...in more ways than one.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I traveled to New York this year for the Henry Stewart DAM 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.

Jim and I went out for dinner and I thought he would be a good person to ask his opinion on how our DAM 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 portraying it as well.

When we set up digital asset management systems for our clients, they typically contain a full mix of marketing's brand assets....images, logos, brochures, audio and video.

As corporate marketing departments are adding video production and video services to the mix, the wrench in adding these files to DAM is the relative size of a video file compared to other file types. Typical hi res image files pale in comparisson to broadcast quality videos, not to mention videos that are longer than 30 seconds in length. A hi res image from a digital slr camera will be around 50 Megabytes. That is a little over 10 seconds of Standard Definition DV quality video...less than 3 seconds of HD video. If you do the math, you see how storing video can eat up hard drive space very quickly.

One way to combat this is to store what are called "Mezzanine" files in the DAM. They are compressed videos that take up less space than the full res files, but are hi res "enough" that they make great quality highly compressed videos typically used on the web.

For example, if you decide to use Mpeg 2 as your mezzanine file for a 10 minute video, it will look completely normal on if burned to a DVD, while only taking up 1/5th the disk space of the full res DV version. If you decide to make a flash video for your website or publish to Youtube (converts all videos to flv or flash after you upload) you will see virtually no visable difference in the quality of the flash video created from the mpeg 2 verses one made from the DV file. Vid-heads will argue about this, including myself. But make no mistake, they....we are looking at it under a microscope. Everyone else will see no difference.

If your video collection is growing, and you are worrying about storing all the hi res versions, settling on a mezzanine format may be a great solution for you.

Sometimes it’s difficult for people to see how their business or industry could use digital asset management.  Others are ahead of the curve and ‘get’ how something like digital asset management (DAM) can help them get ahead of their competition.  Someone doing this already is Raquel Repka, owner of The Rock Agency – a model/talent agency based in Madison, Wisconsin.  She’s been using Widen’s DAM application for several years to organize and distribute model and talent portfolios.  Not only does the agency use it internally, but clients interested in booking models and/or talent can login, search, and browse through portfolios. 

No more mailing portfolios or image attachments getting caught up in spam filters.  Clients can see all models and multiple images of each model and they can view video clips and listen to audio files of talent prospects.  Plus, with this increased internet presence and exposure, the agency is getting more bookings!  How DAM hot is that?

With gas floating over $3 per gallon, people seem to be questioning now, more than ever, whether or not they should be making changes to try to conserve.  The rising fuel prices have also had a chain effect on everything from milk to lumber.  With that sort of reaction, you have to wonder if your marketing software might be gouging your pocket book in the same way.

Installed solutions are typically more expensive than newer, software as a service solutions.  This comes from a higher cost for the initial implementation, all the way down to higher maintenance costs for both IT and software and hardware upgrades.  While some marketers may be able to justify this cost initially, the effect that it has on overall budgets can be decimating.  Whether its trade shows that get scrapped, or R and D budgets that are hindered, it’s an expenditure that is unnecessary.

In many instances software as a service, and more specifically digital asset management, can provide the same brand management tools that are being sold by large installed software companies.  By selecting software as a service, you not only save on a quicker implementation and no immediate hardware upgrades, but you will also see a relatively quick ROI due to all of the maintenance that your IT department will no longer be held accountable for.

The overall user experience for digital asset management is overwhelmingly high.  Brand recognition routinely increases as well as the creation of all promotional materials for both sales and marketing departments.  Digital asset management as a solution to your marketing needs is something you can’t overlook anymore.  Think of it this way: Would you continue to pay $3 per gallon if there was a fuel that was available for $2 per gallon that would make your vehicle perform better?  If you still felt that the $3 per gallon was the better option, we wish you the best in your installed software endeavors…

Several articles have been published since the Aberdeen Group recently released a study on “Marketing Digital Asset Management: Capturing, Storing, and Retrieving Digital Media to Deliver Strategic Value,” however I want to focus on one particular figure from the study – “Qualitative Value in DAM.”   To clarify, Marketing Digital Asset Management is DAM for the marketing function – makes sense.  The report was authored by Ian Michiels, Sr. Research Analyst for Marketing Management & Digital Marketing, Customer Management Technology Group.

The Qualitative Value in DAM

The study reveals the following improvements for Best-in-Class organizations as a result of digital asset management implementations:

• Time spent locating content DECREASED 75%
• Employee productivity INCREASED 83%
• Asset utilization INCREASED 67%

These are some impressive stats.  I particularly like the increase in asset utilization, which is a good indicator of high user adoption, high return on marketing investments and greater marketing effectiveness.  Since DAM is the central repository for brand-approved assets, increases in asset utilization should also represent increases in marketing efficiency.  This makes the protectors of the brand (like myself) very happy as well. 

To provide a quick customer statistic, Widen’s DAM system has helped the Reebok On-field Apparel Group (now the Sports Licensed Division of the Adidas Group) repurpose each digital asset created over six times in its lifecycle versus a one-time use prior to Widen.   Before Widen, Reebok used to ship physical apparel samples to their retail customers to conduct their own photography for use in catalogs and e-commerce sites.  Widen’s digital sampling process and digital asset management technology allowed Reebok to give their customers on-demand access to official Reebok images, each to be used for a different purpose an average of six times per asset.  In a library of 200,000 assets, that’s a lot of repurposing and brand exposure. View the case study to learn more.

Another interesting part of the Aberdeen report were the “Steps to Success,” separating companies into three categories of Laggard, Industry-Average and Best-in-Class.

Steps to Success

Laggards

• Provide sales & marketing access to marketing assets
• Evaluate asset usage
• Identify business drivers and formalize process for measuring ROI

Industry Average

• Extend access to key stakeholders beyond sales & marketing to others in the value chain
• Standardize the use of one DAM system vs. multiple systems in one organization
• Integrate with workflow processes

Best-in-Class

• Extend access to external members in the marketing value chain
• Integrate DAM with creative applications
• Formalize process allowing users to provide feedback and rating system for content – along the lines of web 2.0
• Invest in people and processes to support the technology

Access the full report from Aberdeen Group