Brand management, Digital Asset Management / DAM

Navigating the future of brand management with integrated DAM solutions

Papirly’s recent webinar “Beyond DAM: Shaping the Future of Brand Management Strategies,” brought together a distinguished panel of industry experts to delve into the evolving landscape of Digital Asset Management (DAM) and its pivotal role in brand management and compliance. The session featured insights from Chuck Gahun, Principal Analyst at Forrester; Jane Robinson, Global Employer Branding Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG); Priya Patel, Senior Market Research Analyst at G2; Thomas Larzilliere, CEO of Keepeek; and Papirfly’s own Max Sihvonen, CoSo.

The webinar explored three main areas: 

  • the latest technological trends in DAM,
  • the increasing demand for personalised and localised content across diverse channels, 
  • the significance of efficient asset management in creating on-brand assets

A consistent theme throughout the discussion was the synergy between DAM and brand management. This highlighted the need for solutions that not only manage digital assets but also ensure brand consistency across all platforms.

The panel unanimously agreed that consumer expectations are driving the need for more sophisticated DAM solutions. Chuck Gahun emphasised the societal shift towards interactive engagement, necessitating brands to centralise assets to deliver immersive experiences across multiple touchpoints. This is pushing DAM solutions to evolve, incorporating features like 3D models for virtual reality and API-driven content delivery to meet the demand for personalised experiences.

Priya Patel shared insights from G2’s user reviews, noting an increased demand for DAM features that support integration with marketing and creative software, digital rights management, analytics, and workflow management. These features are crucial for brands to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace by delivering high-quality, relevant, and on-brand content swiftly.

The integral role of DAM in brand management

Jane Robinson shared BCG’s journey of implementing Papirfly to drive global brand consistency. The DAM platform has become a “one-stop shop” for BCG’s employer branding needs, allowing for the creation of personalised and customised assets that adhere to global brand guidelines while enabling local teams to add a personal touch. This balance of global consistency and local relevance has been key to BCG’s employer branding strategy.

Thomas Larzilliere discussed the evolving role of DAM in content production and brand compliance. With the proliferation of content across various platforms, maintaining brand governance has become more complex. DAM solutions are central to managing this complexity, ensuring that assets are produced correctly, efficiently, and in compliance with brand guidelines.

Key insights and future directions

The webinar showcased not only the current state and evolution of DAM but also revealed key insights pivotal for the future of brand management:

  • The imperative for agile content strategies: One critical takeaway was the growing need for brands to adopt agile content strategies that can quickly adapt to market changes and consumer behaviours. This agility is facilitated by platforms that go beyond traditional DAM, offering robust analytics and insights that allow brands to pivot and personalise content in real-time.
  • Enhanced collaboration across teams: Another revelation was the increasing importance of fostering collaboration across creative, marketing, and IT teams. Integrated DAM and brand management solutions are breaking down silos, enabling cross-functional teams to work cohesively towards common branding goals, thus accelerating content lifecycle processes from creation to distribution.
  • Security and compliance in Digital Asset Management: With the rise in digital content, ensuring the security and compliance of digital assets has become a forefront concern for brands. The discussion highlighted how modern DAM systems are incorporating advanced security features and compliance tools to protect brand assets and adhere to global regulatory standards.

These insights highlight the journey beyond traditional DAM, emphasising the critical need for brands to adopt holistic, secure, and adaptable brand management platforms. This will be essential for staying competitive and thriving in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

For further exploration on how these trends impact your brand strategy and how Papirfly’s brand management platform can support your brand’s growth, catch the webinar below, or learn more about our platform.

Digital Asset Management / DAM

How can DAM keep you on brand in 2024

Staying on brand is a challenge. Especially if you’re a global business or enterprise. 

You need to manage a complex matrix of audiences, regions, brand identities, digital assets, distribution channels, collateral, campaigns, creative teams, external collaborators…the list goes on. And the stakes, paces, and competition are high. 

Against this background, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can be a game changer for busy brand and marketing teams. A significant differentiating factor that helps you stay on brand, work smarter, and get to every market faster.

Here are six things DAM can do to keep you on brand in 2024 – whether you’re concerned with accelerating on-brand content creation, improving brand assets distribution, or automating manual tasks that hamper agility.

1. Centralise all of your digital assets in a single library

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Giving all content collaborators fast access to approved assets, to accelerate on-brand content creation, speed to market, and overall agility  

The defining feature of a DAM system is that it provides a single, secure platform to store, access, and use all of your digital assets. Whether that’s the building blocks you use to create campaigns – like photos, video, and artwork – or finished collateral that brand ambassadors use out in the world (more on that later).

Without a Digital Asset Management system, brands often struggle to find and use their digital assets. They can be strewn across the organisation and external agencies – hiding on desktops, departmental drives, and intranet sites. This makes it hard to track them down – and even harder to know whether and how they can be used. 

This has lots of risks associated with it – such as using embargoed, withdrawn, or older versions of images or logos. Not to mention the disruption and time wasted hunting for assets, which slows your time to market. And, of course, the cost when lost assets need to be recreated from scratch. 

On the other hand, a Digital Asset Management system lets you centralise thousands – millions – of assets in one global library.

Centralising all of your creative building blocks in a digital asset library ensures they’re immediately available for designers and content creators. 

Advanced search functionality, visual previews, version control, metadata, and usage rights make it quick and easy to find on-brand digital assets – and know how to use them compliantly.

This enhanced visibility into digital asset availability also reduces the risk of duplicating and recreating existing assets – and allows for repurposing and reuse. This cuts creation time and costs. 

2. Get everyone on board and on-brand

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Give everyone access to up-to-date brand guidelines and approved assets

A Digital Asset Management system isn’t just about storing digital assets, it’s also about accessing and using them. A DAM has advanced sharing capabilities that let you provide people with secure access to assets – either as a system user or via share links and portals for external stakeholders.

One use of portals in DAM is to create a brand hub. This provides people with structured access to brand guidelines, approved assets and tools. It’s a dedicated space for people to discover, understand, and apply your brand correctly – whether they’re internal collaborators, regional partners or external contractors, like design and marketing agencies. 

You can set up a brand portal to share logos, approved imagery, templates, font files, brand guidelines, examples of on-brand design and copy, etc. And thanks to the structure, searchability, and user-friendly interface in most DAM systems, they’re more accessible and easier to use.

This all improves brand consistency and compliance, and helps reduce the time it takes to onboard new creative suppliers. 

Portals aren’t just great for brand hubs. You can set up portals for any purpose. For example:

  • A sales enablement hub that gives dealers and distributors instant access to marketing collateral for their region
  • A media hub that provides press and other stakeholders with access to your logo and other brand assets
  • An employer branding hub that contains resources and assets for recruiters, HR, internal comms, employee advocates etc

3. Provide templates and localisation tools

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Empowering local stakeholders to create on-brand collateral that meets their specific needs, while meeting global brand standards 

Even if you have centralised your brand and marketing function, you’ll have a lot of stakeholders in a lot of places. And these local stakeholders can have needs that your central team can’t meet. For example, promotional posters for an event, a brochure addressing a specific local market…

With limited time and resources available centrally, these well-intentioned but poorly equipped brand ambassadors may create their own collateral – and the results don’t always meet brand standards. This risks brand dilution and even damage. [For example, this off-brand PureGym post

Some Digital Asset Management platforms include – or integrate with – template and localisation tools. 

These provide access to a library of on-brand templates for local stakeholders to tailor to their needs – with a choice of formats, approved imagery, and current logos etc. [Advanced DAM systems also offer automatic translation into different languages 🤯]

This empowers individual branches or divisions easily create the collateral they need, without going off-brand. Plus, it lets organisations leverage the benefits of central control and efficiency, while maintaining responsiveness to local market conditions.

4. Easily archive out-of-date assets

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Flagging dated assets that need retiring or replacing 

One of the biggest risks to your brand visual identity is the use of out-of-date assets. Especially if you’ve been through a rebrand. There’s nothing worse than seeing collateral featuring an old logo, the wrong font, or a photo of a product or service that’s no longer available. 

A valuable feature of DAM is lifecycle management and the ability to archive assets. You can do this automatically – for example, when an asset hits its three-year upload-aversary. However, it’s better to review each case individually, as some assets may still be relevant and valuable.

One way to assess whether to retire assets is to look at analytics in your DAM. Usage metrics will tell you if an asset is highly used. If so, you may decide to keep it in circulation a little longer. Or, if it is looking dated and needs to retire, you know you need to commission a suitable replacement. 

Either way, the archive feature of a Digital Asset Management system helps keep your brand feeling fresh, current, and consistent. 

5. Protect embargoed assets

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Providing access to assets for faster time-to-market, while protecting them from premature use

One concern people have about centralising their digital assets is how to protect embargoed files. For example, photos of a new unreleased car model. You want to provide content creators and collaborators with easy access to digital assets. But don’t want to risk them falling into the wrong hands. 

A DAM system has advanced permission controls and usage rights. You can safely add any digital asset and restrict access at a granular level – letting individuals and small groups have very specific rights. For example, you can allow a graphic designer download rights but a marketing manager view-only access.

This enables brands leverage the benefit of centralised digital asset management and online collaboration, without worrying that commercially sensitive assets will be leaked. 

6. Apply brand treatments at scale with AI

How DAM helps you stay on brand – Automatically editing digital assets to match your brand visual identity 

Our last benefit of DAM for brands today is automation. This can take many forms as Digital Asset Management platforms grow ever more sophisticated. AI in DAM is becoming more common and makes previously manual tasks automated and scalable. 

Imagine your brand styles photography in a certain way. Perhaps oversaturating the colour to make food imagery extra appetising, or reducing saturation for a more moody monochrome look. 

Applying this style manually takes valuable time. AI in DAM can automatically apply these brand treatments, so you achieve a consistent style, even if you use a variety of creative suppliers. 

Another time-saving DAM automation is the ability to resize assets on demand for different web, print and email templates – for example, a lower res crop for headers in your CRM system, and a higher res image for printed brochures. 

This makes it easy for any team to stay on-brand, reducing their reliance on design-savvy colleagues and external agencies to provide what they need.

Plus AI in DAM can automatically identify the content of assets at upload and tag them with meaningful metadata, so you don’t have to. You can even train a DAM system – using machine learning – to recognise and tag your specific products. But that’s a whole other article…

Stay on brand in 2024 with Papirfly

Papirfly is an all-in-one enterprise brand management platform that includes a powerful DAM, template and localisation tools, digital asset analytics, and brand consistency resources.  

Discover our suite of brand tools to amplify and standardise your brand – trusted by multinational and global brands like BMW, Unilever, and IBM.

Employer brand

7 reasons Digital Asset Management is essential for employer branding teams

Employer branding is more important than ever in 2024. Remote and hybrid working. A globalised recruitment landscape. Widespread skills shortages. A demanding talent pool and candidates’ market. 

Brands face stiff competition to secure the best people and to keep them. And employer brand professionals are the frontline in talent acquisition and employee engagement. 

You know that a strong employer value proposition is a candidate magnet. It helps your organisation attract and retain the talent it needs for success. But creating a consistent, compelling employer brand is a challenge in itself.

So many touchpoints. So many stakeholders. So little time. 

If you’re here looking for an answer – a way to ‘do more with less’ – then you’re in the right place. 

From working with employers of choice like Unilever and Vodafone, we know Digital Asset Management software can revolutionize employer branding efforts – helping create a strong brand presence on every platform and in every locality.

Here’s what you need to know.

Employer branding is crucial – but hard – in 2024 

In a landscape characterised by skills shortages and increasing choice, great candidates have the upper hand. You’re in a global competition for talent – both to attract it and retain it.

Businesses that win the war will secure in-demand skills and value-aligned individuals to drive their ambitions forward. Businesses that lose… not so much. 

But it isn’t just the (current) candidates’ market that’s making employer branding more important. It’s our shifting expectations of employers. From ‘the great renegotiation’ inspired by global lockdowns – to the influx of Gen Z into the workplace – we’re demanding more of employers than before.

Employee engagement is key. We want great benefits, work-life balance, and an inclusive company culture. But we want meaningful work, authenticity, corporate ethics, and societal impact too. And people aren’t stupid. Employers need to walk the walk… or their people will. 

In this challenging employer branding environment, businesses need to improve their employee value proposition, embed it, and communicate it consistently across every touchpoint.  

In the burgeoning digital landscape, there are so many places to communicate your brand. Managing that to maximize impact and consistency is getting harder. Your platforms and digital brand assets seem to multiply exponentially – but your budget and hours in the day don’t.

And that’s before we even think about localising employer branding campaigns to maximise their impact in different regions and cultures.

If this problem sounds familiar, Digital Asset Management (DAM) software is the answer.

An avalanche of assets is overwhelming employer brand teams

An avalanche of digital brand assets is overwhelming employer branding teams. Digital assets are the images, artwork, video, audio files, campaign materials, PDFs, guidelines etc that you use to market your business internally and externally.

[See What are digital assets and how do you manage them? for why you need to treat these files with the utmost care].

  • There are the digital brand assets you use as building blocks to create campaigns – your photoshoots, your graphic design files etc. You need easy access to these to create brand content quickly and efficiently.
  • Then there are the employer branding materials you create – your finished artwork, campaign materials, brand guidelines, templates, etc. You need to be able to distribute these easily to the people who’ll use them. 

There are so many of them because employer branding is increasingly digital. You need to create employer branding content for your company website, social media channels, third-party sites, campaigns, employee advocacy, and more.

That means you’re creating and managing more digital assets than ever. And that can get messy, real quick. And that’s a serious risk to your employer branding efforts.

You cannot manage brand assets at scale without an appropriate system. And that spells risk for your team and the wider business. 

Challenges managing employer branding assets

  • Wasted time – Searching for assets that are hidden away in the wrong place or have file names like ‘IMG07624.jpg’ – not helpful.
  • Wasted money – Recreating assets from scratch because you simply can’t find them and your stakeholder needs the content ‘yesterday’.
  • More risk – Using outdated assets because you don’t know which is the most recent version – or using restricted assets because there’s no way to know.
  • Inconsistency – Because people are frustrated with the current system and just start doing their own thing.

Problems distributing employer branding materials

  • Distribution issues Getting brand assets to the right people at the right time. You can have the best employer brand ever…but it’s useless if you can’t get it out there.
  • Diluted brand – People simply not knowing how to apply your employer brand and putting out materials they think are right… but aren’t on-brand at all.
  • Missed opportunities to localise – Issuing one-size-fits-all campaigns because you don’t have time to optimize materials for different markets.

You might be so used to the scenarios above that it feels normal. 

But it’s not. 

There is a better way.

7 reasons your employer brand needs DAM

To excel in the ever-more demanding future of work, you need to reclaim control now. Savvy businesses leverage Digital Asset Management for employer branding. They know a DAM platform makes brand content creation easier and brand asset distribution foolproof. 

Digital Asset Management (DAM) software provides a single space to store, access, and use your digital assets – like images, videos, brand collateral, and multimedia materials that support effective employer branding. 

DAM makes it easier for every team that touches your employer brand – HR, recruitment, marketing, regional managers, employee advocates – to stay on-brand. And it accelerates campaign activation. It’s a two-for-one win for ambitious employer brands. 

Here are seven things DAM can do for you – whether you work in employer branding, corporate branding, marketing operations, creative services, or any other team with digital-asset-heavy workflows.

1. Cut costs and maximise efficiency 

Using Digital Asset Management software for employer branding saves you time and money. A centralized digital asset library – for brand content creation, management and distribution – streamlines your processes. This efficiency translates into better resource utilization and cost savings. 

Team members can quickly locate and utilize the necessary materials, reducing the time spent on searching and requesting assets. Internal and external contributors can collaborate in the cloud, bypassing messy manual processes. And branding materials can be distributed instantly. 

2. Make more space for strategy

Your personal creativity and strategic approach are key differentiators for your brand – but they’re drained by the demands of the job – and your great ideas and good intentions get lost in admin.

Using DAM software reduces time spent on pointlessly ineffective processes – like fruitlessly searching for assets and manually emailing them to people – so you’ve got more time for stuff that actually adds value – like strategically shaping your employer value proposition and getting creative about how you communicate it.

3. …And localisation

You know you should be localising campaigns to increase their relevance to regional audiences. From changing photography to accurately reflect local demographics and cultural norms, to offering materials in multiple languages. But you simply don’t have time.

With efficiency gains from using a Digital Asset Management system, your team can dedicate more time to impactful campaigns for specific audiences – supporting recruitment and DEI goals. And, thanks to easy distribution via your brand portal, you can make sure each region only accesses materials meant for them.

4. Guarantee your brand consistency 

In employer branding, consistency is key. A strong, consistent and recognizable visual identity increases brand recognition and supports organizational objectives around talent acquisition, recruitment, and engagement.

A Digital Asset Management platform doubles as a brand asset management portal – an online space where stakeholders can access branding guidelines, employer branding materials, templates, approved image sets etc. 

This empowers your wider collaborative team – everyone from external design agencies to regional divisions to employee advocates – to find, use, and create on-brand materials for the organization. 

5. Enhance your agility 

How many times are opportunities passing you by? Like experimenting with a new platform or localizing assets for higher regional impact. Without efficient Digital Asset Management, your slow processes can limit your agility. 

Centralized DAM software lets you quickly locate, modify, and repurpose digital assets, accelerating content creation and increasing overall creative capacity. This lets you respond promptly to emerging opportunities, ensuring a dynamic and consistent brand experience. 

6. Reduce brand risk

The biggest risk to employer branding efforts is unfit-for-purpose processes. We’ve shown how a digital asset library can address this issue.

Beyond this, DAM software also mitigates risks associated with the misuse or unauthorized access of sensitive brand assets – thanks to robust access controls and permission levels. Plus, version control features reduce the risk of using outdated materials, preventing inconsistencies and potential damage to the brand image.

Imagine job descriptions using a retired logo, or a social post using a photo where the participant has since withdrawn their permission for use. Centralizing assets – and removing and archiving assets that should no longer be used – protects against this kind of risk.  

7. Empower employees to become brand ambassadors 

If you want to help your employees advocate for your employer brand, you need to give them on-brand tools and materials. A DAM used as a brand portal gives employees easy access to a curated collection of brand assets. 

They can share branded content on their social media platforms – such as job ads, announcements, and the popular ‘new position’ celebrations to LinkedIn – so your brand benefits from their authentic excitement about working for you. This builds trust with the audience, as it comes directly from the voices and experiences of employees.

Key features of DAM for employer branding

A single source of truth keeps assets secure but accessible

A DAM system provides a single secure repository for all your brand assets. Cloud-based DAM is accessible 24/7 online. No more assets lost and languishing on desktops, attached to emails, or in different departmental folders. 

Metadata puts files at your fingertips 

A DAM applies metadata to assets to make them findable in a few clicks. You don’t need to know file names anymore. Just search on keywords that describe the file you want – and see beautiful visual previews to identify the file you need.

Automatic version control keeps you up-to-date

No more time wasted wondering which file is the latest version. You’ll always see the most recent version in your DAM – but with a full audit trail and ability to revert to previous files if needed.

Integrations make design processes easier 

A DAM is designed to integrate. Integrate it with InDesign or your website CMS to give designers immediate access to all your brand assets without even leaving the window they’re working in.  

Online portals effortlessly deliver assets to end users 

A DAM doesn’t just make your content creation processes easier. Distribution is easy and instant, anywhere in the world. Upload finished employer branding materials and guidelines to your online brand portals for easy internal and external access.

Permissions protect embargoed assets 

Worried online access means a free-for-all? It isn’t. Permission controls mean people only see what you want them to. Protect embargoed assets and commercially sensitive content.  

Workflow automation accelerates creation 

A Digital Asset Management platform automates so many processes you perform manually at the minute – saving you tonnes of time. For example, bulk uploads, instant content sharing, and one-click, in-app editing (eg applying crops and ratios for different platforms). 

Employer branding teams to power up with Papirfly

You know the employer branding landscape is changing. Your systems need to evolve to cope. Digital Asset Management software is a game changer for busy, ambitious employer branding teams. Papirfly’s platform is a full suite of enterprise-grade brand management tools, including a portal for brand guidelines, Digital Asset Management, on-brand templating, campaign management, real-time data analytics, and more.  

Discover how global employers of choice strengthen their strong employer brand with Papirfly. 

Further reading

One home for your brand – approved assets and guidelines

Digital Asset Management for employer brands

Templates and localisation tools for employer brands

Aligning Unilever’s global team and employer brand

Digitising Vodaphone’s employer brand

Transforming content creation for global brand, DSV

Employer brand

Empowering employer branding –  insights from SAP and Papirfly

Papirfly and SAP recently joined forces to showcase an engaging discussion on SAP’s employer branding and employer ambassador program. 

The session, led by Papirfly’s VP Marketing Siril Jacobsen and Nneka Mmeh, Global Employer Branding at SAP emphasised strategic collaboration and innovative approaches to employer branding. Papirfly’s brand management platform enabled SAP to harness the power of their workforce in storytelling, turning employees into brand champions.

This partnership not only enabled SAP to enhance their employer branding but also showcased the transformative impact of leveraging employee experiences in attracting and retaining top talent. The discussions provided actionable insights into

  • creating a compelling employer value proposition (EVP)
  • emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and employee empowerment in building a strong, engaging employer brand

The power of employee ambassadors

SAP’s journey into enhancing its employer branding strategy with Papirfly’s support shows a commitment to not only attract but also to nurture talent by fostering a culture of inclusivity and empowerment. The creation of an employee ambassador program exemplifies SAP’s innovative approach, leveraging the voices of its workforce to amplify the company’s values and culture. This initiative, driven by Papirfly’s brand management platform, enabled SAP employees worldwide to share their authentic experiences. As a result, it humanized the SAP brand and significantly improved its market positioning as an employer of choice.

Revolutionising talent attraction through brand consistency

The webinar highlighted the importance of brand consistency across all channels and the role of Papirfly’s platform in achieving this for SAP. By implementing a centralised employer brand management system, SAP was able to streamline its messaging. This ensured that the employer brand resonated well with its global audience. This strategic move not only enhanced the company’s visibility but also guaranteed that potential candidates received a coherent and compelling narrative about what it means to work at SAP.

Strategic insights for employer branding professionals

For employer branding professionals, the discussion provided invaluable insights into the strategic planning and execution of a successful employee ambassador program. From revamping the employer value proposition to leveraging social media and digital platforms for storytelling, the webinar offered a blueprint for organisations looking to elevate their employer brand.

The role of Papirfly in SAP’s employer branding success

Papirfly’s role in this journey was highlighted as more than just a platform provider. It was a strategic partner enabling SAP to leverage technology for brand management and employee engagement. The use of Papirfly’s solutions facilitated a seamless integration of brand assets, storytelling, and employee advocacy, setting a new standard for employer branding excellence.

Measurable success – the impact of SAP’s employer branding strategy

  • Increased engagement: SAP saw a remarkable increase in employee engagement on social media platforms, where ambassador content received higher interaction rates compared to standard corporate postings. 
  • Improved talent acquisition: By leveraging employee testimonials, SAP saw a substantial improvement in its talent acquisition efforts. The data showed a notable decrease in time-to-fill for open positions. This highlights the effectiveness of a strong employer brand in attracting qualified candidates swiftly.
  • Enhanced employer brand perception: Surveys conducted before and after the implementation of the ambassador program indicated a significant improvement in SAP’s employer brand perception among targeted talent pools. The positive shift in perception reflects the impact of humanising the brand through employee narratives.
  • Greater employee retention: The initiative also played a crucial role in enhancing employee retention rates. By empowering employees to share their experiences and become brand advocates, SAP fostered a deeper sense of belonging and loyalty among its workforce. This contributed to a decrease in turnover rates.
  • Enhancing efficiency and savings: The financial efficiency gained through SAP’s partnership with Papirfly particularly highlighted a staggering $100,000 saved in potential agency costs in 2023. This reduction in potential expenses was achieved by utilising Papirfly’s platform for in-house brand management and content creation, bypassing the need for costly external agencies. The strategic approach not only streamlined SAP’s marketing expenditures but also illustrated the effectiveness of leveraging internal capabilities to foster a compelling and authentic employer brand. This also shows the tangible benefits of SAP’s innovative employer branding strategy

A blueprint for future success

The collaboration between SAP and Papirfly showcases the transformative power of employer branding when executed with strategic intent and the right technological support. For companies looking to attract and retain the best talent, the insights shared in this webinar serve as a blueprint for leveraging employee voices to create a compelling and authentic employer brand. To discover more about how SAP utilised Papirfly’s brand management platform to get set up for success watch the webinar in full.

Digital Asset ManagementLeave a Comment on Digital Asset Management in 2024 – the only guide you need

Digital Asset Management in 2024 – the only guide you need

If you’re drowning in digital assets – if you’re losing productivity as well as files – you need a Digital Asset Management platform. 

This in-depth guide to DAM is for savvy brands that want to get their products, services, and marketing messages out there – fast, at scale, and on brand. 

Take a deep dive into DAM to 

  • Understand what DAM actually does  
  • Decide if investing in DAM is right for you 
  • Discover how DAM creates bankable business benefits
  • Confidently make the business case in your organisation 

If you’re looking at competitors and wondering how they do it all, they’ve probably got a DAM system. Let’s see if you need one too…

Introduction to Digital Asset Management

What is Digital Asset Management?

Digital Asset Management is simply the practice of properly managing your digital assets. If you’re not familiar with Digital Asset Management, you’ll certainly be familiar with the problems it solves – like chaotic content creation, lost digital assets, manual workflows, and imperfect processes.  

What are digital assets?

Perhaps a better question than What is Digital Asset Management is What are digital assets

‘Digital assets’ is a way to describe digital files. But not just any file. A digital asset is a file you’ve invested money in creating and can use to create value for your business. 

Files like images, video, audio, and artwork are digital assets. Anything you can use and combine to deliver strategic goals for your business. For example, by creating marketing collateral, employer branding materials, or ecommerce listings. 

Why is Digital Asset Management important?

Digital Asset Management is important because these intellectual properties cost – and make – you money. You need to manage them like you would any other business asset – to protect your investment, get ROI, and reduce any risk associated with them. 

It’s also essential for efficiency in our digital world – where content is exploding, digital platforms are brand battlegrounds, and digital transformation can make or break a business. 

More on this at the end of the section.

What is Digital Asset Management software?

Digital Asset Management software – also known as a DAM system or DAMS – is a platform specifically designed for managing your digital assets. Organisations typically use it to replace unfit-for-purpose filing systems – like Google Drive, Dropbox, or departmental folders – that simply can’t cope with digital assets at scale. 

A DAM platform provides a single, central space to store, secure, search, and access valuable digital files. The key elements of DAM that make it an improvement on the likes of Google Drive are:

  • Centralisation to make assets available for use throughout the organisation
  • Metadata and taxonomy to make assets infinitely more discoverable 
  • Robust permissions to ensure people only access what they’re supposed to
  • Automated workflows to accelerate processes and workflows

DAM is more than just a digital asset library. Effective Digital Asset Management cuts your costs, improves efficiency and productivity, and gives you a significant advantage over your non-DAM-using competitors.

DAM is more than just a digital asset library. Effective Digital Asset Management cuts your costs, improves efficiency and productivity, and gives you a significant advantage over your non-DAM-using competitors.

Four types of Digital Asset Management software

You might hear people mention different types of DAM software – like cloud DAM, on-premise, enterprise, and headless. Here’s a quick introduction to the differences. 

On-premise DAM

On-premise DAM – sometimes shortened to on-prem DAM – is Digital Asset Management software that you manage in-house. It’s installed on your internal infrastructure and you’re responsible for upgrades, maintenance, and troubleshooting.    

Cloud-based DAM

Cloud-based DAM – sometimes just called cloud DAM – is a DAM system you subscribe to. It is hosted, managed, and used in the cloud. The software vendor is responsible for all upgrades and maintenance. We’ll compare on-premise vs cloud DAM below. 

Enterprise DAM system

Enterprise Digital Asset Management is just DAM at a larger scale. Some DAMs market themselves specifically at the enterprise market because they have features that make it suitable for large-scale deployment. For example, more storage, unlimited licenses, or global/local support options. However, the underlying functionality is the same.

Headless DAM 

Headless DAM is a Digital Asset Management platform that is designed to work in the background. It doesn’t have a front-end for people to search and access digital assets. It exists to power processes behind the scenes, like linking to a PIM system and automatically sending images to an ecommerce website.  

Why is DAM so important in 2024?

The business case for Digital Asset Management grows every year. The main imperative is using digital advances to streamline and automate processes, saving businesses like yours time and money. 

But societal trends are increasing the pressure even more – from the avalanche of digital assets to remote working, and online competition to cybersecurity. 

If you’ve been toying with the idea of DAM, 2024 is the time to act. Here’s why.

The avalanche of digital content

The growth in online platforms means ambitious businesses are producing more content than ever – for your website, social channels, intranet, third-party sites, email marketing – not to mention traditional print media too. 

To keep up, businesses are producing an unprecedented volume and variety of content – images, videos, audio, webinars, product tours, slide decks, POS materials, brochures etc. 

Without an appropriate way to store, manage, and access this content, businesses risk being swamped by it – undermining their efficiency, productivity, and brand. DAM is the way you’re looking for.

The shift to remote work and collaboration

Businesses are benefitting from several remote work trends in 2024. As well as flexible working, organisations are increasing capacity, lowering costs, and delivering 24/7 operations by using freelancers and offshore support. 

A cloud-based DAM system enables seamless remote collaboration by providing secure access to digital assets – from anywhere in the world with an internet connection – significantly enhancing productivity in the era of distributed workforces. 

The value of brand in a distracted society

The online landscape is growing evermore competitive, as digital tech makes it easier for challenger brands to set up shop online. And we are an easily distracted society, looking at more content, across more devices, in ever more complex contexts. 

Our attention spans and patience online are low and research says brands have only 8 seconds to grab it. In this context, an instantly recognisable brand is one of your most valuable assets. And yet many organisations struggle due to difficulties communicating and distributing the brand internally.

A DAM system fixes that by providing easy access to approved brand assets, style guides, and marketing collateral. So you can deliver a cohesive and recognisable brand experience across every channel.

Rising concerns about data security

With the growing frequency and sophistication of cyber threats, data security has become a top priority for organisations. DAM software addresses these concerns by offering robust security features, access controls, and encryption to protect digital assets from unauthorised access, ensure compliance with data protection regulations, and prevent intellectual property theft.

Features and benefits of Digital Asset Management software

1. Centralisation and organisation 

All too often, your creative teams spend more time searching for files than actually using them. They’re hidden on people’s desktops, attached to emails, in third-party FTP sites, or hidden behind meaningless file names like ‘Image_38.jpg’. This wastes so much time that it’s almost impossible for your team to be agile and efficient. A digital asset library solves all that.

Centralised repository

A DAM system is a centralised repository for your digital assets. So instead of your digital assets being stored in random folders across your organisation, they’re all in one place. 

And – in the case of cloud-based DAM – that place is accessible 24/7 from anywhere with an internet connection. 

That means authorised users have almost-instant access, so they can spend less time searching for assets and more time making magic with them.

Version control and audit trail 

Another feature of DAM is automatic version control, so your team always knows they’re accessing the most up-to-date version of a file. Version control also keeps an audit trail of any amends made to a file, so you can see what’s changed and when.

This is vital for any digital assets that require accuracy – like technical documentation or brand guidelines. 

2. Search and discoverability

How does a DAM system make digital assets so discoverable? Through a double whammy of taxonomy and metadata. This gives people lots of different ways to search, browse, filter and find the file they need, fast. So no matter how big your digital asset library grows, it’s always quick and easy to use.

Metadata 

Metadata is information added to a file to make it more findable. For example, in a footwear photoshoot, a single image may be tagged with the shoe make and model, material, style, colour, and which season it belongs to. 

This gives people numerous routes to find the image they need compared to knowing what the file is called or where it is saved. 

Metadata also provides valuable contextual information about assets – like usage rights or embargo information – to ensure they’re used correctly. 

Taxonomy 

Taxonomy is the use of systematic terms and categories to create a sensible folder structure. This means people can also navigate logically to images if they want to. 

For example: Brand name > Footwear > Fall 2024 collection. But – to be honest – the search functionality in DAM is so good that most people will use that.

Visual search results

Search results in DAM systems are usually displayed as visual thumbnails that let you quickly see file content – even text-based documents – so you can confidently choose the one you want. No more clicking into anonymous thumbnails hoping to get lucky.

3. Security and sharing

A DAM system secures your assets and protects them from unauthorised access. It also reduces risk and frustration associated with sharing assets via email or external transfer processes (expired WeTransfer link anyone?)

Permission controls

Permission controls ensure that only authorised users have access to specific assets – and they can only do what you want them to – like view, download, or edit assets. This enhances digital asset security and stops awkward faux pas like using embargoed assets before their release date. 

Encryption

DAM uses encryption to protect data and assets. This adds an additional layer of security, making it more challenging for unauthorised parties to access or manipulate the content of digital assets.

Secure file sharing

A DAM reduces the risk associated with transferring sensitive assets via email and third-party sites. Users can simply access the assets they need from within the system – whether that’s through their own account, link sharing with external contractors, or a public-facing portal. 

Branded portals

You can create branded portals in a DAM to share curated asset collections with particular audiences. For example, an organisation-wide portal to share brand guidelines and logos. Or a sales enablement portal to share marketing materials with different branches.  

4. Collaboration and automation 

Don’t let anyone tell you DAM is just about centralising storage. Modern DAM is so much more than the media library it started out as. Today it is a hub of collaboration and automation, designed to accelerate and streamline any process that uses digital assets. 

Cloud collaboration

Cloud-based DAM provides an online space for collaborating on content creation processes. For example, a photographer can upload a photoshoot, your marketing can approve or reject them, route them to an offshore touch-up studio overnight, ready to serve up to your graphic design team the next morning – all without leaving your DAM.

Task automation 

DAM can automate manual tasks for faster delivery. There are so many time-saving DAM hacks you’ll wonder how you lived without it.

Anything from using AI to recognise asset content and tag them on upload, to automatically creating on-the-fly renditions of assets for use on different platforms – for example, converting a high-res CMYK tiff to a 72dpi RGB jpeg for use online. 

Workflow automation 

DAM lets you fully automate tasks to accelerate time to market. For example, receiving, quality checking, and publishing millions of product images to an e-commerce website with no human intervention. 

AI tools

Many DAM systems offer machine learning and AI to speed up processes – from tagging assets with metadata to predicting the best search results to serve up. See the Future Trends section for more on AI in DAM.

5. Integrations

Virtually any system that needs access to digital assets can integrate with your DAM – and your DAM can feed images, video, documents, and data directly to that system. Here are some common DAM integrations and how they work.

DAM + CMS 

Most CMS have a media library where you can store images. But finding those images again isn’t always easy. Integrating DAM with your CMS gives web editors powerful search and retrieval tools – so they can quickly find the perfect assets to bring your website to life. 

DAM + design software

A DAM integrates with graphic design tools so designers can search and find the perfect visual assets without having to leave the window they’re working in. This keeps them in the zone and their creative juices flowing – while allowing for seamless editing, version control, and collaboration. [Think that’s not important? Check out the cost of context switching on productivity.]

DAM + PIM 

PIM is a Product Information System – software used in manufacturing, retail, and ecommerce. Integrating DAM and PIM lets you automatically pull images from your DAM into catalogues and websites, so you can get your marketing out there – and start making sales – faster. 

DAM + CRM 

Integrating a DAM with your CRM system accelerates the process of creating on-brand communication with customers. Sales and marketing teams can pull assets into messages – automatically cropped and formatted for optimum display.

Benefits of Digital Asset Management software explained

DAM featureDAM benefit
Centralisation– Central accessible digital asset library
– Single source of truth creates clarity/reduces confusion
– Everyone can quickly find and use the files they need 
– Increased visibility into assets reduces duplication
– Productivity and creativity go up
Metadata– Digital assets are easier to browse, search, and find
– Contextual information ensures confident, compliant use of assets
Version control– Everyone is working with the latest versions of assets
– Keeps an audit trail of changes and approvals
– Prevents version conflicts and confusion 
Access permissions– Ensures that only authorised users have access to specific assets
– Safeguards sensitive information and intellectual property
– Ensures compliance with data protection regulations
– Prevents unauthorised use and reduces legal risk
Collaboration tools– Supports communication and remote collaboration 
– Streamlines project execution and reduces time to market
– Facilitates use of contractors, gig workers, and offshore providers 
Portals– Provide access to approved brand assets for all creators and end users
– Supports better brand consistency  
– Mitigates brand risk 
Workflow automation – Streamlines workflows through automation 
– Accelerates project completion
– Reduces manual interventions and human error
– Improves human resource utilisation
Integrations – Reduces duplication through syncing and sharing data
– Facilitates cross-departmental workflows
– Accelerates processes and improves efficiency
Analytics– Insights into asset usage help optimise future commissioning and creation strategies

What can DAM do for you?

From streamlining marketing processes to get your message out there faster, to creating global brand consistency that grabs attention and keeps it, DAM delivers. Discover what Digital Asset Management can do for your business.

Use cases for DAM systems

DAM for marketing 

Marketers use DAM to centralise and organise digital assets, ensuring everyone involved in campaigns can collaborate efficiently. DAM gives creatives access to up-to-date assets and artwork, accelerates creation workflows, and allows for rapid distribution to end users. 

DAM for agencies

Creative agencies create and use a high volume of digital assets for customers. They use DAM to streamline and accelerate production processes, and protect and manage assets for different customers. Agencies can even offer DAM services to customers as an additional revenue stream. 

DAM for publishers

Content creators and publishers build their business on distributing written, visual, and multimedia content. They need a DAM to store and access this content quickly during the creation processes, manage production and approval processes, and power automated publishing workflows. 

DAM for ecommerce and retail

Retail employs DAM to organise and distribute product images, marketing visuals, and multimedia content. This streamlines product launches, enhances customer experience, and supports effective merchandising strategies in a highly visual and competitive landscape. 

DAM for employer brands

Businesses work hard to attract, recruit and retain top talent. Employer branding teams create campaigns that position organisations as an employer of choice. Using a DAM helps streamline this process and create a consistent employer brand across every platform. 

DAM for corporate brands

A strong brand delivers a competitive advantage. Corporate brands use DAM to centralise and distribute brand assets. This improves brand consistency by sharing brand guidelines and assets with everyone involved in promoting the business. 

When should we invest in Digital Asset Management technology?

Most businesses reach a critical point where the business case for DAM becomes undeniable. Here are five operational challenges that DAM can solve. Do any sound familiar? If so, you probably need to invest in DAM.

1. Your systems are inefficient and productivity is compromised

Problem: You face avoidable frustrations, bottlenecks and delays due to disorganised assets.

Solution: DAM centralises your assets and streamlines workflows, reduces time spent searching for assets, and minimises manual interventions. Replacing unfit or decentralised storage enhances overall efficiency and productivity.

2. You need to cut costs, without cutting corners  

Problem: You’ve been asked to cut costs. Or worse, ‘do more with less’. How do you maintain quality?

Solution: DAM accelerates and automates workflows, allowing you to do more with the same headcount. Or to maintain existing services when faced with budget and staff cuts. Time savings come from less duplication, waste, and higher operational efficiency. 

 3. You have sensitive assets you need to protect 

Problem: You have sensitive or embargoed assets and no way to prevent unauthorised access.

Solution: DAM’s access controls and user permissions let you restrict access to authorised users only. This helps manage GDPR compliance requirements, prevent potential legal issues, and protect against leaks of time-sensitive assets (accidental or otherwise.)

4. You need to improve brand consistency and governance

Problem: Multiple departments or divisions involved in marketing pose a risk to brand consistency.

Solution: DAM provides a central place to share and distribute brand assets – from brand guidelines to approved imagery – so everyone can create and use on-brand materials. Templates – and even translation tools – help divisions localise materials while staying on-brand.

5. You want remote access and online collaboration

Problem: You want to take advantage of remote workers, the gig economy, and offshore contractors.

Solution: Cloud-based DAM enables online collaboration from anywhere with an internet connection. Users can upload, download, view, edit, comment, and collaborate online, supporting a global workforce.

6. You’ve outgrown our old storage systems  

Problem: Your business and digital asset demands have grown and your current system can’t keep up.

Solution: DAM scales with you. So no matter how many digital assets you accumulate – or how many staff you have – people can always search, retrieve, and access the files they need, fast.

7. You want to raise your content game

Problem: Competitors are running rings around you with higher quantity and quality of content.

Solution: Implementing a DAM system supports content creation at scale. With DAM in your corner, you’ll be able to create, distribute, and publish more content to more platforms.  

8. You have a digitisation strategy 

Problem: Legacy processes and manual workflows are holding your business back.

Solution: Put DAM at the heart of your digital transformation journey and build new processes around fit-for-purpose tools. Don’t think about how DAM can digitise your processes – think how it can revolutionise them.

The business case for Digital Asset Management software

The business case for DAM

DAM delivers significant operational, financial, and competitive advantages to brands. Here are three benefits of Digital Asset Management software that you can take to the bank. 

1. Higher operational efficiency 

DAM improves your operational efficiency in a variety of ways. 

  • By helping people assets instead of endlessly searching for them
  • By reducing the time creatives spend recreating lost assets
  • By automating tasks like resizing and cropping images
  • By translating written content and transcoding video
  • By automating manual workflows
  • By reducing context-switching

We could go on and on… These faster processes save you money but they also give you a competitive advantage – getting you to market faster and better than ever before. 

2. Resource optimisation 

Resource optimisation is concerned with getting the most valuable work from your people. And when they’re engaged in manual admin that’s way below their pay grade – or fruitlessly playing ‘hunt the asset’ – you’re not getting ROI.

DAM eradicates low-grade work and puts assets at people’s fingertips so they can spend more time adding value to your business – through strategy, creativity, and understanding your customers better.    

3. Resource optimisation 

As well as efficiency gains, DAM delivers cost benefits you can take to the bank. It’s not just about using your human resources more efficiently. You save money because: 

  • People can access existing assets and repurpose them instead of starting from scratch
  • Enhanced visibility into your asset stock reduces the risk of duplicated work or purchases
  • You reduce your risk of costly legal exposure

Agencies and content creators can also commercialise their DAM – selling their artwork or selling Digital Asset Management as a service.

The ROI of Digital Asset Management software

The Return on Investment from Digital Asset Management software can vary depending on factors like your specific use case, the size of your business, the functionality of the software, and how many people use it. 

As a benchmark, take a look at the economic impact of Papirfly

Papirfly combines powerful DAM functionality with a suite of branding tools. A composite business based on our most typical customers* achieves 

  • 212% Return on Investment (ROI)
  • $1.17m Net Present Value (NPV)
  • 80% reduced effort in asset creation
  • $200 average agency spend avoided per asset
  • Payback in less than 6 months

What does DAM software cost?

Here are some DAM costs you need to be aware of.

  • Upfront costs Usually only applicable to on-premise deployment – the cost of buying a license for the product and costs associated with the infrastructure you’ll need
  • Subscription costs Cloud DAM will charge per user per month (also known as ‘seats’) and may have a minimum number of users
  • Storage costs – A certain amount of storage may be included in your fees – you may need to pay more for extra capacity
  • Number of assets – Some pricing models consider how many assets you need to store
  • Features Some DAMs may have an all-in price tag, others might charge extra for advanced features
  • Customisation – You may need to pay for product Customisation or custom integrations
  • Maintenance, support and upgrade fees – You may need to pay a monthly fee for technical support and training – plus an annual renewal fee
  • Migration costs – You may choose to pay the vendor or a third-party to migrate your assets to the new DAM
  • In-house costs – Don’t forget to factor in-house costs like the time it will take to research and implement the system – perhaps funding for a DAM librarian role

When totting up the cost of Digital Asset Management software – and calculating your potential ROI – you need to remember how much your current content chaos is costing you. 

How to choose and implement a DAM system

How to choose a DAM system

Choosing a DAM system takes research, consultation, and consideration. Rush it and you’ll regret it. Here’s a very quick overview of how to choose a DAM and make sure your first choice is the right choice. 

1. Determine your requirements

Once DAM is on your radar, think about it from an organisation-wide point of view. DAM is a centralised digital asset library that serves all business functions. You don’t want different departments to implement their own separate DAM solutions – that undermines the whole point.

Once you know who’s going to use your organisation-wide DAM, start determining and prioritising your collective needs. 

  • What does the DAM need to do? 
  • What’s outside the scope of the project? 
  • How many assets do you have and what type?
  • What workflows need automating?
  • What systems need to be integrated?

Write a requirements document to start shortlisting DAM systems – and share it with your shortlisted providers when the time comes. 

2. Research your options

In 2024, there are over 100 DAM platforms on the market. Start with online research to narrow down your options. Don’t just click on the ads at the top of your search results – just because they have the biggest ad budget doesn’t mean they’re the best DAM for you. 

Search for DAMs that serve your sector successfully, look for external endorsements from the likes of Forrester Wave, and check out user review websites like Capterra.  

3. Demo your shortlisted products

Create a shortlist of products and do a side-by-side comparison against your requirements document. Whittle it down to no more than five and speak to the vendors for an online demo. Which ones feel like a good fit? Invite your favourite vendors to give a demo to your main stakeholders before deciding which to buy.

What to look for in a DAM platform

Implementing a DAMS takes time and money. But it isn’t just about investment, it’s about impact. The right DAM system can be transformative. Beyond price and features, here’s how to pick a DAM platform that will deliver…

Functionality

The majority of DAMS have similar functionality. However, some may be targeted more toward specific use cases – such as branding or ecommerce. Define the requirements of your DAM – for example, do you need it to act as a brand portal or integrate with a PIM system – and make sure your shortlisted DAM systems deliver that functionality. Look for existing customers in your sector and check out reviews.

Scalability

Don’t just think about your current digital asset needs. Your number of assets is only going to grow. Ensure the DAM system is scalable to accommodate your future needs and growth plans to avoid outgrowing the DAM solution you choose. If you expect your user base to grow, make sure you can scale accordingly, within your budget. 

User experience 

An IT system only delivers ROI when people use it – and use it properly. If your DAM system is hard to use, people will bypass it and continue to store files on their desktops and departmental folders. Choose a DAM system that is intuitive and easy to use. That will encourage widespread adoption and reduce the learning curve.

Integrations

Consider the DAM system’s ability to integrate with other essential business platforms. For example, your website CMS or PIM system. This helps create seamless cross-department workflows that enhance productivity. It also reduces data duplication and silos. 

Vendor support

Regardless of whether you deploy your DAM on-premise or in the cloud, you’ll need support from your vendor – during set-up and beyond. Check that they’ve provided adequate self-service documentation and ask how much support you can access as part of your contract. 

Deployment options

Consider the pros and cons of on-premises vs cloud-based DAM (see table below). The choice comes down to how much control and responsibility you want to take on, as well as questions of data sovereignty. 

On-premise vs cloud-based DAM: pros and cons
On-premise DAMCloud-based DAM
AccessRestricted access Anywhere access 
ScalabilityLimited by your in-house storage capacityIn theory, unlimited storage, but with costs attached
Maintenance and updatesYou are responsible for upgrades and maintaining the systemThe provider is responsible for upgrades and maintaining the system
Security and control Direct, maximum control Reliant on provider 
CustomisationCustomisation options via your in-house team – maximum flexibility but limited by IT capacitySome customisation usually availability via support request – may incur additional cost
IntegrationsVia your in-house teamSome available out-of-the-box and others via your own team using APIs
Upfront costsBigger upfront costs – you buy the platform outrightLower upfront costs – you buy subscriptions (seats) 
DeploymentSlower due to need for infrastructure set upFaster as minimal infrastructure needed – simply deployed online
Data sovereigntyGreater control over geographic location and data sovereigntyLess control over geographic location and data sovereignty

Five best practices for Digital Asset Management

Be strategic about DAM

Your DAM implementation should align to your organisational objectives. Common goals include improving workflow efficiency, enhancing collaboration, ensuring brand consistency, cost savings, optimising resource utilisation, and digital transformation. Use your objectives as a North Star to inform your needs analysis, your KPIs, and your choice of DAM system. 

Audit your assets and workflows

Your DAM provider will have a LOT of questions. Come prepared. Know how many assets you have, what types, what you need to do with them, who is involved, how many users you have, what types of access they’ll need etc. Download our Digital Asset Management checklist to help you start thinking…

Don’t just replicate, innovate

Implementing DAM is an opportunity for change. Don’t waste it. Talk to people currently involved in content, marketing and branding processes. What challenges do they have? Where do bottlenecks occur? What could be improved? Talk to your DAM vendor about how other customers use the software. DAM is transformative – think big.

Plan for onboarding and training  

No matter how intuitive your new DAM system, people will still need training and support in order to use it. Different levels of user need different levels of training. Admins, for example, will need in-person training, while casual users can self-serve training videos or how-to guides. Make sure you have a communication and training plan to help you roll out your new software and get people excited about using it. 

Commit to the long-term (Digital Asset Management governance) 

Digital Asset Management is an ongoing commitment. The key principle of DAM is to manage your digital assets so people can confidently find and use the right ones. If you neglect your DAM system, this gets increasingly difficult. In businesses with a large volume of digital assets, you may need to appoint a DAM librarian who is responsible for Digital Asset Management governance like

  • Regularly archiving old or outdated assets
  • Checking your metadata and categories are still fit for purpose
  • Adding, training, and removing users as required
  • Applying software and security updates 
  • Monitoring and optimising DAM performance 

Future trends: AI in Digital Asset Management

AI for metadata application 

Most DAMS these days use AI to automatically add meaningful metadata. The DAM recognises the file content and adds keywords to describe it – even if you’re bulk uploading 1,000s of assets. 

You can also use machine learning to train a DAM to recognise your specific products or people who work for you. This makes the whole process of getting assets into your DAM super fast. This will become an ever-more standard feature of DAM systems.

AI-powered search recommendations

Another area AI will improve is predictive search results. Predictive algorithms analyse user interactions, search patterns, and content usage to provide personalised recommendations. This helps users discover relevant assets faster and put them to work.

Generative AI and DAM

Generative AI will become prevalent in DAM as the technology becomes more reliable. Some DAM systems already include generative AI to edit assets – for example, applying brand treatments to images or videos. A new application will be that users won’t just be able to search for assets by typing in keywords, they’ll be able to create them using AI.

Digital Asset Management Glossary 

Here’s a round-up of key DAM terminology used in this guide to Digital Asset Management.

  • Access Controls – Mechanism restricting user access to digital assets based on permissions.
  • Audit Trail – Record of user actions within a DAM system for accountability.
  • Cloud DAM – Digital Asset Management hosted on cloud servers for accessibility.
  • Customisation Tailoring DAM system features to meet specific organisational needs.
  • Data Sovereignty – Control and management of digital asset data based on geographic location.
  • Generative AI Type of Artificial Intelligence that creates new visual and text content.
  • Governance – Policies regulating digital asset creation, modification, and usage.
  • Headless DAM – DAM that is decoupled from a front-end interface.
  • Hybrid DAM – Blend of on-premises and cloud-based DAM hosting for flexibility.
  • Integrations Seamless connectivity between DAM system and other software applications.
  • Machine Learning Enables DAM to learn and improve through experience.
  • Metadata Descriptive information associated with digital assets for organisation and searchability.
  • On-Premises DAM – Local hosting of DAM system infrastructure for maximum control.
  • Optimisation Continuous improvement and refinement of DAM system performance.
  • Permissions Authorisations defining user rights and actions within a DAM system.
  • ROI – Measure of financial gains resulting from DAM implementation.
  • SaaS DAM – DAM provided via the Software-as-a-Service subscription model AKA cloud DAM.
  • Scalability Capability of DAM system to handle growing volumes and user needs.
  • Security Measures protecting digital assets against unauthorised access or breaches.
  • Taxonomy Hierarchical classification system for systematic organisation of digital assets.
  • User Adoption – Degree to which individuals actively use and embrace the DAM system.
  • Version Control – Management of different versions of digital assets to ensure consistency.

Further reading

Discover Place. The essential DAM system for global brands and enterprises.

Meet the family. Papirfly’s ultimate brand and Digital Asset Management platform.

Success story. How IBM accelerated go-to-market with Papirfly.

Employer brandLeave a Comment on How to make your employer branding work for your business in 2024

How to make your employer branding work for your business in 2024

Where have we come from with employer branding?

The last year has seen huge development and investment in employer branding from large, global companies seeking to improve company culture and provide a positive and inspiring place to work. There are some key trends we have seen develop across the last year which employer branding teams need to consider moving into 2024.

Using AI solutions to enhance your employer brand

We can’t ignore the existence of AI and it’s now commonplace for companies to use ChatGPT to develop their content, for example. However, over the past year we have also seen corporates put in place policies to ensure that there is always a human input to their content: it needs a human touch to edit and sense-check, as well as to add the local element to the words and imagery. 

However, you can now use AI to edit videos, add subtitles, colour correct imagery and so on. The list is only going to grow, so in order to enhance your employer brand, it’s vital that comms and marketing teams stay on top of the trends.

How digital asset management can improve your employer branding. People buy from people, and now we are in a post-pandemic world, we need to get back into the field and show people working day-to-day for your company. Not only this, but also in-person video, instead of remotely-recorded video, is on the rise so it’s time to showcase your staff in an interactive way again. Company culture videos are proving popular as businesses become more aware of the value of employer branding.

Social media tactics for your employer brand

Social media continues to develop at pace and as communicators we need to stay on top of the trends, such as the rise of X and TikTok. For large corporates, LinkedIn posts from senior leaders are becoming incredibly popular and successful. This goes hand-in-hand with brand ambassadors – where employees promote the brand themselves on social – to build a strong voice for the brand. In fact, companies are 58% more likely to attract talent if they have a successful employer branding programme, which covers both universal themes and localised messages.

Follow these top tips to ensure that your employer brand works for you this year.

Putting company culture first

Looking ahead to the coming year, we would expect to see a growing focus on health and wellbeing of staff. Gen Z in particular are very vocal on social media and will soon call out companies that are missing the mark in this field. Employees are increasingly looking for a good company culture and one that nurtures its staff as mental ill health is a growing problem in society; 77% of employees on Glassdoor said they would look at company culture before applying for a job. 

Company culture - employer brand

Improve your EVP

So companies need to look to the core and ensure that the work their staff are doing is not detrimental to their health and that they have good policies in place to protect them. Generous annual leave, sick pay, employee assistance programmes and so on are all bread and butter now. Going above and beyond, we see companies developing webinars to support perimenopause and menopause, wellness days, volunteering and yoga sessions. The whole package of support is increasingly important as burnout becomes so damaging to a career and also a business. 

Enhance your employer image

This coming year is also the time to develop the leadership narrative further. As we mentioned, leaders are becoming visible on platforms like LinkedIn and this is only going to be more necessary. And while they are venturing into the social world more, it’s important they remain authentic – so those crafting the messages need to pay attention to the tone of voice and audience. It’s important to come across as engaging and relevant, whilst maintaining the authoritative voice of a leader.

Develop your brand ambassadors

Frontline staff are also becoming more visible and rightly so. With AI, video and interactive content coming to the fore, it’s possible to get their voice heard and internal comms are focusing on those key workers. Events to celebrate them, such as awards are being used and global webinars and townhalls are making a comeback post-pandemic. In general, companies are keen to have deeper discussions and involve staff from all levels of the business, in a two-way communications process.

Focus on your employer branding strategy

Brand ambassadors also support the rise in recognition of your employer branding. Employees need to understand and engage with the business in order to promote it, and when they do it’s a win-win as they learn more about the company, whilst prospective candidates do too. This makes ensuring you have the most effective employer brand management solutions to articulate what your brand is about – both in values and overall identity – all the more essential. 

AI in employer branding

And as we began with AI, so we will conclude – it’s a necessary strategy to develop your AI usage throughout the business and employer branding is no exception. For 2024, the key thing will be to empower and hire staff to be able to use the tools to your advantage. We will always need the human touch, especially in employer branding, as there is a need to have an authentic voice. But AI can do the legwork.

Build positive brand perception from the inside out

There has never been a more important time to invest in your employer brand. No matter how successful it is, the attitudes of employees and prospective talent can switch at any time, and it’s important you have processes, tools and skills in place to respond. 

With a brand management platform, you have a centralised portal of all recruitment and brand assets, which teams can edit, share or even create from scratch. Digital, print, video, social, email. Everything you need to keep your employer brand front and centre. 

Make this quarter count, find out more about how Papirfly empowers employer branding teams in 2024

Curious to learn how multinational software corporation SAP, successfully activates localised employer branding across 70 countries and 110,000 employees worldwide? Join our exclusive webinar on Wednesday 31st January. Register here.

AILeave a Comment on Why responsible AI adoption matters for your brand’s reputation

Why responsible AI adoption matters for your brand’s reputation

Every week, new AI tools and use cases hit the market. For branding and marketing teams, this can be an exciting prospect, as new ways to work and collaborate are discovered, leading to dramatic time and cost savings and turbocharged creative capacities. 

At the same time, however, the rush to invest in or use free online AI solutions can backfire if care isn’t taken, with potentially huge consequences for teams and their businesses. 

Amongst the new AI tools on the market, Generative AI (GenAI) is particularly important for brand marketing. As with the popular ChatGPT and Midjourney tools, GenAI allows users to describe tasks and let powerful computers get on with generating outcomes. 

These could be AI generated images and brand assets, customer support messages, or new campaign ideas.

Forecasting suggests this market for GenAI is set to boom in the next decade. For brand teams interested in crafting iconic and trusted brands in the 2020s and beyond, the time for getting to grips with these technologies is now.

AI, brand reputation and trust

A survey of communications professionals found that, while almost 86% were optimistic about the potential of AI, 85% were also concerned about the legal and ethical issues.

AI adoption creates opportunities but also seeds new challenges, problems, pitfalls and risks. Customers are curious, but also anxious about what the implications of these new technologies will be for their lives.

Over the coming years, how companies use their AI tools will have a direct impact on their reputation, how much customers trust them, and how markets treat them. 

Modern brands should be aiming to use these new technologies to create real value for customers, businesses and society. It starts with knowledge, understanding, and careful planning. 

Establishing trust in uncertain times

Customer trust has long been understood to be at the core of successful branding. As consumers we simply like to spend our money with brands that we believe in. Research also shows that customers who trust a brand are three times as likely to forgive product or service mistakes.

When it comes to adopting AI tools, it’s therefore important to ask yourself the question – is our company using AI in a way that builds customer trust? Or could our choices be doing the opposite?

Sparebank found this out the hard way, when it came to light that the Norwegian bank had used an AI generated image without being labelled as such. 

This broke legislation on misleading marketing, which requires that subjects used in ads be real users of the product or service. It also potentially contravened Norwegian regulations on image manipulation, which require that images that have been airbrushed or edited are clearly marked in order to reduce pressure that could lead to shame or body dysmorphia. 

The result was a media storm, in which Sparebank were forced to publicly admit their mistake and promise to take more responsibility in future.

The lesson? New capacities created by AI tools might seem great on paper, saving time and money and helping to bring new creative ideas to life. However, if they contravene legislation or prevailing social norms, the best intentions can quickly backfire. 

Respecting privacy with AI technologies

How many people are currently using ChatGPT at work, unaware that information entered into its prompt box is technically in the public domain? 

With most companies building their AI tools on the back of third-party machine learning algorithms, complex issues are raised around data protection and privacy. Without proper assessment and training, well-meaning employees may end up breaching GDPR and other data-protection regulations without realising. 

Until regulators and legislators catch up with AI technologies and provide clear and unambiguous guidelines, this is a potential minefield for brand reputation. 

Companies need to take care not to intrude into their customer and employee’s private lives in ways that overstep reasonable boundaries. 

Consider that, as tools get more powerful, brands will be able to advertise and persuade us with increasingly subtle and powerful strategies. Where is the line drawn between personalised, data-driven marketing and outright manipulation? 

Or consider that there is at least one AI wellbeing tool in development that purports to allow companies to track productivity alongside employee wellbeing. All good – but what if the algorithm shows that employee productivity drops beyond a certain degree of wellbeing?  

These might be speculations, but they could very soon become realities. As the famous theorist Paul Virilio once remarked,  “the invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.” 

Companies need to tread carefully to ensure that good intentions don’t accidentally lead to intrusive or manipulative practices, which, once publicly exposed, will meet with an understandable and expected backlash. 

Implementing ethical AI solutions 

With all this said, what can companies do to minimise the risk and maximise the value that AI can contribute to customers, employees, and society?

We can begin with a simple principle of humility. Despite our best attempts to guess, no-one knows for certain what the impact of AI will be. As we saw with Sparebank, what likely began as a reasonable business intention – “let’s use these new tools to save time and money” – quickly turned into a public scandal. 

Sparebank quickly admitted it got it wrong, which may in the long run work to its favour. In times of uncertainty and change, transparency and honesty go a long way towards (re)building trust. 

Brand teams should keep this in mind. Over the coming years, more companies are likely to have their reputations tested as they experiment with AI technologies. The most successful will find ways to innovate, while maintaining respect for their customers and sensitivity to when ethical lines are crossed. 

Creating an ethical charter is one way that companies can ensure their intentions are aligned with positive societal outcomes. An ethical charter defines clear values for how AI should be used, providing a framework for decision making when boundaries get murky and regulations aren’t much use. 

Papirfly’s ethical charter, for example, covers four major principles:

  • Be a good corporate citizen when it comes to the rightful privacy of our users
  • Ensure we act in an unbiased manner – always – as we’d expect to be treated too
  • Build in the highest level of explainability possible, because output is important
  • Overall, our task is simple – we must build technology that is designed to do good

Within each of these principles are further specific guidelines for how AI should be built and used within our business. 

Naturally, ethical charters will vary from company to company to reflect their specific needs and markets. The aim should be to create a strong company culture, laying the foundations for ethical decision making and a reputation that customers can always trust. 

Towards an AI powered future

Artificial intelligence depends on responsible humans making clear decisions within strong ethical frameworks. 

To learn about how Papirfly is ethically innovating the challenges of branding and AI, check out these links. 

At Papirfly, we are committed to using AI to enhance every user’s experience, all while continuing to empower the world’s biggest brands with our all-in-one brand management platform. 

Learn about how Papirfly is ethically innovating the challenges of branding and AI.

Brand consistencyLeave a Comment on BOOsting brand consistency in your Halloween marketing

BOOsting brand consistency in your Halloween marketing

Something wicked this way comes. While Halloween is a thrilling time for marketers to get into the spooky spirit of the season to frighten and delight their customers, an ever-lurking fear lies behind every door in branding and marketing departments – how can our marketing stand out while not compromising brand identity? 

Creating a Halloween marketing campaign can feel like walking through a haunted house – you’re excited when you step through the door but constantly waiting for something to jump out at you. In some ways, a brand at Halloween is just like a party costume – you can tell the meticulous planners when people have been busy preparing for weeks or when someone has simply ‘thrown on a cobweb’ to look the part.

In this article, grab a shovel and dig up some insights to consider, as you cast the perfect spell to unleash your teams’ creativity while staying on-brand – and a reminder to give every location the bag of tricks to help support global brand consistency on your next creepy campaign.

The magic spell of brand guidelines 

Any go-to-market campaign hinges on collaboration, especially when seasonal events, such as Halloween, mean getting playful within the limits of your brand guidelines. Your brand must still stay intact, so your in-house design team or external agency need to investigate this mystery with you – and figure out how you can play to your super-strengths.

Achieving synergy across everything that makes up your core brand identity – colours, tone of voice, logos, assets and more – is essential to maintain recognition and increase engagement. Every brand is different, so considering each one of these essential ingredients is key to casting the perfect spell.

Beware of brand colour transformations

Your logo is the most important of your brand assets. It’s the visual cue that sparks instant recognition with your audience, and could be considered the most potent ingredient in your brand identity’s potion to enchant your customers. Misusing or making too many drastic changes might scare away the chance for brand recognition, leaving you haunted by a campaign that didn’t quite create the magical results you were after.

While it can be tempting to change your logo with seasonal imagery and a different colour palette – orange and black being the obvious choice – you need to make sure that it’s suitable for your brand identity and tone of voice. Google, for example, can go ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’, and transform with ease. Complementary adjustments can be made to the website logo with significant effect, as it’s actually part of the tech giant’s playful brand identity to change with the seasons – an event in itself.

Meanwhile other brands can protect their frightening strong status as they play with their brand reputation. Marmite, for example, is known for having an acquired taste. The savoury UK food spread, based on its distinctive yeast extract flavour, famously plays with its ‘Love it or hate it’ slogan – making it the perfect ‘Trick or Treat’ product.

Bringing in new colours for its limited edition Halloween packaging, its iconic logo of white letters on red and jar-and-lid’s yellow and black colour scheme offer a playful way to go-to-market during the spooky season.

No matter what you and your creepy and collaborative team decide, make sure everyone working on your brand knows what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Providing essential brand assets to all marketing teams and partners can ensure people are empowered to bring your brand to life in a new way at Halloween – without feeling it’s been put together like Frankenstein’s monster. Create brand consistency all year round and put the picture of your brand together so your teams can animate and activate it everywhere.

Be frighteningly good with your brand’s reputation

Your dream Halloween campaign can be a nightmare if you do not stay on-brand and consistent during your campaigns. In order for the aspects of your brand identity to agree to “stay close and don’t split up” you need to know how customers perceive your brand – carefully selecting the right tone and language for your campaign that compliment your products or services to have a hypnotic effect on your audience. 

Of course, product name changes are all the rage at this time of year. ‘Boo-scotch’ M&M’s. ‘Scream’ Ice Cream from Ben & Jerry. Starbucks’ ‘Frappula Frappuccino’. All delightfully dark, while other wordplay like ‘Trick or treat yourself’ and ‘Fangtastic savings’ are used by many online and high street brands.

Big brands’ marketing departments love to hear screams of delight from their customers at this time of year. So much so, customers can eagerly await to see what new tricks the marketing magicians behind some of the world’s most famous names will do each year – and we are often delighted by the surprises they have in store. 

In fact, some iconic brands use minimal wordplay as they really know how to use the right imagery to awaken the spirit of their product:

It’s clear when brands have considered all aspects of their brand identity to deliver amazing assets at Halloween. Whatever’s being cooked up in the creative cauldron, make sure all digital assets are in one place – so every team can take away the breath of their audience. 

Avoid facing a cultural nuance nightmare

Each region your brand operates in may do Halloween differently. With Halloween culture, stories and themes must speak to local tastes. While one nation may embrace particular Hollywood horror characters, others may conjure up more of a witchcraft and wizardry atmosphere.

Of course, it’s important to be aware which countries do something different to Halloween too and to not assume your global creative ideas will work everywhere. For example, in Latin America, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is a celebration of life and death and not a cultural ‘version’ of Halloween – besides, they are celebrated on different days, with the region seeing Halloween as more for children than the wider culture. It matters to make sure you know your audience and prepare your teams to speak to them seasonally in their own way.

Fanta Misterio was a bewitching blend from Coca Cola that managed to walk between the two worlds in the runup to both celebrations. Playing on words like ‘fantasma’ – the word for ‘ghost’ in Spanish – shows the wisdom of the Fanta brand to balance global identity with regional resonance, to enchant audiences with spooky puns wherever they are.

Your global campaign must be able to speak to its audience locally, or teams must create different campaigns that appeal to the nuances (and nightmares) of their neighbourhood.

Empowering teams to create unlimited customisable assets in their own language, or adding specific elements only locals would appreciate, can mean everyone can get some sleep knowing the brand is safe and sound. Not having such solutions, and leaving teams to use free online tools that won’t align marketing materials to brand guidelines, could be the thing that goes bump in your bottom line.

Let brand consistency lift your spirits

While crafting Halloween marketing materials may seem like a terrifying task, remember that having a smart creative team, with tools at your disposal to make sure the horror of diluting your brand never sees the light of day, can make this a frighteningly fun time of year for marketing teams and customers.

If you’ve been haunted by the realisation that you weren’t fully prepared this year, see how our brand management platform can empower your team to efficiently activate your brand in every location, and for every seasonal event – so get set for a fiendishly delightful Halloween, year after year.

Digital Asset Management / DAMLeave a Comment on Your 7 steps to Digital Asset Management success

Your 7 steps to Digital Asset Management success

A Digital Asset Management system (DAM) shouldn’t be complicated – it’s a single source of truth across your organisation, and so should be simple to search and share all official on-brand assets.

With a little preparation and planning, your organisation should quickly see the benefits of DAM, when you discover a solution which saves time, improves your ability to create and share digital assets, and enables consistently high-quality customer experiences. 

In this article, we will introduce you to what you need to consider before investing in, and implementing, DAM software.

1. Understand why you need a digital asset management system

Before you start the process of acquiring and setting up a DAM system, you need to carefully consider why you need it.

It’s important that you take the time to think through your DAM challenges and needs, as these will influence your investment. If you cut corners here, you could end up with an inefficient and ineffective solution – just a shiny new object that makes up part of an expensive wider ecosystem, consuming resources without saving time or improving brand asset management.

Once you have a clear picture of why you need a DAM solution, you should do a thorough analysis to establish what the best outcome would be. Consider questions like:

  • Does this system help us reach our project goals?
  • Does this system meet our expectations?
  • How does this fit with the rest of my tech stack?
  • How do we ensure the system has long-term sustainability?
  • How do we ensure the implementation goes smoothly?

2. Establish a proper DAM team

Just as important is making sure you have the right people collaborating. It takes a dedicated team with knowledge and input from multiple departments to implement a strong Digital Asset Management solution.

The team must have ownership of the DAM system from start to finish, setting them up for long-term commitment. For the best outcome, it’s recommended to include colleagues from across your organisation’s production and service operations, to ensure you cover a wide range of expertise.

The team should consist of:

  • DAM initiative leader
  • DAM librarians
  • DAM infrastructure lead
  • Project manager
  • Project steering group

3. Use existing data and digital content

Don’t make the mistake of testing with a “dummy” system. Use your actual data, brand assets and creative files throughout the entire process. If you don’t, you’ll risk building a DAM solution that overlooks critical functionality and workflow needs.

Real data and content gives you the full picture and helps you make the right decisions without making assumptions. 

The following questions will help you to build a system that will offer the full benefits of DAM:

  • Does the system take the file formats we are using?
  • Can the system handle our file sizes?
  • Does the system perform seamlessly with other products?
  • What data is being transferred from the current to the new system?
  • How is the data being transferred?

4. Learn the DAM system early

Your DAM system should serve as a digital library for your brand. Having good knowledge of how a DAM platform should work, and how your specific asset management software will look and function, will prepare you to ask the right questions and perform better analyses during the build process. This means making sure your chosen vendor has an excellent Customer Success team to support you.

The DAM team and investment managers should aim to create a system that offers value from the moment it is launched. By learning how a Digital Asset Management platform should work, you’ll be better project owners, making it easier to get the most out of your DAM software over time. As with anything, knowledge drives optimisation.

5. Prepare thoroughly

It bears emphasising – don’t just copy your existing workflows and structures. Take the opportunity to properly analyse how you are producing and storing marketing materials, and evaluate if anything needs reform. 

A great DAM solution should meet your company’s present needs and expectations as well as its future aspirations. Upgrading your tech stack without improving your processes and workflows will likely result in increased costs and confused employees, without saving time or increasing efficiency.

Make your investment count and set yourself up for success by creating a system that reflects your initial intentions. The goal should be a tangible improvement in how creative files and brand assets are being used across the organisation.

The following checklist will help you prepare and optimise your DAM system implementation:

  • Can we streamline our workflows?
  • Can we eliminate tasks that don’t add value?
  • Can we connect the DAM to key branding and marketing operations?
  • Can we remove bottlenecks?
  • Can we establish a sustainable system for our organisation?

6. Think again about customisations

Only customise your DAM software if strictly necessary. Any customisation can increase the likelihood of software bugs, slow down performance, and may make the system less user-friendly.

The more generic your system is, the better it will perform over the long run. Trust your DAM solution provider’s expertise to set up a system that is optimal for your organisation. Simplicity reduces maintenance costs further down the line.

7. Implement step-by-step

Plan and implement effective project management. Dividing your project into phases and implementing them one at a time will ensure you have control of the entire process.

By working step-by-step on your Digital Asset Management solution, you can identify issues or unexpected results as they arise and address them before you proceed to the next phase. The risks of project overwhelm, and of wasting resources on firefighting, are minimised.

Gradually introducing your DAM software to select users in a timely and controlled manner also allows you to handle the training properly. It enables you to see how the system will work when complete, and gives you opportunities to improve your training as you go.

Digital Asset Management with Papirfly

At the centre of Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform is a powerful, cloud-based DAM system called Place – a powerful single source of truth for your brand management needs. It expands on the traditional functionality of a DAM as it works with a seamless UI across our product suite. With your own brand portal educating your people on brand guidelines, as well as on-brand design templates that means you can ensure your DAM is at the heart of digital content creation, and your teams achieve total brand consistency every time. 

Curious to see the value our DAM as part of our brand management platform can add to your organisation? Book a demo with us to see how you can empower your people to unleash your brand.

Brand managementLeave a Comment on How to build a strong brand reputation with brand management software

How to build a strong brand reputation with brand management software

It’s no secret – in today’s business environment, reputation matters. Customers demand quality, engagement, and long term satisfaction, and the brands that can deliver succeed. But building a strong, authentic brand reputation, especially with so many competing tools and opinions on the market, is no easy feat.

In this article we will explore how brand management software can help your company create a brand reputation that stands out from the crowd and reflects the core of your mission and purpose. 

What is brand reputation management? 

In the simplest terms, brand reputation encompasses what people think, feel and know about your brand. These people include your customers, your employees, your professional partners, and others who interact with the brand, whether indirectly or directly. Brand reputation is not something simply established and then left to stand on its own – it requires constant monitoring, engagement, and adjustment. 

To manage and maintain a strong brand reputation, your company needs to ensure that what it says about itself – its history, mission, vision, culture, and priorities – align with how your brand’s visuals, messaging, and products interact with the world. 

Your teams also need to embed brand strategies, processes and workflows to ensure that as markets and values shift, the customer experience stays relevant and meaningful. All of this while still delivering consistent quality and customer service where it matters most. 

Why does brand reputation matter? 

Research consistently shows that brand reputation impacts the bottom line. For example, a recent Gartner study showed that up to 64% of customers are more willing to pay a premium price for a company’s products and services when they feel a high sense of connection with its brand. 

Brand reputation

Another study, examining brand review sites, found that over one third of customers would only consider doing business with brands that have a rating of 4 out of 5 stars or higher. The same study found that 94% of customers had avoided a business on the basis of reading a bad review. 

In short, customers actively use both their own and public perceptions of a brand when making purchasing decisions. And in the digital environment, with so many touchpoints for engaging with your brand assets, both through your own channels and third-party platforms, every interaction could mean the difference between a happy customer and a frustrated one. 

A great brand reputation doesn’t only impact revenue and customer loyalty, however. It could also be the deciding factor in the type of talent you attract and retain. Great employees want great places to work in, and their initial brand perception will be an important factor when applying for open positions with your company. 

With so much at stake, it’s never been so important to know how to build brand awareness and brand recognition, and to have the tools to enable it. 

Crafting a strong brand reputation 

Your brand’s reputation is a core intangible asset. The first step to establishing it is defining an instantly recognisable brand identity that stands out from the crowd. This should reflect your brand’s mission, vision and goals, and encompass visuals, language usage, tone of voice, design styles, and the types of channels you engage with. 

For example, an ambitious environmentally-conscious startup, a high-end luxury lifestyle product, and an established international retailer will necessarily have very different brand marketing strategies and social media content plans. The important thing is to ensure your brand, brand collateral and marketing teams seamlessly reflect and communicate your identity. 

Once your brand identity is established, consistency is key. Every communication, every campaign, every conversation involving your brand should reflect the brand mission. Inconsistencies, miscommunications and errors all project an image of unprofessionalism and carelessness, and – unsurprisingly – are likely to drive people towards your competitors. 

A clear and unambiguous brand strategy is also a must. As world-renowned business strategy expert Richard Rumelt explains, a good strategy is not a list of high-flying ideals and value statements, but a diagnosis of a real challenge, tied to clear, coherent policies and well-defined actions and expected outcomes. 

Along these lines, a great brand strategy should inform your people exactly how and when to use brand assets, where to find brand guidelines and tools, and how to respond effectively to the unexpected. 

Underpinning brand reputation with brand management software

In order to establish and maintain your brand’s reputation, you need tools that are  fit-for-purpose. A brand management solution offers the capabilities, guidelines and training necessary to design and project a world-class brand image and execute an effective brand strategy. It also gives you everything you need to create a high-flying culture of brand advocacy, attracting and empowering great people to do great work. 

As we have seen, consistency is key in producing high quality brand marketing – repetition makes reputation. Brand management software gives you a single source of truth for your brand assets, ensuring that every time employees access brand materials, they are up to date, accurate, and in accordance with brand guidelines. 

At the same time, a shared brand platform enables flexibility and creativity, ensuring that every asset is fine-tuned to local contexts and its intended audience. Brand consistency is guaranteed, without impeding local understanding. 

Brand management tools also enable you to design, monitor, and revise workflows, improving efficiency and breaking down communication barriers and bottlenecks. Your brand strategy need not be a dusty graphic lying in a forgotten powerpoint presentation from several years ago – it can be an active system of brand guidelines and practices embedded in the very structure and design of your organisation. 

With a good brand management solution, educational materials, approval structures, communication channels and sharing folders are all built into a shared brand platform, ensuring that brand campaigns can be executed and crises managed with confidence and skill. 

Last but not least, with strong strategic brand management practices in place, ideal customers and employees are more likely to be drawn to your organisation, attracted by the clarity of the brand and the quality of its public engagement. Customers return to brands that they trust, and employees advocate for brands with bold visions that resonate throughout their companies’ internal branding practices. 

Establishing a trusted brand

Building your brand’s reputation takes time and dedication, but the results are worth it. A brand management platform will enable and support you in this process, giving your company the tools and capabilities it needs to empower its team members and stakeholders, establish a clear and memorable brand identity, and implement effective branding strategies. 

If you are interested in learning more about brand management solutions with Papirfly, discover our all-in-one platform.

how to build customer-based brand equity