This is the fifth video in the series of Widen customer interviews with Jason Barinaga, Manager of eCommerce Initiatives, at Oceania Cruises, Inc. In this video, Jason talks about why they made the decision to go with a web-based digital asset management software solution because it supports what they wanted to do on the website and allows anyone, anywhere, at any time access to approved digital assets through their secured web portal. Even Oceania’s internal teams were in support of the SaaS-based brand asset management solution. While security is always a factor in deciding to implement brand asset management technologies, Oceania Cruises wanted to make sure that there was a certain percentage of uptime for their customers, but more importantly they wanted to ensure all brand assets and promotional materials were backed up and secure. Watch the video to learn more about overcoming security concerns with web-based digital asset management software.
Widen Enterprises has released Widen Media Collective® Version 5.5 with its Summer 2010 update to the flagship Software as a Service product for digital asset management (DAM).
Watch the video to learn about the new features and updates with the Widen Collective 5.5 Release.
Updates to the core Digital Asset Management application include search improvements with exact phrase search, stemming support for singular versus plural metatags and the ability to exclude full text search of Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF documents. The search results sort by “file format” function has been added to group assets of the same file type. Video Asset Management improvements were made to include FFMPEG video transcoding for faster video processing and automatic alternate still previews for embed links videos.
The Dynamic Media Building ad and brochure template building application included updates to allow text blocks to have different font and font colors based on end user selections during the build process. This allows one template to be uploaded with the flexibility for different branding. End users can also upload their own image (if the template allows) during the build process.
Updates to Project Collaboration include the ability to Add Notes on image projects. Notes can be added any place on an image. Multiple notes can be added by all users on the route and are reviewed by the owner(s) of the project. All notes added to or removed from the image are tracked with Project Details.
For more specific information about the Widen Media Collective and 5.5 release visit: http://www.widencollective.com.
Digital Asset Management technologies have become essential to efficient and effective marketing operations in 2010 and beyond. DAM is linked to having a direct impact over the top marketing priorities for 2010.
Anderson Analytics recently performed a study that measured, among other things, the importance of various marketing trends to top marketing executives such as Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). The “Marketing Trends Report 2010” survey was completed between January 11, 2010 and February 8, 2010 by respondents who are members of Marketing Executives Networking Group, hold a position of Vice President or higher and have a minimum base salary of $160,000. The survey showed that the top priorities of the executives are: Marketing ROI, Customer Retention, Brand Loyalty, Positioning/Differentiation, Branding, Customer Satisfaction and Social Media.
It's interesting to note that Digital Asset Management (DAM) can have an important impact on each of these priorities specified by the top marketing executives themselves. DAM software addresses these priorities by providing a central repository for digital media files and a set of tools to store, manage the approval of, find and convert these files to increase their value in the marketing process. DAM systems also make complete or selected subsets of the organization's digital media resources easily available to authorized users such as sales representatives, channel members, the media, etc. These capabilities can have a far-ranging impact on the marketing organization and the enterprise as a whole.
Download the white paper to learn more about how Digital Asset Management can assist with:
Anderson Analytics recently performed a study that measured, among other things, the importance of various marketing trends to top marketing executives such as Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs). The “Marketing Trends Report 2010” survey was completed between January 11, 2010 and February 8, 2010 by respondents who are members of Marketing Executives Networking Group, hold a position of Vice President or higher and have a minimum base salary of $160,000. The survey showed that the top priorities of the executives are: Marketing ROI, Customer Retention, Brand Loyalty, Positioning/Differentiation, Branding, Customer Satisfaction and Social Media.
Slide 14 of the 2010 Marketing Trends Study by Anderson Analytics showing the top marketing buzzwords or trends most important to marketing executives. View the full PowerPoint on SlideShare
It's interesting to note that Digital Asset Management (DAM) can have an important impact on each of these priorities specified by the top marketing executives themselves. DAM software addresses these priorities by providing a central repository for digital media files and a set of tools to store, manage the approval of, find and convert these files to increase their value in the marketing process. DAM systems also make complete or selected subsets of the organization's digital media resources easily available to authorized users such as sales representatives, channel members, the media, etc. These capabilities can have a far-ranging impact on the marketing organization and the enterprise as a whole.
Download the white paper to learn more about how Digital Asset Management can assist with:
- Increasing return on marketing investments
- Raising customer retention rates
- Improving brand loyalty and brand consistency
- Positioning and differentiating products
- Increasing customer satisfaction
We realize all customers need assistance when it comes to the ongoing success of their Digital Asset Management implementation. Watch the video to learn more about Widen’s approach to digital asset management as a service.
In the video, I discuss how the most successful digital asset management deployments start with a very candid conversation to identify the objectives for managing and distributing digital assets. Then, we’ll work with you to create a long-term vision for what’s to be accomplished. We do not manage projects in terms of feature by feature requests. Our mission is to understand your objectives and work with you to create a plan by leveraging our expertise in the DAM space.
How are you going to prove that DAM is going to work for your company? What are you going to do to provide a very clear ROI to your management team? As we’ve done for many successful DAM deployments, we will paint a clear, long-term picture of how our product direction aligns with your vision, while executing in the short term to get the brand under control by centralizing all digital media assets used by the marketing organization. With Widen being a DAM Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, you get the benefit of being on a platform with over one hundred other customers sharing in the same universal functionality to achieve the purposes of meeting their long-term vision.
Widen still recognizes there are certain cases where customers have unique requirements and workflows requiring additional functionality and, oftentimes, customization. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. How do we handle those cases? We still start those customers at the basic brand management level because that platform is consistent with the DAM needs for all customers and users. If requirements are unique and a different level of customization is required to meet specific needs, then we will break you away from the pack of all the other customers on the same universal functionality. We know what works and what doesn’t in DAM and it’s our mission to provide you with the service and technology that proves ongoing success.
In the video, I discuss how the most successful digital asset management deployments start with a very candid conversation to identify the objectives for managing and distributing digital assets. Then, we’ll work with you to create a long-term vision for what’s to be accomplished. We do not manage projects in terms of feature by feature requests. Our mission is to understand your objectives and work with you to create a plan by leveraging our expertise in the DAM space.
How are you going to prove that DAM is going to work for your company? What are you going to do to provide a very clear ROI to your management team? As we’ve done for many successful DAM deployments, we will paint a clear, long-term picture of how our product direction aligns with your vision, while executing in the short term to get the brand under control by centralizing all digital media assets used by the marketing organization. With Widen being a DAM Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, you get the benefit of being on a platform with over one hundred other customers sharing in the same universal functionality to achieve the purposes of meeting their long-term vision.
Widen still recognizes there are certain cases where customers have unique requirements and workflows requiring additional functionality and, oftentimes, customization. There are advantages and disadvantages to this. How do we handle those cases? We still start those customers at the basic brand management level because that platform is consistent with the DAM needs for all customers and users. If requirements are unique and a different level of customization is required to meet specific needs, then we will break you away from the pack of all the other customers on the same universal functionality. We know what works and what doesn’t in DAM and it’s our mission to provide you with the service and technology that proves ongoing success.
Names are a big deal with marketing and creative groups; especially when it comes to the everyday business systems and applications you depend on to do your job. Choosing a name for your digital asset management system is key to a successful deployment in building user adoption internally and externally. Not all users of your DAM system will understand what “Digital Asset Management” is, so it’s common to choose a different, more identifiable name. This post will help you understand how to go about naming your digital asset management tool and provide some helpful ways of building a short list of possible names.Best practices in naming your Digital Asset Management System:
- Choose a name that fits the department or functional area leading the project – e.g. marketing communications, creative, public relations, sales, etc.
- Choose a name that fits the primary group(s) of users of the system – internal or external – e.g. marketing partners, sales channels, dealers, etc.
- Choose a name that fits the types of assets that are most common – e.g. images, photos, videos, and marketing materials. If it’s all of the above, use a more general term such as media or brand assets.
- Choose a name that fits your organization, brand(s) or mission. ** The most important best practice because your DAM solution is the single point of management and access to your brand assets.
- Be Creative – Names that are catchy and fun are easier to remember.
- Be Realistic – Names that fit the purpose of the system set clear expectations.
- Be Memorable – Names that are easy to remember improve frequency of use.
- Be Simple – KISS. (You all know what that means...) Confusion turns users away.
Chart for Picking a Two-Word Name for your DAM System:
| Asset Type Descriptor | System Type Descriptor |
| Brand | Bank |
| Creative | Collection |
| Digital | Database |
| Image | Resource |
| Marketing | Tool |
| Media | Library |
| Photo | Toolkit |
| Video | Source |
| Gallery | |
| Portal | |
| Collective | |
| System | |
| Center |
Sample Two-word Names (Not including the Customer/Brand name):
Creative Library, Digital Gallery, Digital Toolkit, Image Library, Marketing Library, Marketing Toolbox, Media Database, Media Library, Media Source, Partner Portal
Sample Three-word Names (Not including the Customer/Brand name):
Brand Asset Library, Creative Resource Bank, Digital Image Gallery, Digital Media Library, Image Management System, Marketing Resource Center, Video Asset Library
Take the tour of the Widen Media Collective DAM Demo Site > Request a Login >
Use Registration Code “collective” when you fill in the required information.
Use Registration Code “collective” when you fill in the required information.
The Widen Media Collective® Brand Name
Media Collective® is the trademarked name for the Widen digital asset management software suite and serves as the default name for Widen customer DAM systems unless you choose your own. Generally, the name will appear in the title of the web-based DAM system, login screen and header within the application. The standard web address is https://customer.widencollective.com.
What if we want a vanity web address?
There is no cost to select a custom name, however additional charges may apply for maintaining a custom vanity URL. Here’s an explanation of the vanity web address options:
Vanity Web Address Redirect: Organizations not wishing to use the standard web address of https://customer.widencollective.com may opt for a vanity web address that is redirected to the standard address. For example, you can direct users to http://WidenMediaCollective.com and they will be redirected to https://demo.widencollective.com when they arrive on the page.
Vanity Web Address: Organizations not wishing to use the standard web address of https://customer.widencollective.com may opt for a vanity web address that is NOT redirected to the standard address. For example, you can direct users to https://WidenMediaCollective.com and that will remain the core part of the URL string throughout their use of the system.
We’re SaaSing back at the conventional wisdom of IT because DAM doesn’t need to be so difficult! Read our article in today’s ECM Connection newsletter--SaaSing Back without Getting Smacked. Here's a bit from that article...
Gartner put out a report in 2008 that indicated the SaaS model has become increasingly popular during the last three to four years. The report said more than 40% of organizations have used SaaS for more than three years and nearly 90% of organizations surveyed expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS, citing the following as primary reasons for adoption:
Immediate Deployment
SaaS services are immediately usable and begin returning on the investment immediately.
Service is Just as Important as Technology
Service providers supply implementation, training, software, integration, maintenance, upgrades, and support as part of the total package and are staffed to handle each component themselves.
Infinite Scalability
Software-as-a-service providers are already geared up to handle scalability so when you need to go from 100GB to 100TB, even for 24 hours, you can do it and only pay for what you use.
Lower Price Points and Total Cost of Ownership
Service providers are sharing in the power of user communities, shared technology, and innovation to keep costs down and price points that make installed software pricing look ridiculous. Also, no additional resources needed in a complete software-as-a-service model. No extra IT maintenance is required.
It’s the start of a new month, new quarter and new victories to be had… Are you ready to start increasing your Marketing ROI with Digital Asset Management?
When marketing teams implement Digital Asset Management software technologies to centralize, repurpose and track marketing and brand assets, they’re better equipped to:
Widen makes it simple because 100% DAM SaaS provides you with a guided implementation (including training), automatic upgrades, and powerful web-based DAM without the burden on your internal IT resources.
We’ve reloaded our Demo site and invite you to check it out! Get acquainted with web based digital asset management and take the tour on your own.
Gartner put out a report in 2008 that indicated the SaaS model has become increasingly popular during the last three to four years. The report said more than 40% of organizations have used SaaS for more than three years and nearly 90% of organizations surveyed expect to maintain or grow their usage of SaaS, citing the following as primary reasons for adoption:
Immediate Deployment
SaaS services are immediately usable and begin returning on the investment immediately.
Service is Just as Important as Technology
Service providers supply implementation, training, software, integration, maintenance, upgrades, and support as part of the total package and are staffed to handle each component themselves.
Infinite Scalability
Software-as-a-service providers are already geared up to handle scalability so when you need to go from 100GB to 100TB, even for 24 hours, you can do it and only pay for what you use.
Lower Price Points and Total Cost of Ownership
Service providers are sharing in the power of user communities, shared technology, and innovation to keep costs down and price points that make installed software pricing look ridiculous. Also, no additional resources needed in a complete software-as-a-service model. No extra IT maintenance is required.
It’s the start of a new month, new quarter and new victories to be had… Are you ready to start increasing your Marketing ROI with Digital Asset Management?
When marketing teams implement Digital Asset Management software technologies to centralize, repurpose and track marketing and brand assets, they’re better equipped to:
- Maintain brand consistency and compliance across all media channels and selling channels in different geographic markets
- Reduce time to market with new campaigns by finding existing materials quickly and easily in ready-to-go file formats appropriate for the intended purpose
- Eliminate redundancies creating and distributing assets by reducing the need to recreate lost assets or depend on slower, manual processes for sending files
- Get internal teams and external partners on the same page with access to the same library of marketing and sales materials, collaboration tools and collateral customization
Widen makes it simple because 100% DAM SaaS provides you with a guided implementation (including training), automatic upgrades, and powerful web-based DAM without the burden on your internal IT resources.
We’ve reloaded our Demo site and invite you to check it out! Get acquainted with web based digital asset management and take the tour on your own.
I’ll be the first to admit… Digital Asset Management is not that sexy. As a marketing guy, it’s hard to get excited about databases. However, the content stored in a DAM system is another story… Of all the content types, digital assets—particularly images and videos—got to be the sexiest! Consider the growth and popularity of online video... Gartner Predicts 25% of content in the workforce to be images, audio or video by 2013.I understand… you have a limited marketing budget so you’d rather spend that budget on things like social media, search engine optimization, video players and other “cool things.” Isn’t that convenient… Digital Asset Management is the backbone of your marketing efforts because it allows you to better find, manage and repurpose these assets that are the lifeblood of your marketing and promotion campaigns. Social media, digital asset optimization, and video marketing programs all use digital assets as a core part of the marketing message.
If you’re not sure you need DAM, then you may want to read my last post (Why we don’t need DAM…). I apologize for the overabundant use of sarcasm. Yes, small to medium-sized businesses need DAM just as much as marketing teams at Fortune 500 enterprises. And yes, there are still mid-market digital asset management solutions out there… few and far between… but they’re out there.
Step 1 – Admit you have a DAM problem. Step 2 – Seek help.
Now, more on making the case for digital asset management software in your marketing operations. Reference the recent eMarketer article “Marketers Buzz About ROI” that discusses the Marketing priorities for 2010. Many US marketing executives were planning to increase budgets this year as they were much more optimistic about the economic outlook in February 2010 than in 2009 when the recession was in full swing. However, that doesn’t come without scrutiny because the number one priority is focusing on ROI.
Priority #1: Increase Marketing Return on Investment —according to the “Marketing Trends Report 2010” from Anderson Analytics and the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG).
Priority #1 as it relates to DAM—explained. You’ve made investments in the creation of digital media—photo shoots, retouching, video shoots, editing, stock and rights-managed photography purchases, etc. You’ve made investments in assembling the destination points for your digital media—websites, blogs, social networks, advertising, promotions and print. Now, it’s time to invest in a digital asset management product that will help you realize a maximum return on those investments by getting greater use out of your digital assets. DAM tools make those assets easy to find, distribute, reuse and repurpose while also allowing you to track, compare and measure their value.
Priority #2, 3, 4 & 5 will be introduced and explained in later posts. However, point 3 and 5 deal with brand loyalty and branding—another reason why companies invest in DAM technologies.
Focus on Marketing ROI – Reference the 2009 AberdeenGroup DAM Benchmark Report. Best-In-Class companies are using Digital Asset Management systems to improve efficiency, increase brand consistency and improve return on marketing investments. See the key charts from the report in the blog post for “The Marketers Guide to Justifying Investments in Digital Asset Management.”
AberdeenGroup found that best-in-class companies centralizing access to digital assets are two times more likely to use a DAM system for the marketing functions. These same best-in-class companies reported a 23% year over year reduction in time to market and an 18% increase in average return on marketing investments. On the other hand, time to market increased by 11% for DAM laggards and average return on marketing investment fell by 17%.
Download the whitepaper "Why Digital Asset Management Should Be Your First Technology Investment for 2010" to learn more about how DAM adopters achieve substantial return on investment including reducing time to market, improving the performance of marketing campaigns, reducing marketing costs and improving brand consistency.
The Bottom Line
DAM is not all that sexy, but you can’t ignore the fact that you need it to power your marketing operations and improve marketing ROI. In today’s distributed marketing environment, shared drives, FTP, CDs/DVDs and tape libraries won’t cut it. Your marketing partners need instant access to your digital assets and you must be able to find, reuse and repurpose assets multiple times and in multiple locations. Marketers don’t just rely on one channel anymore. We are all multi-channel marketers and publishers. To do more with less, be a more productive marketer and get more out of the investments in creating and distributing assets, you need an asset management system.
Step 1 – Admit you have a DAM problem. Step 2 – Seek help.
Lucky for you, Widen provides DAM as Software as a Service provider, which means YOU GET HELP. With 100% DAM SaaS, you keep on marketing – no IT resources necessary. SaaS includes: guided implementation, shared best practices, help desk available when you need it, admin and end-user training, promotional support, automatic upgrades, ongoing maintenance and technical support. Learn more about Widen DAM SaaS.
This is the eighth video in the series of Widen customer interviews with Jim Scarlata, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Knaack LLC. In this segment, Jim talks about how in any business there are choices. The digital asset management market has clearly differentiated itself between hosted and installed solutions. To Jim, SaaS made the most sense five years ago and makes the most sense now. Regardless of the relationship, Scarlata explains that if Widen wasn’t performing, Knaack would have to look at replacing that system. However, Widen meets and exceeds expectations in all aspects of the service for managing digital media and brand assets. Watch the video to learn more about why Widen is Knaack’s choice for digital asset management software.
This is the sixth video in the series of Widen customer interviews with Jim Scarlata, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Knaack LLC. In this segment, Jim talks about the photography and color management capabilities of Widen. Not only does Widen provide DAM software, they provide services to create and manipulate digital assets. During or after a photo shoot, Widen can seamlessly import new photos into the online digital asset library. Widen's history and experience with premedia and color management provides a key advantage in having that knowledge level of the content management and structure of the digital asset management system.
I work in a small marketing team of about five. We have a designer, a product manager, a brand manager, a marketing assistant and an online marketer. We work closely with the sales and customer success management teams. We often collaborate with the account executives and project services teams on projects. Basically, anyone with a customer-facing role depends on Marketing and Marketing depends on them. Like many organizations, our marketing communications programs include online marketing, public relations, brand management, event marketing, etc. We produce a number of digital assets that are put to use promote our brand, sell products and services and assist with customer relationship management objectives. These digital assets are owned and created by a number of different people across multiple departments inside the organization and externally. Each department has their own shared folder on the network and many employees also have their own folder as well. It’s easier for each department to work separately and for each employee to keep their work on their desktop. When we have a new project, we just start fresh in creating new materials. It’s just easier to re-create something than go digging through some archive somewhere or turn to someone else.
If for some reason, someone needs something that someone else has worked on, we’ll just email it or post it to the FTP. Sometimes, the materials get too large for email so we’ll just use web-based delivery programs like YouSendIt or something like that. There are all sorts of tools or methods we can turn to… no need to settle on one. If someone needs a logo or letterhead, they can always email our designer and she can stop what she’s working on and send them whatever it is they need. Sometimes it might take a few emails to get it right, but that’s ok she’s paid by the hour.
It’s common for teams to email a project file back and forth a dozen times and still see mistakes in the end. “She said this” and “he said that” and the project file morphs into something totally different than expectations called for. They should have given better directions and should have done a better job keeping track of changes. Version 1… version 2… version 7… Who cares what was done to which version and where they’re at? That’s just part of internal communication breakdowns that all businesses have. Why should Marketing care?
It doesn’t really matter to Marketing that different departments have their own libraries of materials and guidelines that they follow—we don’t have that strong of a brand presence anyway. Inconsistency is just part of business and “brand consistency” is a made up marketing term anyway… it has no financial impact. If companies would just spend more time selling and less time on branding then they’d be more successful, right?
Although it’s a pain in the neck, working with agencies or other partners is another part of marketing. If we work with an agency on a brochure, video or website we’ll just assume they’re keeping all of the original files, master assets and anything else they produced. If we need it later, we’ll just email the agency and wait for them to send a CD with the final files. Hopefully, they’ve kept all the files even though it’s been a couple years since the project. Why should we be care what happened to the files or if we have them later? ...Chances are we’ll never use them again.
If only Sales could do their job. It’s not Marketing’s problem to look after the crap sales teams put together. If our sales teams put together poor-quality presentations and lose a deal, then that’s their fault… they should have done a better job. They deal directly with our customers, they should get it right. If they’re putting together presentations on the road or working after five, then it’s not Marketing’s problem if there’s no one at the office to track down and send them the files they need. They should be better prepared.
Why should Marketing care what materials are accessed by whomever, used wherever and what impacts they had. All we want to do is create content and move on. If that old logo was used for the new proposal, that’s not Marketing’s fault. If that image for the new campaign was used before it was to be available for general use, that’s not Marketing’s problem. Why should we care what materials were used the most or had the greatest impact? We know what’s best because we’ve always done it that way. That’s Marketing for you… the department that doesn’t require accountability or intelligence.
We don’t need a digital asset management system. Or do we?
One of the best things about my job is that I get to talk to customers. And since we have been good at talking to customers, we keep getting more customers. So….really, it is not just talking to customers that I like, it is taking the conversations I have with customers and putting them into action.
Some customer conversations highlight the simple things whereas others recommend changes to process or product. Our customers have valuable insight into how we can continue to help them and throughout my conversations I have learned five key things:
We have great customers
We get to work with some of the most reputable brands in the world in addition to the rising stars in the small and medium size business world. It is an honor to help these organizations and their marketing and creative teams with digital asset management. These teams have exceptional insight into the management of their DAM system because it is the library for everything they work for; the brand. They love it and they want to advance it just like we do. We strongly believe our customer base is the most educated and well versed digital asset management team across the industry.
Our employees are awesome
Customers are referencing employees and telling me stories about how they benchmark other technology deployments against the Widen experience. In a recent case, the customer told me they were implementing another marketing system and they asked the supplier why they couldn’t be more like the people at Widen. We have great employees and they go out of the way for our customers – and the customers recognize it. We have expertise that match up precisely with customer teams to ensure customers receive value with every interaction.
The product is powerful
Widen digital asset management technology typically starts at the workgroup level to serve the immediate demands of marketing personnel. After successful experiences at that level, the decision to scale to the enterprise is an easy one because of the Widen product configuration. Whether it is thousands of additional users, terabytes of data, or brands spread throughout the world, the product is powerful enough to scale to meet the enterprise demand.
When we say service, we really mean it
It is people talking to people. It is digital asset management teams at Widen holding the hands of the customer implementation team. We are sharing in the risk of the success because we are a software-as-a-service organization. Customers trust us because we have earned that trust. They trust us to engage their user community and educate them on digital asset management. They need our expertise to help them manage their images and video files throughout the relationship and we do not let them down. Our project management and help desk teams are positioned to proactively address the demands of our customers. Widen customers understand what the last “S” in SaaS really means.
Our teams manage expectations very well
In response to the question, did you experience any disconnects between the selling process and the use of the Widen digital asset management system, the response is absolutely not. Our sales and marketing teams manage expectations early in the process to ensure that customer expectations and our product and service combination is a good match. Dissatisfied customers lie in the gap between what was promised and what was actually delivered and our teams are deliberate in our process to make sure each customer experience is exceptional.
Some customer conversations highlight the simple things whereas others recommend changes to process or product. Our customers have valuable insight into how we can continue to help them and throughout my conversations I have learned five key things:
We have great customers
We get to work with some of the most reputable brands in the world in addition to the rising stars in the small and medium size business world. It is an honor to help these organizations and their marketing and creative teams with digital asset management. These teams have exceptional insight into the management of their DAM system because it is the library for everything they work for; the brand. They love it and they want to advance it just like we do. We strongly believe our customer base is the most educated and well versed digital asset management team across the industry.
Our employees are awesome
Customers are referencing employees and telling me stories about how they benchmark other technology deployments against the Widen experience. In a recent case, the customer told me they were implementing another marketing system and they asked the supplier why they couldn’t be more like the people at Widen. We have great employees and they go out of the way for our customers – and the customers recognize it. We have expertise that match up precisely with customer teams to ensure customers receive value with every interaction.
The product is powerful
Widen digital asset management technology typically starts at the workgroup level to serve the immediate demands of marketing personnel. After successful experiences at that level, the decision to scale to the enterprise is an easy one because of the Widen product configuration. Whether it is thousands of additional users, terabytes of data, or brands spread throughout the world, the product is powerful enough to scale to meet the enterprise demand.
When we say service, we really mean it
It is people talking to people. It is digital asset management teams at Widen holding the hands of the customer implementation team. We are sharing in the risk of the success because we are a software-as-a-service organization. Customers trust us because we have earned that trust. They trust us to engage their user community and educate them on digital asset management. They need our expertise to help them manage their images and video files throughout the relationship and we do not let them down. Our project management and help desk teams are positioned to proactively address the demands of our customers. Widen customers understand what the last “S” in SaaS really means.
Our teams manage expectations very well
In response to the question, did you experience any disconnects between the selling process and the use of the Widen digital asset management system, the response is absolutely not. Our sales and marketing teams manage expectations early in the process to ensure that customer expectations and our product and service combination is a good match. Dissatisfied customers lie in the gap between what was promised and what was actually delivered and our teams are deliberate in our process to make sure each customer experience is exceptional.
As the Brand Development Manager here at Widen I’m constantly looking forward. Where are the markets going? What are the latest trends? What is the next Big Thing in rich media management that we need to be a part of?So it was kind of a fun “looking back at looking forward” exercise I went through when Newsweek re-published an article that they had originally published in 1995 titled The Internet? Bah!.
In it, Clifford Stoll, the journalist who is unfortunately linked to his couldn’t-be-more-wrong predictions for life, laments against the value of the internet and how it will never be a big life-changer everyone wants it to be.
While I could pick nearly any sentence out of the article and show how Clifford was wrong (e.g. “The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper” – tell that to the newspapers of today!) the more interesting aspect was what Clifford got right by getting it all wrong. You see he came to those conclusions by considering the tools that were available at the time and to illustrate that he started it off with “Consider today’s online world.” That was his first mistake. If the online world stayed how it was in 1995 (think text based usenet groups and 2400 baud modems – a 30k image would easily take 30 minutes to download!).
If you consider the future based on the tools we have available today then the future will always look impossible. What he wasn’t considering was that cell phones of today would have 100x the power as the computers of 1995. Or that downloading a full movie today would take 5 minutes, when downloading a simple JPEG image in 1995 takes 30 minutes!
But in uncovering all these problems Clifford was uncovering opportunities – unfortunately he just didn’t know it or didn’t care to act on it. In the article he talks about the lack of social communities in 1995 – hello Facebook, MySpace, etc. He calls the internet a “wasteland of unedited data” – hello Google! And his rant against the future of ecommerce because of a lack of secure online purchasing (PayPal, Google Checkout, SSL, etc.) and lack of social feedback (Amazon rating system, review sites).
The point is that every single one of the problems he mentioned later became billion-dollar industries and, in many cases, companies in their own right. So Clifford was so right by being so wrong!
How does this all relate to DAM Asset Management? Well, just like Clifford I’m not sure yet.
We as a company and an industry have become comfortable with the markets we serve and the use cases from those markets. For example here at Widen we started off serving primarily the manufacturing and retail industries (via their Marketing departments), though more recently DAM software is catching on with Healthcare, Government, Education and other sectors.
We make some assumptions that our product is not the right fit for, say, an individual. Or a sole-proprietor. For all the reasons you might think and agree with—it’s too complicated. Individuals don’t need all those features. People prefer storing their images locally for speed reasons.
But after seeing Clifford’s 1995 example I have to challenge you and myself on these – how many of these are legitimate roadblocks, and how many are glowing opportunities waiting to be solved by the next Bill Gates?
I’d be willing to be bet that the 2025 version of us will kick ourselves for not acting on these ideas sooner.
What is the best digital asset management product? That’s a good question… and a common question among those beginning to research digital asset management technologies and vendors. The purpose of this post to help those understand how to decide what is the best digital asset management product for you.
Organizations of all shapes and sizes are adopting digital asset management systems and practices to improve efficiency, brand consistency, accountability, intelligence and effectiveness. When asked, “what kinds of companies need digital asset management?” my response is typically any company that has sophisticated enough creative or marketing operations that they’re creating significant amounts of digital content – images, videos, brochures, etc. – that need to be used and repurposed. That digital content is to be centrally managed and readily available for multiple users to access the content they are supposed to. DAM is particularly valuable to organization’s that have distributed user networks and workers who require remote, self-serve access to a central library of digital assets. There is no exact right or wrong answer to know if a company needs DAM. The size and scale of a DAM implementation varies. When the “traditional” methods of using the shared drive, email attachments, and FTP site start to bring reoccurring pain, then DAM might be something worth considering.
Organizations that are finding success in adopting DAM software solutions include the following vertical markets: manufacturing, retail, marketing & advertising agencies, media, entertainment, publishing, sports, colleges & universities, healthcare, insurance, financial services, non-profit organizations, hospitality, food service, government, engineering, construction, hi-tech.
When asked “What is the best digital asset management product?” … There really is no right answer. It varies. The digital asset management analyst community will tell you the same thing. The best DAM solution really depends on you and your company. It depends on what kind of company you are and what your functional goals are. The size of your company or industry you’re in may matter (or may not). The size of your digital asset library may matter (or may not). The types of assets you predominantly need to manage may play a part. The quantity of users and their location (internal or external) may make a difference.
The digital asset management analyst community will tell you to consider the types of solutions vendors offer to fit different use cases. It is important to understand the business scenarios that fit each vendor’s product strategy to find the best digital asset management product for your particular circumstances. The DAM analyst community has helped those looking for DAM solutions by rating vendors according to common scenarios useful for understanding which types of products tend to work better according to the type of projects. These use case scenarios can be divided into three buckets to include: (1) Image Management, Brand Management and Marketing Operations – segmented further by Digital Asset Library, Photo Archive, Brand Management, Marketing Collateral Production and Distribution, and Ad Production services; (2) Publishing – segmented further by Periodicals Production & Distribution, Multi-Channel Publishing, Catalog Publishing, Rights-Managed Content Syndication and Distribution services; (3) Video Production – segmented further by E-Learning, Video Review and Approval, Short Form Video Production, and Broadcast Video Production services.
Other things to consider when looking for a digital asset management vendor (in no particular order) include:
How long has the vendor been around? … How long have they been offering DAM? … How much of their focus is on DAM? … Is DAM a core part of their business or just a side activity? … How many DAM clients do they have? … How many DAM clients have they lost? … Do they have experience in your industry? … Do they offer complementary services? … Where does their experience come from? … How stable is the company? … Have they been bought or sold? … Is their DAM offering home grown or purchased from someone else? … How sophisticated is it? … Is it evolving as the marketplace changes? … What does their product roadmap look like? … Do they have one? … How often do they come out with new upgrades and innovations? … Who installs them? … Do they have a technical services team? … Do they have a help desk? … What are their hours? … How do you reach them? … Who handles the implementation? … Do they offer training? … Do they perform integrations? How? … What information technology resources will be required internally? … What is the cost to deploy? … What is the cost to maintain? How do you achieve an ROI? … What are the extra costs? … What are their security practices? … How can they ensure my assets are safe? … Is it customizable? … How much customization is required to make it work? … Is it scalable to grow with my business?
These are just a small set of the many questions to ask when looking for the best digital asset management product for your organization.
Leave a comment if you have other advice for those looking at DAM for the first time or share your experiences.
Organizations of all shapes and sizes are adopting digital asset management systems and practices to improve efficiency, brand consistency, accountability, intelligence and effectiveness. When asked, “what kinds of companies need digital asset management?” my response is typically any company that has sophisticated enough creative or marketing operations that they’re creating significant amounts of digital content – images, videos, brochures, etc. – that need to be used and repurposed. That digital content is to be centrally managed and readily available for multiple users to access the content they are supposed to. DAM is particularly valuable to organization’s that have distributed user networks and workers who require remote, self-serve access to a central library of digital assets. There is no exact right or wrong answer to know if a company needs DAM. The size and scale of a DAM implementation varies. When the “traditional” methods of using the shared drive, email attachments, and FTP site start to bring reoccurring pain, then DAM might be something worth considering.
Organizations that are finding success in adopting DAM software solutions include the following vertical markets: manufacturing, retail, marketing & advertising agencies, media, entertainment, publishing, sports, colleges & universities, healthcare, insurance, financial services, non-profit organizations, hospitality, food service, government, engineering, construction, hi-tech.
When asked “What is the best digital asset management product?” … There really is no right answer. It varies. The digital asset management analyst community will tell you the same thing. The best DAM solution really depends on you and your company. It depends on what kind of company you are and what your functional goals are. The size of your company or industry you’re in may matter (or may not). The size of your digital asset library may matter (or may not). The types of assets you predominantly need to manage may play a part. The quantity of users and their location (internal or external) may make a difference.
The digital asset management analyst community will tell you to consider the types of solutions vendors offer to fit different use cases. It is important to understand the business scenarios that fit each vendor’s product strategy to find the best digital asset management product for your particular circumstances. The DAM analyst community has helped those looking for DAM solutions by rating vendors according to common scenarios useful for understanding which types of products tend to work better according to the type of projects. These use case scenarios can be divided into three buckets to include: (1) Image Management, Brand Management and Marketing Operations – segmented further by Digital Asset Library, Photo Archive, Brand Management, Marketing Collateral Production and Distribution, and Ad Production services; (2) Publishing – segmented further by Periodicals Production & Distribution, Multi-Channel Publishing, Catalog Publishing, Rights-Managed Content Syndication and Distribution services; (3) Video Production – segmented further by E-Learning, Video Review and Approval, Short Form Video Production, and Broadcast Video Production services.
Other things to consider when looking for a digital asset management vendor (in no particular order) include:
How long has the vendor been around? … How long have they been offering DAM? … How much of their focus is on DAM? … Is DAM a core part of their business or just a side activity? … How many DAM clients do they have? … How many DAM clients have they lost? … Do they have experience in your industry? … Do they offer complementary services? … Where does their experience come from? … How stable is the company? … Have they been bought or sold? … Is their DAM offering home grown or purchased from someone else? … How sophisticated is it? … Is it evolving as the marketplace changes? … What does their product roadmap look like? … Do they have one? … How often do they come out with new upgrades and innovations? … Who installs them? … Do they have a technical services team? … Do they have a help desk? … What are their hours? … How do you reach them? … Who handles the implementation? … Do they offer training? … Do they perform integrations? How? … What information technology resources will be required internally? … What is the cost to deploy? … What is the cost to maintain? How do you achieve an ROI? … What are the extra costs? … What are their security practices? … How can they ensure my assets are safe? … Is it customizable? … How much customization is required to make it work? … Is it scalable to grow with my business?
These are just a small set of the many questions to ask when looking for the best digital asset management product for your organization.
Leave a comment if you have other advice for those looking at DAM for the first time or share your experiences.
One of the many purposes of a Digital Asset Management system is to provide controlled access to an organization’s library of approved digital assets. Note the key word here is controlled! There are many types of marketing software systems that provide some sort of repository services for centralized storage of documents, images, and other files. However, only a true DAM system should suffice in a sophisticated marketing environment where you want to deliver tiered levels of control for the collaboration, management, and distribution of digital assets. In Widen’s world of DAM, tiered levels of control are managed via Roles and Permissions.
Without Roles and Permissions, you may as well post everything you own to a public-facing website for the whole world to access. In a web-based DAM system, every a user has a secure login which authenticates them into a Role with a predefined set of permissions.
Roles and Permissions determine 'who' has 'what' level of access to 'which' assets and 'how' the user can interact with the assets.
Roles and Permissions allow…
Although it can be a very complicated aspect of DAM to administrate, Roles & Permissions can be as simple as can be for a four-person workgroup or as complex as a multi-national enterprise with several departments, divisions, brands and channels for access and control. Maintaining the Role & Permissions structure is critical when rolling out updates and a key point in selecting the right partner. More than that, working with Roles & Permissions that allow for adaptability, flexibility and scalability with ease is vital to the ongoing success of your DAM system.
Read the article in E-Commerce Times: Whose Fingers Are in Your DAM?
Contact Us to learn more or to see the Roles & Permissions structure in Widen’s online DAM system.
Without Roles and Permissions, you may as well post everything you own to a public-facing website for the whole world to access. In a web-based DAM system, every a user has a secure login which authenticates them into a Role with a predefined set of permissions.
Roles and Permissions determine 'who' has 'what' level of access to 'which' assets and 'how' the user can interact with the assets.
Roles and Permissions allow…
- The marketing team to prepare a campaign that will launch in six months.
- The product team to produce training materials for a product that doesn’t hit the market until next year.
- The regional field reps to only access current collateral and promotions created for them.
- The marketing team to ensure assets for products that have been taken off the market are not accessible by the sales teams and partners.
This table illustrates a sample Roles & Permissions structure for a Widen web-based
digital asset management system. The Permissions do not reflect Widen’s full permissions
set, but are intended to reflect variable levels of access and control.
digital asset management system. The Permissions do not reflect Widen’s full permissions
set, but are intended to reflect variable levels of access and control.
Although it can be a very complicated aspect of DAM to administrate, Roles & Permissions can be as simple as can be for a four-person workgroup or as complex as a multi-national enterprise with several departments, divisions, brands and channels for access and control. Maintaining the Role & Permissions structure is critical when rolling out updates and a key point in selecting the right partner. More than that, working with Roles & Permissions that allow for adaptability, flexibility and scalability with ease is vital to the ongoing success of your DAM system.
Read the article in E-Commerce Times: Whose Fingers Are in Your DAM?
Contact Us to learn more or to see the Roles & Permissions structure in Widen’s online DAM system.
Digital Marketing and Digital Asset Management
Marketers shifting or integrating digital marketing strategies cannot ignore the importance of using DAM solutions to control and distribute approved digital media to authorized users. Digital media consumers demand the same amount of quality and consistency in the content they consume as they would offline media; they just might face more noise with the overabundance in clutter of messages. The brands that deliver quality content, including imagery and interactivity, are those that get noticed and drive brand awareness. Getting noticed in a digital marketing world holds tremendous value because of the opportunities for consumers to engage with marketers and other consumers in two-way communications. In the social web, satisfied consumers can serve as brand advocates whereas dissatisfied consumers can bring a brand down.
Like Digital Marketing is more cost-effective than traditional marketing channels, Software as a Service (SaaS) DAM is the most cost-effective way to manage digital media assets.
The explosion of digital content, including diverse content types such as rich media, forces organizations to invest in digital asset management tools to maximize the value of those assets by keeping them in a centralized location accessible for multiple purposes. That centralized location should be a SaaS DAM solution that enables the content to be most easily accessed by those that need it, when they need it. Those that need access to a digital asset library include multiple internal departments, partners, agencies, sales channels, and the media.
What are the Core Benefits of SaaS DAM Over Installed Solutions?
A recent Forrester ECM (Enterprise Content Management) report by analyst Stephen Powers shows that more interest was seen in SaaS products (than on-premise or open source), with 43% of the respondents expressing interest in SaaS WCM and 39% in SaaS DAM. “Because content stored in these systems are often public-facing, organizations were less concerned with sharing the content outside the firewall,” reports Powers. That’s a new way of looking at it... (at least for a SaaS provider)!
The content stored in a rich media management system (images, videos, ads, brochures, etc.) was developed with the intention to be public facing at some point in time—oftentimes serving advertising and marketing communications purposes—so it should be easy to access (and control). SaaS DAM solutions make it easy to access digital assets anytime, anywhere while offering the security controls to protect rights and release/expiration dates.
Powers reports other reasons that installed content management solutions often fail or fail to meet expectations include poor content strategy and a lack of IT and business alignment. SaaS solutions make up for that because it is the responsibility of the SaaS provider to share best practices, contribute to content strategy and help manage change in order for the system to survive beyond the implementation phases. Remember, SaaS providers are required to meet the client’s needs every month and repeat it on an ongoing basis in order to earn the ongoing business. Moreover, SaaS solutions cut out much of the internal IT resources necessary to implement and maintain the solution because the IT resources, for the most part, are provided by the SaaS provider.
Marketers shifting or integrating digital marketing strategies cannot ignore the importance of using DAM solutions to control and distribute approved digital media to authorized users. Digital media consumers demand the same amount of quality and consistency in the content they consume as they would offline media; they just might face more noise with the overabundance in clutter of messages. The brands that deliver quality content, including imagery and interactivity, are those that get noticed and drive brand awareness. Getting noticed in a digital marketing world holds tremendous value because of the opportunities for consumers to engage with marketers and other consumers in two-way communications. In the social web, satisfied consumers can serve as brand advocates whereas dissatisfied consumers can bring a brand down.
Like Digital Marketing is more cost-effective than traditional marketing channels, Software as a Service (SaaS) DAM is the most cost-effective way to manage digital media assets.
The explosion of digital content, including diverse content types such as rich media, forces organizations to invest in digital asset management tools to maximize the value of those assets by keeping them in a centralized location accessible for multiple purposes. That centralized location should be a SaaS DAM solution that enables the content to be most easily accessed by those that need it, when they need it. Those that need access to a digital asset library include multiple internal departments, partners, agencies, sales channels, and the media.
What are the Core Benefits of SaaS DAM Over Installed Solutions?
- Speed to implementation inside 30-90 days versus 6-9 months
- Low monthly subscription and minimal startup costs make it easier to budget
- Flexibility, adaptability and scalability to grow and change with client needs
A recent Forrester ECM (Enterprise Content Management) report by analyst Stephen Powers shows that more interest was seen in SaaS products (than on-premise or open source), with 43% of the respondents expressing interest in SaaS WCM and 39% in SaaS DAM. “Because content stored in these systems are often public-facing, organizations were less concerned with sharing the content outside the firewall,” reports Powers. That’s a new way of looking at it... (at least for a SaaS provider)!
The content stored in a rich media management system (images, videos, ads, brochures, etc.) was developed with the intention to be public facing at some point in time—oftentimes serving advertising and marketing communications purposes—so it should be easy to access (and control). SaaS DAM solutions make it easy to access digital assets anytime, anywhere while offering the security controls to protect rights and release/expiration dates.
Powers reports other reasons that installed content management solutions often fail or fail to meet expectations include poor content strategy and a lack of IT and business alignment. SaaS solutions make up for that because it is the responsibility of the SaaS provider to share best practices, contribute to content strategy and help manage change in order for the system to survive beyond the implementation phases. Remember, SaaS providers are required to meet the client’s needs every month and repeat it on an ongoing basis in order to earn the ongoing business. Moreover, SaaS solutions cut out much of the internal IT resources necessary to implement and maintain the solution because the IT resources, for the most part, are provided by the SaaS provider.
Almost everyone nowadays has a digital camera, even if it's just on their mobile phone. This means that data and images are no longer stored in file folders and photo albums, but on hard drives and memory cards. While this technology is superb for working with images, it is not without risks. Storage devices can get damaged or stolen and then your precious memories are lost.
Transition that into the business world where there is more digital media and more users requiring access on a daily basis. A memory is to an individual like a brand is to an organization. What does is stand for? How is it perceived? What do people think of when they see a brand’s assets? To consistently market a brand in today’s multichannel environments, digital media and brand assets must be protected and delivered using the most reliable solution.
What options are available to help protect digital media and brand assets?
Many people make multiple back-ups of their computer systems and storage devices. This is great for a while but eventually you end up with back-ups of back-ups with loads of duplicated data. Alternatively, you run the risk of deleting files that you think you have backed up only to discover that you did not. An online Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is therefore something worth considering. It has multiple functionalities, is quite simple to use, cost-effective to purchase, and can help manage all of your digital media very effectively.
How does a Digital Asset Management system work?
A DAM system is made up of various software functionalities to assist in the creation, management and distribution of digital media. If your organization has multiple internal and external stakeholders, there may be additional applications helpful on both ends of the spectrum—creation and distribution. Here's a brief overview of the various applications that fit the digital asset life cycle.
At the core, a digital asset repository helps you to centralize photos, logos, creative files and other digital media. DAM makes it easy to search for specific media files, convert and distribute them using a web-based platform. You can access your files easily and conveniently—even if the files are very large. A video asset management system is similar in that it allows you to preview, transcode and send video and audio files across the web without much effort. This is particularly useful when working with tight deadlines and you need a convenient delivery method.
If you frequently have to select photographs from portfolios for various creative and advertising projects, then a collaboration application would serve as a versatile feature of a DAM system. Working upstream in the creative workflow from the general DAM repository, web-based workflow and collaboration tools allow photography and creative teams to review and approve the photos that you wish to use. Additionally, when working on specific creative or marketing projects, project owners can coordinate reviews, track comments and approvals on modified versions and keep design teams on track for a streamlined workflow.
Downstream from the general digital asset repository, partners and sales channels can create custom marketing and sales collateral with a dynamic media building tool. Using predefined templates and content options, non-technical or non-creative users can create localized ads, brochures, direct mail and signage. This feature allows sales channels and affiliates to produce brand-approved collateral for campaigns, product launches, events or special promotions at a local level.
What are the benefits of using a Digital Asset Management system?
A big plus of any DAM system is that it helps you manage and search for files in a centralized system for all types of digital media. No more searching for the CD with the photos from last year’s campaign; simply view, organize and retrieve assets online. Web-based DAM systems are designed to be simple and easy to use, and users do not need to be technical experts to get what they need.
An equally important benefit is that a DAM system offers a safe storage facility for your files. Hard drives may fail from time to time, and CDs can get lost or damaged. In that case, you may not be able to retrieve your precious brand assets. A web-based DAM system has necessary back-ups, ensuring that you will always be able to access your photos and videos even if you change your computer hardware.
DAM is a critical technology for organizations with collaborative workflows needing a single storage and access point. Collaboration is particularly useful for staff in the media industry and corporate marketing environments. DAM systems make life much easier in being able to review, approve, search, share and download files that are typically too large for more limiting means of collaboration. The system effectively becomes the virtual meeting point for everyone across different geographic locations, which is both convenient and cost-effective.
Lastly, one of the most critical issues that a DAM system helps to solve is safeguarding an organization’s brand by ensuring only the most current assets are used. An online DAM system provides the easiest access point to approved brand assets. Being able to easily retrieve assets helps to ensure internal and external users turn to the DAM system first as opposed to other unattended sources. Governance features such as roles and permissions help administrators regulate who can see what assets. Assets for future or past due uses can be on hold or archived so the general user doesn’t have access.
Digital Asset Management helps organizations be more efficient, effective and in greater control over the vast amounts of digital media and brand assets at every critical stage of the digital asset life cycle.
Transition that into the business world where there is more digital media and more users requiring access on a daily basis. A memory is to an individual like a brand is to an organization. What does is stand for? How is it perceived? What do people think of when they see a brand’s assets? To consistently market a brand in today’s multichannel environments, digital media and brand assets must be protected and delivered using the most reliable solution.
What options are available to help protect digital media and brand assets?
Many people make multiple back-ups of their computer systems and storage devices. This is great for a while but eventually you end up with back-ups of back-ups with loads of duplicated data. Alternatively, you run the risk of deleting files that you think you have backed up only to discover that you did not. An online Digital Asset Management (DAM) system is therefore something worth considering. It has multiple functionalities, is quite simple to use, cost-effective to purchase, and can help manage all of your digital media very effectively.
How does a Digital Asset Management system work?
A DAM system is made up of various software functionalities to assist in the creation, management and distribution of digital media. If your organization has multiple internal and external stakeholders, there may be additional applications helpful on both ends of the spectrum—creation and distribution. Here's a brief overview of the various applications that fit the digital asset life cycle.
At the core, a digital asset repository helps you to centralize photos, logos, creative files and other digital media. DAM makes it easy to search for specific media files, convert and distribute them using a web-based platform. You can access your files easily and conveniently—even if the files are very large. A video asset management system is similar in that it allows you to preview, transcode and send video and audio files across the web without much effort. This is particularly useful when working with tight deadlines and you need a convenient delivery method.
If you frequently have to select photographs from portfolios for various creative and advertising projects, then a collaboration application would serve as a versatile feature of a DAM system. Working upstream in the creative workflow from the general DAM repository, web-based workflow and collaboration tools allow photography and creative teams to review and approve the photos that you wish to use. Additionally, when working on specific creative or marketing projects, project owners can coordinate reviews, track comments and approvals on modified versions and keep design teams on track for a streamlined workflow.
Downstream from the general digital asset repository, partners and sales channels can create custom marketing and sales collateral with a dynamic media building tool. Using predefined templates and content options, non-technical or non-creative users can create localized ads, brochures, direct mail and signage. This feature allows sales channels and affiliates to produce brand-approved collateral for campaigns, product launches, events or special promotions at a local level.
What are the benefits of using a Digital Asset Management system?
A big plus of any DAM system is that it helps you manage and search for files in a centralized system for all types of digital media. No more searching for the CD with the photos from last year’s campaign; simply view, organize and retrieve assets online. Web-based DAM systems are designed to be simple and easy to use, and users do not need to be technical experts to get what they need.
An equally important benefit is that a DAM system offers a safe storage facility for your files. Hard drives may fail from time to time, and CDs can get lost or damaged. In that case, you may not be able to retrieve your precious brand assets. A web-based DAM system has necessary back-ups, ensuring that you will always be able to access your photos and videos even if you change your computer hardware.
DAM is a critical technology for organizations with collaborative workflows needing a single storage and access point. Collaboration is particularly useful for staff in the media industry and corporate marketing environments. DAM systems make life much easier in being able to review, approve, search, share and download files that are typically too large for more limiting means of collaboration. The system effectively becomes the virtual meeting point for everyone across different geographic locations, which is both convenient and cost-effective.
Lastly, one of the most critical issues that a DAM system helps to solve is safeguarding an organization’s brand by ensuring only the most current assets are used. An online DAM system provides the easiest access point to approved brand assets. Being able to easily retrieve assets helps to ensure internal and external users turn to the DAM system first as opposed to other unattended sources. Governance features such as roles and permissions help administrators regulate who can see what assets. Assets for future or past due uses can be on hold or archived so the general user doesn’t have access.
Digital Asset Management helps organizations be more efficient, effective and in greater control over the vast amounts of digital media and brand assets at every critical stage of the digital asset life cycle.
New in 2010, Widen is offering free Digital Asset Management system access for up to 90 days to companies and organizations researching DAM or needing a hosted DAM solution. Try it for a special project, campaign, product launch, trade show or event! Request VIP Access to the Widen DAM demo system.
Widen has spent over 13 years developing and supporting web-based digital asset management solutions to marketers of all sizes – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses, agencies and non-profits. In that time, Widen has offered the opportunity for individuals and teams to experiment, test and trial live online digital asset management systems in live production environments, real-time marketing workflows, and sales channel relationships.
Widen is rolling out the red carpet by providing free digital asset management system access to Widen's live online digital asset library for up to 90 days. You and your users get the same basic functionality as Widen DAM clients within Widen's Digital Asset Management demo site.
Free Digital Asset Management System access includes the following capabilities:
As a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, Widen DAM solutions are 100% web-based and designed for creative and marketing workflows. No software downloads or installs, no IT support required, and no specialized skills needed. Widen SaaS solutions scale to meet the demand for unlimited simultaneous users and unlimited asset uploads and downloads. Training and support is provided entirely by Widen. Ownership of Widen DAM SaaS solutions can be afforded with a low monthly subscription. Widen clients get their own branded web-based DAM solution and personalized URL, plus the ability to administrate their system with custom metadata structures and output types. Contact Us for more information about Widen DAM SaaS products and pricing.
For basic demo access to search and order stock assets, register for the Widen Guest Pass.
Notice: Widen's Free Digital Asset Management System Access does not provide users with a fixed permanent solution, but is intended to provide those investigating DAM solutions with a no-cost, no-commitment resource for evaluating Digital Asset Management technology and support to answer questions along the way.
Widen has spent over 13 years developing and supporting web-based digital asset management solutions to marketers of all sizes – from Fortune 500 enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses, agencies and non-profits. In that time, Widen has offered the opportunity for individuals and teams to experiment, test and trial live online digital asset management systems in live production environments, real-time marketing workflows, and sales channel relationships.
Widen is rolling out the red carpet by providing free digital asset management system access to Widen's live online digital asset library for up to 90 days. You and your users get the same basic functionality as Widen DAM clients within Widen's Digital Asset Management demo site.
Free Digital Asset Management System access includes the following capabilities:
- Setup your own personalized role and permissions
- Upload your own digital media – hi-res images, videos, audio, PDFs, Word, PowerPoint, InDesign, etc.
- Add your own metadata – descriptions, tags and automatically captured file info
- Download or send media with on-the-fly file conversions to print and web formats
- Create additional users
- Create custom system messages and user announcements
As a Software as a Service (SaaS) provider, Widen DAM solutions are 100% web-based and designed for creative and marketing workflows. No software downloads or installs, no IT support required, and no specialized skills needed. Widen SaaS solutions scale to meet the demand for unlimited simultaneous users and unlimited asset uploads and downloads. Training and support is provided entirely by Widen. Ownership of Widen DAM SaaS solutions can be afforded with a low monthly subscription. Widen clients get their own branded web-based DAM solution and personalized URL, plus the ability to administrate their system with custom metadata structures and output types. Contact Us for more information about Widen DAM SaaS products and pricing.
For basic demo access to search and order stock assets, register for the Widen Guest Pass.
Notice: Widen's Free Digital Asset Management System Access does not provide users with a fixed permanent solution, but is intended to provide those investigating DAM solutions with a no-cost, no-commitment resource for evaluating Digital Asset Management technology and support to answer questions along the way.
Widen Enterprises has released Widen Media Collective® Version 5.4 with its winter 2009 update to the flagship Software as a Service product for digital asset management (DAM).
Over 180 technical enhancements were made to improve usability, reliability, scalability and security with the Widen Media Collective. Nearly forty customer-suggested features were incorporated into the winter update offering improved support across various creative and marketing workflows for creating, managing and distributing digital media and brand assets.
Upgrades to the core Web-based Digital Asset Management application include: asset uploader improvements for faster file processing, additional search functionality for more focused search results and video player enhancements. Dynamic Media Building, a template-based ad and brochure building application, has been enhanced to include a new layout engine for more flexibility during the initial template design and end user media customization processes. The upgrade allows for more advanced text handling, including: dynamic text reflow when variable text is used, copy fitting for reducing text size based on specific formatting instructions, block flexing for automatic resizing and repositioning of design elements, and rule-based block control to automatically populate template blocks.
The most significant advancement with Widen’s winter release is the launch of Source Controller version 1.0 for the Widen Appliance. Advancing from its previous beta state, the Widen Appliance and Source Controller provide a hardware/software combination that enables internal staff to access and modify digital assets on their own network and automatically update these changes in the Widen Collective hosted platform. Internal designers, marketing staff, and administrators find files in the browser-based Source Controller application and then check these files out into their own local workspace. When changes are made to a file, it can be checked back in to update the asset in Source Controller and made globally available to the client’s external audiences.
“Source Controller provides an attractive browser-based user interface and integration direct to the desktop for internal users working within creative applications,” says Edward Chwae, Director of Research and Development at Widen Enterprises. “Besides providing benefits of streamlining creative workflows and making the benefits of DAM more entrenched with those workflows, the Widen Appliance provides for a fully replicated set of assets at the client’s location to support disaster recovery and business continuity plans.”
The Widen Appliance bridges the gap between hosted and installed software by offering Widen-managed services on the client site with replicated data to seamlessly serve the internal and external demand for assets. File management and synchronization between the Widen Appliance and Widen Collective hosted service are automatic, which keeps administration to a minimum for improved efficiency and helps clients better manage the obsolescence of assets for improved brand consistency.
For more specific information about the Widen Media Collective and 5.4 release visit: http://www.widencollective.com.
Over 180 technical enhancements were made to improve usability, reliability, scalability and security with the Widen Media Collective. Nearly forty customer-suggested features were incorporated into the winter update offering improved support across various creative and marketing workflows for creating, managing and distributing digital media and brand assets.
Upgrades to the core Web-based Digital Asset Management application include: asset uploader improvements for faster file processing, additional search functionality for more focused search results and video player enhancements. Dynamic Media Building, a template-based ad and brochure building application, has been enhanced to include a new layout engine for more flexibility during the initial template design and end user media customization processes. The upgrade allows for more advanced text handling, including: dynamic text reflow when variable text is used, copy fitting for reducing text size based on specific formatting instructions, block flexing for automatic resizing and repositioning of design elements, and rule-based block control to automatically populate template blocks.
The most significant advancement with Widen’s winter release is the launch of Source Controller version 1.0 for the Widen Appliance. Advancing from its previous beta state, the Widen Appliance and Source Controller provide a hardware/software combination that enables internal staff to access and modify digital assets on their own network and automatically update these changes in the Widen Collective hosted platform. Internal designers, marketing staff, and administrators find files in the browser-based Source Controller application and then check these files out into their own local workspace. When changes are made to a file, it can be checked back in to update the asset in Source Controller and made globally available to the client’s external audiences.
“Source Controller provides an attractive browser-based user interface and integration direct to the desktop for internal users working within creative applications,” says Edward Chwae, Director of Research and Development at Widen Enterprises. “Besides providing benefits of streamlining creative workflows and making the benefits of DAM more entrenched with those workflows, the Widen Appliance provides for a fully replicated set of assets at the client’s location to support disaster recovery and business continuity plans.”
The Widen Appliance bridges the gap between hosted and installed software by offering Widen-managed services on the client site with replicated data to seamlessly serve the internal and external demand for assets. File management and synchronization between the Widen Appliance and Widen Collective hosted service are automatic, which keeps administration to a minimum for improved efficiency and helps clients better manage the obsolescence of assets for improved brand consistency.
For more specific information about the Widen Media Collective and 5.4 release visit: http://www.widencollective.com.
Watch the video compilation from several marketing professionals discuss how digital asset management supports brand consistency.
In the first segment, Michele Bedard, Vice President of Marketing, Sub-Zero, Inc. and Wolf Appliance, Inc. talks about how Sub-Zero and Wolf are all about the brand experience. For that reason, it is important to have brand consistency so the “brand” looks and feels the same from whatever source a consumer or partner would see it. Web-based digital asset management tools provide representatives in the field and/or channel partners, access to use the latest brand-approved digital assets – images, videos and marketing/promotional materials – from anywhere in the world.
As a bonus to ensuring enterprise-wide brand consistency, Sub-Zero and Wolf have more distributors and dealers using their advertisements and promotional resources that fit within the corporate campaigns. Thus, they get more return on their advertising investments with extend the reach and utilization of corporate-branded materials further down the marketing supply chain.
Plus, the corporate marketing departments and individual distributor/dealer networks are more efficient and effective in their collaborative marketing communications functions. The centralization of all images, videos, ads and marketing materials allows Sub-Zero and Wolf to have greater control in managing access to digital assets in addition to greater ease in managing the obsolescence of digital assets.
In the second segment, Jim Scarlata, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Knaack LLC, explains that the Widen DAM solutions offer up the ability to have 100% brand consistency. In this economic climate where staffs are lean and staffs have numerous other responsibilities, DAM or brand asset management software provides Knaack corporate marketing with a safeguard.
As the person responsible for the Knaack marketing operations, DAM serves as a “brand guardian.” No matter what a channel partner, marketing agency, internal or external user needs, they will get an asset that is current, one they can use, and use it in whatever format they need to complete the project.
In the third segment, Jim Magruder, Senior Marketing Communications Manager at InSinkErator, provides testament to how DAM software helps maintain global brand consistency in keeping with the InSinkErator global brand guidelines. To a company whose goal is to offer the most state-of-the-art and innovative products, they have an innovative system to store, retrieve and manipulate digital assets management in a way that best supports the marketing of those products.
Watch more Widen customer interviews to learn more about how Widen Digital Asset Management software and premedia services support the roles of marketing and creative people.
In the first segment, Michele Bedard, Vice President of Marketing, Sub-Zero, Inc. and Wolf Appliance, Inc. talks about how Sub-Zero and Wolf are all about the brand experience. For that reason, it is important to have brand consistency so the “brand” looks and feels the same from whatever source a consumer or partner would see it. Web-based digital asset management tools provide representatives in the field and/or channel partners, access to use the latest brand-approved digital assets – images, videos and marketing/promotional materials – from anywhere in the world.
As a bonus to ensuring enterprise-wide brand consistency, Sub-Zero and Wolf have more distributors and dealers using their advertisements and promotional resources that fit within the corporate campaigns. Thus, they get more return on their advertising investments with extend the reach and utilization of corporate-branded materials further down the marketing supply chain.
Plus, the corporate marketing departments and individual distributor/dealer networks are more efficient and effective in their collaborative marketing communications functions. The centralization of all images, videos, ads and marketing materials allows Sub-Zero and Wolf to have greater control in managing access to digital assets in addition to greater ease in managing the obsolescence of digital assets.
In the second segment, Jim Scarlata, Senior Marketing Operations Manager for Knaack LLC, explains that the Widen DAM solutions offer up the ability to have 100% brand consistency. In this economic climate where staffs are lean and staffs have numerous other responsibilities, DAM or brand asset management software provides Knaack corporate marketing with a safeguard.
As the person responsible for the Knaack marketing operations, DAM serves as a “brand guardian.” No matter what a channel partner, marketing agency, internal or external user needs, they will get an asset that is current, one they can use, and use it in whatever format they need to complete the project.
In the third segment, Jim Magruder, Senior Marketing Communications Manager at InSinkErator, provides testament to how DAM software helps maintain global brand consistency in keeping with the InSinkErator global brand guidelines. To a company whose goal is to offer the most state-of-the-art and innovative products, they have an innovative system to store, retrieve and manipulate digital assets management in a way that best supports the marketing of those products.
Watch more Widen customer interviews to learn more about how Widen Digital Asset Management software and premedia services support the roles of marketing and creative people.
Unfortunately, my wife lost her battle to cancer earlier this year. In her memory, myself and other local musicians organized "Funk Out Cancer" a memorial benefit for Kate Gates Falaschi. All proceeds were donated to the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center for cancer research. When I started contacting local radio, tv, and newspapers, I knew they would want pictures, and audio and video of Kate for news stories that they would create. I sectioned off a portion of Widen's demo online digital asset management system and posted assets featuring Kate. I needed digital asset hosting as I knew I would be contacted often about these...and didn't want to spend my days fulfilling requests for assets. Not that a one time event has a "brand," but it also served as brand asset management software. It made it so easy to retrieve assets, that everyone grabbed the hi res approved assets that I determined were fit for public consumption...not low res, right click/save image as garbage from myspace.
I'm happy to report that over 50 different organizations logged in and placed orders for assets. That would have been a lot of emailing. Thank you Widen DAM software. Here was a video promo created from the assets I hosted in the digital asset library.
If you would like more info on the event...or to make a donation :) go to http://www.funkoutcancer.com.
I'm happy to report that over 50 different organizations logged in and placed orders for assets. That would have been a lot of emailing. Thank you Widen DAM software. Here was a video promo created from the assets I hosted in the digital asset library.
If you would like more info on the event...or to make a donation :) go to http://www.funkoutcancer.com.
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