralized system where WBD Sports could organize campaigns, collaborate smoothly, and keep brand assets aligned. Timestamped video comments, published brand portals, and role-based permissions helped streamline legal reviews, simplify asset access, and return valuable time to the creative process.
Solved with:
- Timestamped video feedback for clear, contextual notes
- Campaign-specific boards with modular access controls
- Brand portals that update once and serve everywhere
Intro: Where Global Work Comes Together
WBD Sports is the sports marketing engine behind TNT Sports in the UK, Eurosport across Europe, Bleacher Report globally, and a slate of campaigns as fast-paced as the matches they promote. From the US Open to the UCI Mountain Bike World Series, they produce everything from AV promos and statics to social media reels and federation assets. That's a lot of creative content, moving across markets and time zones.
For David Bret, VP of Marketing for WBD Sports EMEA, the job involves more than creating standout campaigns. It also means keeping everything aligned, accessible, and consistently on-brand, without slowing the team down.
Before Playbook, that kind of flow was hard to come by.
Where Work Was Getting Stuck
David and his team are used to fast turnarounds. But when your campaigns stretch across continents, timelines, and departments, from federations to legal, social to broadcast, speed can't come at the cost of clarity.
"There was a lot of wasted time and energy," David shared. "Sometimes legal notes were misleading, or we'd spend hours annotating live screens. We needed precision."
Assets were scattered, with some stored in SharePoint and others in Google Drive. Promo scripts were sent by email. As for feedback, they were often vague, sometimes late, and always out of sync.
"Legal reviews happened over Zoom, or you'd get a screenshot and a Slack message saying, 'This part needs a tweak.' But what part? Which frame? You could lose an entire morning just trying to decode it," David recalls.
Even small asks like finding the right version of a logo turned into daily speed bumps. The creative team was spending precious time playing detective instead of designing campaigns that would make fans jump out of their seats.
Creative energy was getting lost in translation, and brilliant campaign ideas were getting bogged down in logistics.
Playbook: Built for Creative Flow
When WBD Sports adopted Playbook in late 2024, the goal was simple: to find a digital asset manager that would help the creative team stay organized. What they got was a system that quickly became central to how they manage campaigns, share feedback, and keep every asset moving forward.
Timestamped Comments Keep Everyone on Frame
Instead of vague feedback delivered in a Zoom or buried in an email thread, legal and compliance teams now leave pinpoint notes right on the exact second (and pixel) of a video.
"We don't need to be in the same room anymore," David said. "It's asynchronous, exact, and more human. You can see exactly what needs to change without interpreting vague comments."
This kind of precision transformed how feedback flows through WBD Sports. Revisions became faster and clearer, helping everyone to move forward more confidently. The creative team stopped playing guessing games and started spending time where it belongs: making sports content that gets hearts racing.
Campaigns Stay Together
Every campaign now lives inside Playbook. From scripts and AV promos to statics and final deliverables, everything stays in one place. Boards are built out per campaign, per market, or per partner, and shared with only the right people using role-based permissions.
"We've got external collaborators all over Europe," David explained. "Some are full-time, others are partners for just one federation or sport. Playbook makes that access modular and safe."
Permissions are flexible. Setup is fast. And creative handoffs are a whole lot cleaner. A partner working on cycling content sees exactly what they need for that project, while the core team maintains oversight across the entire sports calendar.
Brand Assets Stay Sharp and Easy to Share
WBD Sports manages multiple brands across multiple sports. That means keeping logos, lockups, fonts, and usage guidelines up to date and accessible to both internal teams and external partners.
Before, that meant custom websites, shared drives, or internal folders nobody could quite remember the name of. Now, they use Playbook's published brand portals to host and update everything, all from a single source.
"It's good value for money," David said. "We're constantly evolving our brand systems. Playbook lets us share the latest version without having to rebuild a new site every time."
WBD Sports works with tennis federations, cycling organizations, and broadcasting partners across dozens of countries. Each relationship requires specific brand assets, usage guidelines, and updated materials. Before Playbook, maintaining this ecosystem meant constant manual updates, broken links, and the inevitable "Can you send me the latest logo?" requests.
Now, when the Eurosport brand evolves or TNT Sports updates its style guide, David's team updates it once in Playbook. Every partner, every designer, every agency gets the fresh version instantly. Everyone knows where to find the right logos, fonts, and usage rules, with no reminders needed.
What’s Different Now
The creative team gained back time and clarity. Legal moves faster. Designers spend more time creating. And questions like “Where’s that file?” come up a lot less.
Legal Feedback That Lands on Time
Precise, contextual feedback helped shrink review cycles. Legal no longer needs to explain a note three different ways. When they leave a comment on the second 34 of a video, everyone knows exactly what frame needs attention. When they highlight a specific area of a static image, designers can make the fix immediately.
This precision ripples through every project. A campaign that used to take four rounds of legal review now gets approved in two. Creative teams stay in the flow instead of stopping to decode feedback. Projects move from concept to completion faster, leaving more time for the kind of creative thinking that makes campaigns memorable.
Asset Requests Are Cut in Half
Internal requests for logos or assets dropped by at least 50%. People know where to look, and what they find is correct.
"It's a self-service central repository," David said. "Fewer bottlenecks, fewer mixups, and more autonomy."
Picture David's morning routine before Playbook: email requests for the TNT Sports logo, Slack messages asking for the latest Eurosport style guide, and phone calls about cycling federation assets. Each request meant stopping creative work to hunt down files and send them along.
Now those requests rarely arrive. Team members find what they need when they need it. The creative team focuses on creative work. The workflow keeps flowing.
Fewer Tabs and Better Focus
With assets, notes, and brand systems in one place, teams aren't hopping across platforms. Everything's connected. Everything's findable.
"In 60 minutes, are you doing meaningful work—or just forwarding logos?" David asked. "Playbook lets us spend that time where it matters."
David's team used to juggle SharePoint, Google Drive, email threads, Slack channels, and various other platforms to complete a single campaign. Every handoff meant opening new tabs, searching different systems, and hoping files were up to date. Context got lost in the shuffle.
Playbook changed that equation. Open one platform, see the complete picture. From initial brief to final delivery, everything connects logically. Creative teams spend their energy on creative challenges, which is exactly how it should be.
From upload speed to smart search, Playbook runs quietly in the background. Boards are easy to scan. Files are easy to preview. AI tagging and image organization keep things tidy without extra work.
A Workspace That Works Like the Team Does
WBD Sports found a platform that supports their pace, structure, and standards. It keeps the work visible and accessible, and it keeps people focused on what they do best.
"All the objectives I had—agile DAM, brand portals, campaign QA—they're 100% met," David said.
If your team works across formats, markets, or partners, Playbook brings it all together. The content, the people, the process, and the time to do your best work.
Book a demo today and see how teams like WBD Sports are getting more done, more easily, every day.