Foxtel Delivers Global Campaigns Faster and at Lower Cost With ClickUp

After merging multiple creative teams, Balboa inherited a patchwork of tools that made day-to-day delivery harder than it needed to be. Briefs came in through Asana, Jira, Airtable, and email. Updates were buried in Slack threads or missed in email chains.

The result? Teams spent more time searching for information than actually getting work done. Duplicate assets were created, last-minute scrambles became the norm, and deadlines for critical moments—such as AFL (Australian Football League) and NRL (National Rugby League) season launches or next-day newspaper ads—were frequently at risk.

With the high stakes and significant budgets involved in major marketing campaigns, this lack of visibility could jeopardize success within hours.

Balboa turned to ClickUp with the clear objective of eliminating scattered tools and centralizing campaign management. With ClickUp alongside Creative Operations Lead Kellie Bates, the team co-designed a system that could work across brands and functions, and at scale.

“It felt like solving a puzzle together,” Kellie said. “We brought our operational knowledge; the ClickUp team brought deep platform expertise. Together we built workflows that worked for us—and kept evolving them as our needs changed.”

Tiered campaign templates + smart intake

The first foundation was tiered campaign templates, so every request followed the right path from day one. Balboa defined Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Nickel tiers, each with the right steps, approvals, resource model, lead times, and turnaround expectations.

All requests are now entered through ClickUp Forms, which capture what Balboa needs to execute: brand, markets, tier, deliverables, channels, target dates, creative mandatories, reference links, asset specs, approvers, and budget notes.

From there, Balboa runs a standard briefing flow in ClickUp: Each step has owners and tasks, so marketing, creative, production, and traffic stay aligned.

“One of the most important things we built was our customized campaign templates. Having that structure made a huge difference for us,” shared Kellie.

This standardization eliminated process sprawl and established a consistent “work context” from the moment a brief arrived—whether it was for a platinum seasonal sport launch or a same-day Nickel promo video for social media.

Workload View to unlock capacity

With ClickUp’s Workload View, everyone had a clear picture of team capacity. Leaders could instantly see who was overloaded, who had room to take on more, and when demand was about to spike.

Traffic managers could quickly shuffle work between onshore, offshore, or freelance talent to keep things balanced

Producers used that visibility to lock in shoots, editors, and motion designers ahead of crunch time

Leadership could track workload by brand (Foxtel, Kayo, BINGE), squad (sport, entertainment, brand), and even campaign tier—enabling data-driven decisions to balance demand, resources, and key business objectives.

“The first time we used Workload View, it was a lightbulb moment,” Kellie said. “We could instantly see if anyone was overloaded or if we had capacity to take on more projects.”

Dashboards that replace status meetings

Balboa built dynamic dashboards in ClickUp for each function, so everyone sees what matters to them at a glance.

Marketers: Tasks awaiting review or approval, all owned tasks, requests in pipeline, all campaigns by live month, links to resources and documentation.

Creatives/Producers: Assigned tasks in preferred view (list or Kanban), timesheet for tracking project hours, timeline of tasks and deadlines, workload and capacity overview.

Leadership: Workload by brand, squad, and campaign tier, portfolio health across brands, squad throughput and productivity.

“ClickUp is the engine room of our team’s work,” Kellie said. “We use it to track projects, run our WIPs, manage workloads, handle client feedback, and flag challenges early. It’s also helped us cut down on meetings by keeping everyone aligned.”

Automations and variables: the productivity boost

Balboa eliminated a mountain of manual updates using automations with variables:

On Form submit, ClickUp posts an automatic comment: “Hi {Request Owner} 👋. Your {Metal Level} campaign request for {Live Month} has been successfully added to the pipeline. @traffic-team”

Reminders use due-date variables so owners get nudges like “Hi {Request Owner} 👋. Just a reminder—your task {Task Name} is due today.”

Custom field triggers automatically add the task to the offshore team’s list and post a comment to notify relevant people.

“You don’t have to chase anyone,” Kellie said. “Variables pull the right names and dates automatically. It does the chasing for you.”

Tasks in multiple lists = one truth, many views

A Balboa favorite is Tasks in Multiple Lists—critical for work that crosses teams and partners.

For example, in a BINGE campaign with onshore concepting and offshore production, the parent campaign task lived in the BINGE list, while production subtasks simultaneously lived in the offshore team’s list.

Everyone worked on the same task, but it appeared where it mattered most for each team. No duplication, no blind spots.

“It keeps everything organized and visible across different projects or teams—no duplication needed,” Kellie said. “Everyone sees the same task where it matters most, so nothing slips.”

Balboa’s transformation has been both measurable and lasting. Streamlined workflows unlocked a 25% increase in capacity, giving the team room to take on more projects while still raising the bar creatively.

More than 90% of The Foxtel Group’s creative is now produced in-house, driving cost savings and proving the team can compete with external agencies on both quality and efficiency.

From everyday brand assets to marquee campaigns, Balboa now delivers with more speed, scale, and creative impact.

Looking ahead, Balboa continues to refine its workflows, experiment with automation, and expand its creative capacity. With ClickUp as its foundation, the in-house agency isn’t just keeping pace with external shops; it’s competing head-to-head on quality, speed, and cost.