Chief marketing officers and other marketing managers rightfully see themselves as guardians of their company’s brands. They obsess about maintaining the integrity of their brands and ensuring that brand messaging and presentation are globally consistent and always supportive of the brand promise.
Managing brand communication assets effectively and efficiently has become an increasingly difficult challenge, particularly for marketers in large global enterprises. The job has become more difficult because the number of communication assets that marketers must manage has exploded.
Several factors have contributed to this explosive growth.
- The proliferation of brand SKU’s — Many companies are adding new products (or product variations) on a regular basis. Consider, for example, something as simple as toothpaste. We now have toothpaste that whitens teeth, toothpaste that eliminates bad breath, and toothpaste that kills the bacteria that cause gingivitis. Not all varieties of products require unique marketing assets, but many do.
- The need to localize brand messaging and materials — Marketers now recognize that creating marketing messages and materials for local audiences will increase relevance and improve effectiveness. Global enterprises face even greater challenges when it comes to localizing content. They must, for example, provide marketing messages and materials in multiple languages, and they often need to make other changes to address cultural sensibilities. The result is multiple versions of messages and materials and more marketing assets to manage.
Perhaps the single greatest driver of the growth of brand communication assets is the proliferation of marketing channels. Today, both consumers and business buyers use a variety of communication channels to obtain information about products and services. In addition to traditional channels such as television, radio, newspapers, and magazines, potential customers expect to be able to obtain product information via desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The need to maintain consistent brand messaging and presentation across diverse communication channels with differing format and content requirements multiplies the number of brand assets that must be created and managed.
In this increasingly complex environment, effective and efficient brand asset management is impossible without the right technology tools. Some software firms now offer what they call brand asset management software to meet this need. In our view, however, brand asset management is a business function, not a distinct technology.
To implement an effective brand asset management system, you need two core technologies.
- Digital asset management software that enables you to catalog, store, find, retrieve, re-use, and repurpose brand communication assets and provide controlled access to these assets.
- Business process/workflow management software that enables you to design, deploy, and automate the processes used to approve brand communication assets themselves and the finished marketing messages and materials that incorporate those assets.
Brand asset management is a vital marketing function in today’s multichannel marketing environment. With the right technology tools, you can perform this essential function effectively and efficiently.
This post was also published on the Adam Software blog. . .
