DEAR DR. DAM: My name is Deb and I'm a brand manager with a top sporting goods manufacturer. We make hundreds of products and sell them through a national and international dealer network. We pride ourselves on our brand and try to make it very apparent in our products.

However, most of our dealers are "mom and pop" shops and they don't have the resources to create top-quality ads and store signage. They're basically getting by with using our images and materials as they see fit. The way many of my dealers depict my brand makes me cringe! Images and ads are poor quality. Many of the materials are outdated. How can I cost-effectively help my dealers get the resources they need to promote our products, while enforcing our brand guidelines?

DEAR DEALERS MAKE ME CRINGE DEB: I understand your situation. You work day in day out to build your brand, but your dealers lack the resources to promote your products to their customers as well as you'd like them to. You could ship them the materials they need but that becomes very costly. Plus, your dealers need localized materials specific to their market.

I suggest you check out Widen's brand asset management software solutions to solve your dilemma. Widen systems allow your dealers to access your brand's digital assets online. What's more, Widen's self-service promotional resources allow your dealers to create professional-quality ads and signage using your branded templates. No design experience necessary - just simple point-and-click. The various image and content options offer tremendous freedom for your dealers to connect with their market. All materials can be localized with contact information, store hours and directions. Widen helps you control your brand, while providing you and your dealers with the competitive edge to enhance customer relations.

DEAR DR. DAM:   I’m a brand manager with an international cruise line.   No, it’s not hurricanes or icebergs that I’m worried about, it’s managing over 20,000 digital assets that exist in various archives across the organization.  My dilemma is finding a way to make a portion of these assets available to external partners, agencies and consumers while controlling proper use.  I’m looking to create a secure web-based library of our creative materials so external affiliates can access our logos, images, ads and videos for use in other print promotions and websites.  Help me protect against the use of out-dated logos and inappropriate graphics and messaging.  I did some internet searching and came across widen.com, which looks to have much of what we’re looking for in brand asset management software.  What do you think?
 
DEAR FLOAT YOUR BOAT FLO:  If you want to be king of the world like Leo in Titanic when it comes to business branding, then yes Widen can provide you with a powerful, yet easy-to-use DAM system.  You’ll be online with a corporate image library in as little as two weeks.  Their DAM SaaS model makes it very easy to scale as your creative library grows.  Plus, your external users will find value in the ability to get exactly what they need in the appropriate file formats and publish the assets to offline and online mediums with just a few clicks.  As a brand manager, you’ll find peace of mind in maintaining one set of media assets and metadata in only one location. The costs won’t put you overboard and their service level is sure to get all hands on deck.  Go ahead and have a fruity island drink by the pool because your corporate branding is safe with Widen.

...in more ways than one.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I traveled to New York this year for the Henry Stewart DAM and Marketing Operations Symposium.  Along with participating in the vendor shootout panel on Brand Asset Management software, I was also joined by Jim Magruder, Director of Marketing at InSinkErator. Talk about a brand dominating an industry… InSinkErator is a case study in Global Brand Recognition.  Granted they only sell two products (in sink garbage disposers, and hot water dispensers), they blow away the competition...  In fact, I don't think there is any competition in those markets.

Jim and I went out for dinner and I thought he would be a good person to ask his opinion on how our DAM service enables InSinkErator's corporate branding. Jim had a very interesting answer that I believe will resonate with other businesses.  He skipped over all the standard DAM jargon on how it centrally organizes brand approved assets… roles and permissions... blah blah.  He went directly to InSinkErator's Brand Guidelines Document.  A large sum of time, research, resources and money went into creating this document that was to define how InSinkErator is to look to its customers and its dealers and distributors worldwide.  There is a sentence explaining that InSinkErator is constantly striving to incorporate the newest technology available, not only in their products but in the way they communicate with customers - both retail and professional.  Jim directed me to that section as one of his main reasons.  DAM to InSinkErator is not only a tool to protect their brand, it’s also a major part of positioning it as well.