Until
recently, companies derived most of their value from physical
assets: Inventory, patents, buildings, furniture, equipment,
vehicles, and the like were at least stirred into the pot and
seasoned with a dash of something called brand.
Don't get
us wrong: It's not that brand hasn't always been important. In
fact, names like Sears, Ford, United, RCA, and Disney exemplified
trusted brands long before Calvin Klein flashed onto Levi Strauss'
open range selling glamour packaged as blue jeans. It's just that
today--in the virtual age of the
Web--brand is everything.
It's an asset--and companies need to manage their digital
brand as such.
eCommerce
and Branding
We all
know and understand a brand is more than just a logo and a color
scheme. In business speak, it's defined as "a core value
proposition." In plain English, that means it's a promise of
trust a company makes to its customers-and one that must be
reinforced at every turn.
In
the traditional sense, it extends beyond continuity in logos,
letterhead, business cards, style sheets, ads, and slogans to
employee uniforms, product packaging, fast-food napkins, airline
seat fabric, and even restroom tidiness. All of these things
ineffably meld into an experience that causes customers to visit,
purchase, tell their friends, and hopefully return for more. The
most obvious additional component defining the consumer experience
today is e-commerce.
Digital
Branding and The Consumer Experience:
As more and more consumers feel comfortable browsing
the web, shopping, and seeking entertainment online, marketers
have adopted digital brand as their mantra.
After all,
the consumer can't touch it, smell it, or taste it across the
Internet. What they can do, however, is experience it- albeit with
a completely different aesthetic than that offered by the sensory
experience of a storefront. And with the next distraction--or
competitor--only a click away, the stakes are high for companies
to acquire and maintain customer service, trust and loyalty via a
virtual presence.
Digital
branding, however, is not just about e-commerce. Many companies do
business in both the physical and virtual worlds. Virtually all of
this content is now created digitally. Hence, digital branding
spans everything from the simplest paper form to the most
ambitious Web site and TV campaign.
Digital
Branding and Central Control
One of the
hallmarks of digital branding is central control, whether by
in-house designers or ad agencies or by the newer phenomenon of
dedicated branding firms. It's just this type of control that the
features of digital asset management tools--such as security,
versioning, check-in/check-out, and approval tracking--are
designed to address.
(see diagram of
digital asset management system below)
Digital
Branding and Asset Management
Asset
management is also critical in planning. In the age of buyouts,
mergers, and mega-corporations, many organizations can't fit all
of their products into a boardroom. Conglomerates producing lines
of mainstream consumables are swimming not only in brands but also
in variations on a theme. Regular. Extra large. Family size.
Twelve-pack. Lemon-scented. Mint-flavored. Bonus offer inside. The
list goes on.
Designers,
engineers, and marketers alike can use digital asset management to
assimilate:
-
the
entire scope of what enterprise-wide they're already branding,
so
-
they can
make intelligent decisions in developing and branding new
products
Adherence
to brand continuity and guidelines is especially critical in large
companies where managers from different departments sometimes
never even talk to one another. In such situations, it's possible
to break a brand promise while spending millions on a television
campaign. Once again, asset management can come to the rescue.
Asset
management can also help streamline the approval process during
asset design. Web access makes it possible for clients, brand
managers, and designers to interact electronically through the
various stages of an asset's design--until all finally sign off on
the asset. Date stamped. Time stamped. Even CPU stamped.
Digital
Asset Management
Digital
asset management is just as important in controlling brand usage
as it is in brand creation. Car manufacturers, suppliers of
consumer goods, and fast-food chains, for example, all need to
think about preserving brand identity as it trickles down to
dealerships, retailers, franchisees and the consumer for local
use. Everyone needs to be on the same page, especially at critical
junctures such as:
-
Product
launches,
-
Ad
campaign kickoffs, and
-
Corporate
identity changes
NOT
a problem when all of these assets are being managed and processed
centrally and accessed remotely via the Internet and
extranets.
Similarly,
tracking proper permissions and brand adherence in the licensing
of entertainment and sports figures and properties provides yet
another use for these sophisticated tools.
How many venues have you seen images or action figures for the
upcoming movie Shrek? Are any of these being centrally controlled
or tracked?
Digital
Asset Management and Finance
Perhaps
most importantly, digital asset management can be employed as a
financial tool to determine what's entailed in creating and
maintaining a brand's promise of trust.
-
Does
it exist, or does it need to be created?
-
How
much did an asset cost to create?
-
Who
touched it and for how long?
-
What
department can it be charged back to?
-
What
was the return on investment?
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