Heavens above. You've just paid your branding agency a ton of love to produce some grade 'A' brand assets and now you're under pressure to ensure those very same brand assets are managed correctly.
Are they the right version?
Does have everyone on your team have access to them?
Do the right people have the right privileges to edit and redistribute?
What a kafuffle. Enter the ever-growing, colourful and feature-heavy world of Brand Asset Management (BAM). You may know it as DAM (Digital Asset Management), or maybe MAM (Marketing Asset Management) or even ECM (Electronic Content Management). It's no wonder you're confused.
Well don't worry help is at hand in the form of someone who committed to writing a 2,000 plus word blog every other week. The most reassuring words I can offer you is that only 10% of the DAM platforms out there are for 'you'. So perhaps we should start with deciding on who 'you' are.
Firstly, is a DAM a 'nice to have' or a 'need to have' sort of deal?
At even the most basic of levels, there some benefits of a DAM that will almost certainly make your life easier. Depending on your company, its size and activities, the features you need to draw from a DAM will vary. At the very core, every shade of brand asset management platform is a content management system, much like Google Drive or Dropbox. But a DAM has a bigger brain on its stick, offering you better control in organising and sharing your brand assets, ensuring that there are no multiple copies or dated editions of a single file. And we're not just talking about your logo. Brand assets can be photos, branded icons, logo, company bios, brand fonts and colour palettes. To have all of this in a single, controlled location which anyone can access is going to ensure better brand consistency and easier implementation for both you and your brand agency.
Not every DAM is a BAM or a MAM
So what have we learned so far. Every DAM is essentially a content management system, much like your Google Drive or your free Dropbox. In fact most DAM's will integrate with them. But thereafter, things tend to take shape and certain strengths come to the fore. How? Well I'll tell you.
Organise and categorise
If you're one of those people who like to colour code, tag, label, who, like me, get a kick out of an efficient folder and logical file structure, if you demonstrate questionable, serial killer levels of OCD, then you'll feel slippers on, hot cocoa in your hands, right at home with a DAM. The ability to label, tag and categorise all of those brand assets fired across from your brand agency is enough persuasion for most. You'll also be able to create collections to make it easier to focus your brand assets on certain markets, channels, environments or tasks, you get the idea.
Lock, bolt and chain security
Wait, brand assets need to be secure? Well yes. If we're talking CEO profiles, images, reports and whitepapers then yes, all brand assets associated with your branding will need the same level of security that you can expect from Google drive. With user log-ins and access levels you'll know who was last in your brand underwear draw.
Mixed media
Your DAM will be better equipped to storing, ordering and displaying all kinds of media from images, video and docs making it easier for brand team to reference and view brand assets quickly and effectively. No more wondering if the file name Robot_08891p_Louise_edit_3.jpg is the droid you're looking for.
Metadata
To further push the importance of organising and accessing your files, the ability to assign metadata to your files really distinguishes general file browsers from DAMs. Metadata serves to provide a better level of keyword search across all assets associated with your branding. For example, without metadata, any non-text-based file (images, video) will be impenetrable by any keyword search. Metadata can describe a photo or video, what's in it, who'si it, where it is, what it's about, timestamps etc that otherwise would be hidden from view. There's no end to the amount of metadata you can add and tag to a file.
Version control
The more people in your team, the more fidgeting and shuffling you can expect. Where a DAM will rise where most cloud-based content management will fall is ensuring that John is using the same file as Emma, even if Tom got in early this morning and updated that very same file while they were in line at the coffee shop. A good DAM will offer you an uncompromisable level of version control to avoid any embarrassing discrepancies on that Report and Accounts that everyone's busy working on.
So what are you looking for? A DAM, BAM or MAM?
Again it comes down to activity and purpose.
DAM it.
A DAM is essentially a Digital Asset Management platform. It has the sole purpose of storing, managing and sorting everything associated with your branding. There are a few platforms out there who have additional bolt-on features, but it's fundamentally there to act as a central point that enables you to share brand assets among your team and co-workers. regardless of your size, pretty much everyone would benefit from a DAM, over and above a standard cloud-based storage service.
MAM
A MAM (Media Asset Management) is pretty much a DAM but with a bias towards video, providing better video preview, timecode based metadata tagging and distribution capabilities. Some really scary advanced MAM systems use face recognition to identify people within a video and will automatically create metadata for you. MAMs are also created with the intention of integrating more with video and media applications for use at prodiuction levels in news, sport, film and music.
BAM
We now arrive at the Brand Asset Management. "But wait" I hear you say from the back of the room, haven't we been dealing with the issue around brand asset management for the past 1,000 words? Well yes, you'd be right, but foolish to assume they were the same. If you're one of those brands who are heavily engaged in marketing and producing on-demand content then you'll need something more efficient something more 'clever-er-er'.
A BAM is essential if you're in a creative workflow environment, allowing designers to access files, editors to review documents. It can serve as a brand fulfilment point and provide information on brand implementation and brand guidelines, provide approved brand templates for social and print, white papers, boilerplates. When you think about the many touchpoints your brand needs to navigate across and the access it needs to provide to a variety of creatives, marketers and stakeholders, it can become immediately obvious that a simpler DAM just isn't going to stand up. A solid BAM will allow your brand to duck, dive and advance with your strategy, allow your team to get to the brand assets they need and also provide the training and the guidance they need to use them.
Storage
A major consideration and one that is often overlooked is storage. Depending on the size of your company and the type of brand assets that you need to host, your storage will be a big consideration. You'll notice that for obvious reasons MAMs provide the bigger storage capacity that most DAMs and BAMs. If your looking to invest both your time and energy setting up your library, check to see if the storage you're looking at today is scalable to accommodate you tomorrow.
Exhausted? You should be. Is now a good time to mention that I've spared you of ECMs? I think not. With all of that said and done, modern standards are forever changing, feature sets are expanding and the gap between DAM,s and BAMs are being bridged to a point where they're an indistinguishable blur between each other.
Ask yourself these three simple questions:
What is the problem you're trying to solve?
Are you simply trying to organise chaos, centralise your stuff and keep track of whos using it? Well then a DAM might be for you. Do you need to provide better understanding around your brand, get the right people to the right brand assets for a seamless workflow? Well, then that's a BAM.
Who needs to use the system?
Is this for a few people in the office, your accountant and the occasional outsourced supplier? That sounds like a DAM. If we're talking integrated creative teams and marketers constantly battling to hit media deadlines, then we're in the feature set of a BAM.
What content do you have?
General stuff. Photos, and docs people need to get too, but very occasionally although far too many to organise and keep track off easily on say Dropbox or Google drive? Get a DAM. If you have a brand that flutters with file activity producing and constantly updating an evolving stream of brand assets that need version control, access priveledges, clever metadata systems and industry application integration then get yourself a BAM. If you're heavily in the media field, think MAM instead.
Hope that helps. My goodness, would you look at the clock?
Can I summarise? I feel like I should. Here's my final attempt to bring clarity around this boring yet fruitful and densely packed keyword topic.
If you're considering something other than Dropbox or Googledrive, then the chances are you've encountered a problem with the system you're using. Ask yourself those three questions outlined above.
What is the problem you're trying to solve?
Who needs to use the system?
What content do you have?
The answer to each will help narrow down your options. As I say the line is blurring between each definition. In the time it's taken you to read this article, someone somewhere has already launched a new brand asset platform that promises to handle every aspect of your branding requirements with widgets, bells, whistles and features at carpal tunnel inducing page scrolling lengths.
