Online Digital Asset Management

This is the ninth 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 the importance of having an easy to use user interface with their digital asset management system and how Widen provided just that. It was essential for Oceania Cruises to have an online resource that looks sleek and professional, fits the brand, and be customizable to some degree. A DAM system needs to be user friendly and organized so their travel agents can find what they need, build personal collections, download what they need and come back again. Watch the video to learn more about the user experience with Widen digital asset management at Oceania Cruises.

People who deal with putting video on websites are closely watching the developing reality tv series revolving around HTML5 video. Here are the things that I am watching as they will most definitely affect how Digital Asset Management and Video asset management systems ingest, manage and distribute video assets. Since video support in html5 is dependent on the browser, I will look at this from the different major browser choices:



1. Internet Explorer (60% market share) - Microsoft owned. Has recently put their support behind H.264. Will not support Ogg Theora, and popular opinion has them not supporting VP8 if Google makes it open source. Seemingly has given up on Silverlight and VC1 as a web standard codec. But is a major player because of it's browsers market share.

2. Firefox (25% market share) - Only supports open source royalty free standards. Will not support H.264. Currently supports Ogg Theora and there is a good chance it will back VP8 if it goes open source. Firefox is a major player because of its browser market share.

3. Google Chrome (7% market share) - Currently supports both Ogg Theora, and H.264. Acquired the VP8 codec from it's purchase of On2 Technologies. Has been rumored to announce VP8 going open source/royalty free in May 2010. Google is a major player for two reasons. It owns YouTube which is the largest source of online video,.....by a very wide margin. And it owns the VP8 codec. While Chrome only has a 7% market share, Google controls the largest segment of viewers with YouTube. Imagine if YouTube dropped H.264 in favor of VP8...???

4. Safari - (5% market share) - Supports H.264. Owns H.264 through the licensing body MPEG LA, of which it is a member. While Safari's market share is next to nothing, Apple is a major player because most online content is currently in H.264, and lest we not mention that they have ridiculous amount of influence due to their domination in the mobile devices category with the iPhone and iPad. Steve Jobs recently mentioned being behind "open standards." This will be put to the test if Google open sources VP8.

Over the next 6-12 months,....all of this will be thrown into a pot, cooked, stirred, and shaken up. What comes out is why everyone is watching this like a car crash. Until something works itself out, Flash is still king, and the only thing that works on everything, (Whoops, except the iPad/iPhone).

Digital asset management and video asset management systems, for now, will add these as additional parameters. It may be a while before we can start deleting and simplifying.

If anyone wants to chat about Video Asset Management at NAB this year, shoot me an email and we can set up a time to meet. I'll be there from noon on Monday the 12th, thru the close of the show on Thursday. NAB is like my "Candy Store" so you will have to excuse the drooling. I'll be looking at new video camcorders, DSLR's, editing software, online video publishing options, other digital asset management options that are specific to production environments.....I'm getting excited already. Find out more at NAB.org. 

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 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?

We had a prospective client share their DAM story with us last week and their needs matched up very closely with what Widen could provide in a hosted Digital Asset Management solution. They needed a central repository for images and videos, easy to use, easy to find assets, multiple levels of control and access, and asset tracking and usage reporting.

However, after learning the Widen online digital asset management solution matched up very well to the needs of this particular client, they came back to us saying that their IT department would only consider solutions installed on-site. Regrettably, Widen is a 100% DAM SaaS provider and delivers web-based DAM solutions where the asset libraries are hosted in Widen’s data center.

Do they want the internet installed too?

I thought it was interesting that this particular client’s IT team would only consider an installed solution since they’ve been unable to maintain the current system. This is something we hear all of the time. Ironically, most of their digital assets – images and videos – end up online. Do they want the internet installed too? If the destination for your digital assets is to be online, then wouldn’t it make sense for the digital asset management solution to be online as well?

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.

Consider the use and destination of your digital assets in defining your goals and needs with a DAM system. In a large organization with multiple divisions in multiple locations, an installed solution isn’t always the best option. Consider all internal and external users? Will the installed solution be the single point of reference for everyone in the organization? Will everyone adopt the solution or will people still work in the same siloed environments their used to? One of the main goals for deploying a DAM solution should be making it easy for users to access the system, enjoy using it and make it easy to get want they need so they will come back again.

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…

• 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.

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.

Saints Win! Saints Win! The 2010 Super Bowl between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts was watched by more than 106 million viewers, surpassing the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched televised event in American history. This is the fifth consecutive year that the Super Bowl has averaged more than 90 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

That’s a lot of football fans and a lot of consumers that want to be the first to have the apparel the champions wear.

Minutes after the big game, I received this email from DICK’s Sporting Goods announcing the availability of the official Locker Room Merchandise from Reebok, the authentic outfitter of the NFL. No doubt, there are a lot of fans out there who want the Super Bowl XLIV Champion hat and t-shirt worn by their champagne popping locker-room heroes as soon as the outcome of the big game is decided.



How do retailers like DICK’s Sporting Goods get their hands on these images to have their emails and websites ready to go as soon as the champion is declared? More importantly, how does the Sports Licensed Division of The adidas Group make this process efficient, accurate and cost-effective?

With the help of Widen Digital Sampling and Digital Asset Management services, adidas can get official product images in the hands of their retailers who, in turn, get marketing messages in front of the eyes of the consumer as soon as a buying decision is ready to be made.

Widen digital sampling processes and digital asset management tools help ensure the entire digital supply chain is equipped with compelling, consistent and cost-effective content for commerce.

The Widen Digital Sampling process assists in the creation of digital apparel samples and the Widen web-based digital asset management system is used to manage, distribute and provide access to authentic image assets. As the official provider of licensed apparel for the NFL, NBA, and NHL, the adidas Sports Licensed Division (includes adidas and Reebok brands) uses Widen premedia services and DAM technologies to meet hot market demands for the Super Bowl, NBA Finals, and Stanley Cup Finals.  

Widen-powered technology and processes help retailers such as DICK’S Sporting Goods market championship apparel merchandise as soon you see the players wearing the hats and t-shirts after the big game is over.



What’s all included in the Widen Digital Sampling process? This premedia production process generally begins with photography of one neutral grey apparel sample. Next, digital sampling operators digitally create all color swatches according to league approved team colors. Lastly, graphics are applied according to Reebok/NFL technical guidelines and the final approved images are loaded into the image database where they can be centrally managed and available for download in a working file format.

All Reebok / adidas digital samples are loaded into the Widen-powered web-based image library, which holds the all apparel and headwear styles for the current and coming sports season for the NFL, NBA, and NHL. Since many of the physical apparel styles are not yet available in stores or online (or even physically produced en masse), many of the images are on hold and are tightly controlled using Widen’s governance tools. Styles and logos are often determined 6-7 months in advance of the coming season for the major sports leagues.

When it’s time for these assets to go to market, orders are placed in the DAM system and retailers can download the files according to exact specifications for print or web use. All users are required to sign off on a rights release agreement before they have access to the images. For example, DICK’s Sporting Goods was granted permission to access championship apparel images for the Saints and Colts so they could prepare their email marketing templates in advance of the Super Bowl.

As you can guess, the digital apparel sample production and distribution process shaves weeks off the time to market versus the process of physically producing, photographing and shipping physical samples. Plus, it streamlines a very difficult process—particularly when meeting hot market demands such as with championship merchandise. Besides the time savings of digital sample creation, adidas is able to drastically reduce costs of physically producing each item and team combination and the photography and shipping costs to go along with it.
 
Benefits of using hosted Digital Asset Management:

• Accelerated search and retrieval time in accessing official imagery
• Increased real-time collaboration of assets and approvals
• Cost savings through the elimination of physical delivery of samples
• Elimination of the cost of lost or misplaced work
• Reduction in time-to-market through digital delivery

Here’s an inside look at the market preparedness leading up to the Super Bowl:

1 week before the NFL Conference Championships – Conference Championship merchandise was created for the eight teams in the Divisional Round (Baltimore, Indianapolis, N.Y. Jets, San Diego, Arizona, New Orleans, Dallas, and Minnesota)

2 weeks before the Super Bowl – Super Bowl Champion merchandise was created for the four teams in the Conference Championship Round (Indianapolis, N.Y. Jets, New Orleans, and Minnesota)

What happens to the images for the losing teams that didn’t make it, you ask? Quite simply, those are destroyed.

Marketers have been shifting budgets and focus to Digital Marketing strategies for quite some time in order to be “multi-channel” and leverage the power of digital media, online and other interactive channels. These strategies allow brand owners to be more efficient in reaching their target audiences with their message. Leveraging new ways to push messages, publish content and interact with customers is the easy part because the ROI is clearer. However, marketers should not overlook the methods and technologies that assist in creating, managing and distributing the “assets” that power digital marketing strategies. Although managing digital assets is not seen as the “sexy” side of marketing, it is a critical component to increasing efficiency with operations, ensuring consistency in presenting a brand to the marketplace, and maximizing the return on marketing investments.

As marketers leverage more cost-effective means of reaching their audiences, they should also adopt more cost-effective means of managing their digital media with Digital Asset Management solutions.

An Integrated Approach to Marketing

There’s a lot of evidence to show that digital marketing is more targeted, more impactful, and better tied to other vehicles and channels. More appealing to marketing executives is the opportunity that digital marketing brings with reporting, tracking and accountability. While many marketers are not entirely doing away with traditional marketing and advertising programs (TV, print, direct mail, etc.), they have shifted more focus on an integrated approach. Digital marketing helps marketers better engage customers to complement more traditional approaches targeting the masses. Digital marketing is often more cost effective, builds awareness quickly, fosters relationships and is measurable in ways traditional advertising just can’t match.

As companies make moves in the way they deliver their message and connect with customers to be more cost-effective, they should also make moves in the way they manage the content of their brand. The solution to being more cost-effective with how to manage that content is better known as digital asset management (DAM). 

What DAM Provides to Digital Media and Brand Assets:

• Greater ability to organize and find approved and available assets
• Greater ability to share and repurpose assets across multiple channels
• Greater ability to ensure compliance and consistency with approved assets

Driving Brand Awareness with DAM

Marketers seek to improve brand awareness by being in more places in front of more faces. However, if the brand does not appear consistent from one customer touch point to the next, than that is more damaging to the brand than not being there at all. DAM helps marketers repurpose digital media across multiple channels and do so consistently with assets meeting the quality standards for each channel. For example, image assets were historically developed with the specific channel in mind i.e. print catalog. Now, image assets are developed for multiple channels--print catalog, brochure, store signage, website, email marketing, online video and other social/interactive media.


What Drives DAM Adoption? (From the 2009 Aberdeen Benchmark Study)

• Improved Operational Efficiency – streamlined digital supply chains
• Improved Brand Consistency – approved brand assets used in multiple channels – as opposed to communications coming from disconnected departments
• Improved Return on Marketing Investments (ROMI) – greater opportunity to find and reuse or repurpose existing assets and reduce re-work or costs of re-creating lost assets

Now that we’ve covered the core reasons why marketers should leverage digital asset management technologies to improve marketing efficiency and effectiveness, I’ll cover why SaaS is the most cost-effective delivery model for marketers to deploy digital asset management solutions next.

The last several years have seen a dramatic shift from traditional media to digital media such as online marketing and social media. The move to digital media has led to an exponential growth in digital marketing content, which has in turn created bottlenecks and inefficiencies in managing this content and difficulties in measuring the performance of campaigns and in maintaining a consistent brand image.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) technology can overcome these problems by automating the process of ingesting, archiving, searching, managing, repurposing, sharing and publishing content in a seamless and collaborative environment. 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. This article will examine in detail how DAM can rapidly generate ROI by improving the performance of digital marketing efforts.

In order to give power to your marketing programs in 2010 and be more efficient in doing so, Digital Asset Management should be your first technology investment.

Widen has released a new whitepaper that addresses 5 key benefits that DAM provides to marketing operations, including:

1. Generate additional revenues by reducing time to market
2. Reduce costs of finding assets
3. Reduce costs of distributing assets
4. Save money on physical samples
5. Improve brand consistency

This whitepaper is an interactive PDF containing videos of customer interview segments from InSinkErator, Brady Worldwide, Knaack and Sub-Zero and Wolf.

Download: Why Digital Asset Management Should Be Your First Technology Investment for 2010.

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.

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:

• 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.

A coworker recently asked me: "What is the next big format that will hit after 1080p? I'm curious what is on the horizon."

There are a number of ways to answer that question. In terms of factual numbers, 1080p is a "resolution." The next logical larger sizes are 2K and 4K. But those exist already... so the answer switches from fact-based, to opinion-based.

I am a video tweak head, so I am always interested in the next video format that can squeeze in one more pixel of resolution. But I realize that I am in the minority, at least as far as a business case goes for an entire industry to adopt a format. Moving from standard definition video to HD (specifically 1080p) was a no brainer. There are clearly visable advantages in clarity and overall viewing experience. But if you look at what is next in terms of higher resolution, we run into a wall.

The wall is the ability for the human eye to see the detail that the device is displaying. Here is an interesting article on the science behind what the human eye can see. It basically says that there is almost no visable difference even between 720p and 1080p when watching a 50" screen from 8 feet away, which is the average viewing distance in the average home. Therefore, in order to need more detail than what 1080p can provide, you would either need to sit closer than 8 feet, or need a screen larger than 100". Video is mostly consumed on a TV, or online. As far as online video publishing is concerned, most online video is downres'd from 1080. So higher res will not get a push from online video management either.

My coworker also asked what the next "big" format would be. If you define "big" as something that will change the entire industry, including aquisition, editing, display, and broadcasting, I don't think 2K or 4K will be the next "big" format. There isn't enough of an advantage for large groups of consumers to make a switch.

I really think that the next "big" format change will be something regarding 3D. Something that does not require wearing nerdy glasses. We will also have to keep a close watch to see how it affects digital asset managment tools.

We continue with another Top 10 list with the top ten Widen Digital Asset Management blog posts of 2009 in the Widen world of Software as a Service, web based DAM, video asset management, content management and structure and other posts dealing with digital asset workflow.


1. Getting to a Digital Asset Management ROI, posted on Friday, August 7, 2009 by Mark Norris (The Next Big SaaS)

2. The Future of Digital Media Management: Being Prepared for the Video Demand, posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by Matthew Gonnering (Ramblings of a Mad Marketer)

3. Types of Digital Asset Management Systems, posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Jake Athey (Marketing Digital Asset Management)

4. How Widen Software as a Service Applies Digital Asset Management Best Practices, posted on Monday, June 15, 2009 by Matthew Gonnering (Ramblings of a Mad Marketer)

5. What is the best way to store videos in a Digital Asset Management System?, posted on Thursday, July 30, 2009 by Al Falaschi (The Impact of VAM & DAM)

6. Digital Asset Management Best Practices: Focus on Metadata Part II, posted on Wednesday, January 7, 2009 by Widen Marketing

7. The Marketers Guide to Justifying Investments in Digital Asset Management, posted on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Jake Athey (Marketing Digital Asset Management)

8. Understanding the Digital Asset Life Cycle, posted on Friday, March 20, 2009 by Jake Athey (Marketing Digital Asset Management)

9. Level of Risk for Digital Asset Management Implementations, posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 by Matthew Gonnering (Ramblings of a Mad Marketer)

10. Video Asset Management In High Demand As Viewership Climbs and Marketers Use More Online Video, posted on Monday, November 2, 2009 by Jake Athey (Marketing Digital Asset Management)

Digital Asset Management has long been the domain of the large enterprise – those companies that have front page stories on Time Magazine or companies whose owners make the Forbes 500 richest list 5 years running. But, is all that changing?

Is the DAM system that we know and love morphing into a tool that is useful to not only the PepsiCo's of the world, but also that little lemonade stand down the street? And more importantly, is DAM software entering the price range of that lemonade stand?

In this multi-part series of blog posts, we’ll look at the growth of DAM in the small- to medium- sized business space… from the why’s to the how’s and everything in between.

This first article, "Not your Grandpa's Digital Asset Management System," focuses on the why, as in "why is DAM growing in popularity among smaller size companies?" What is driving that growth?

Research shows there are four main drivers today in the SMB (small- to medium-sized businesses) space for Digital Asset Management programs:




So the momentum is building… the need is building… But, how is the DAM industry responding to meet this need?

In the next article we’ll look at the DAM industry as a whole and in particular, how it is addressing this growing need.

The growing popularity of video is well documented... There are a number of reports available. They explain the power and attractiveness of using video, specifically in the enterprise environment.

More than 65% of companies are using online video and that number is expected to continue increasing (VideoBloom, 2009). (Remember an earlier post, Gartner Predicts 25 Percent of Content in the Workforce to be Images, Audio or Video by 2013.) Online video is a key method of delivering and consuming information that educates, entertains, and/or inspires in ways that touch emotions static text on a page cannot achieve.

Director of research and design at Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab, Dr. BJ Fogg, writes that for a consumer to make a purchase, it requires a “behavior change.” Fogg’s behavior model talks about the convergence of three things that need to happen for the change to occur – a trigger, ability and a motivation. Motivation is strictly tied to “sensation.” Inherently, video combines the use of more human senses than most other traditional sales and marketing tools. Read more about the reason "why" video use is on the rise in business marketing.

How does that impact Digital Asset Management? Video is a digital asset. As its popularity grows, enterprises will struggle to manage the creation, storage, and distribution of it. Video files are exponentially larger than text documents. Multiple copies of a file in multiple locations use even more storage. Version control is nearly impossible since someone has to remember each file's location and update or renew it when a new one becomes available or when it expires. Plus, there isn’t always an easy way to search for the right video based on the content. Beyond that, an increase in video will also mean an increase in the amount of bandwidth required to serve the video – a requirement that many SMBs struggle with.

We can learn a lot just by looking at trends within Widen’s own organization and DAM software customer base. There are notable increases in not only the number of video assets being added to our DAM systems, but also in the rate of videos added per year. Due to the raw size of high resolution video, the percentage of the overall file size of our DAM taken up by video has grown extensively. Again, the rate of growth per year is also increasing as we choose to use video more and more for marketing, sales and customer service purposes.

From a sales and marketing standpoint, there are dramatic increases in the coverage of video as a topic in many of our sales calls, and in RFPs that we receive. There are a number of factors that are causing these increases. One is the growing popularity of video. Again, this is well documented. In addition, there is the entire social movement. For video, this requires organizations to not only produce video content, but to make it accessible and publish it to as many online video channels as possible.

An often unnoticed factor is the shift in video camcorder technology from “tape” to “tapeless.” Tape has been a crutch for video storage and backup for… well, for forever. With the new tapeless camcorders recording very high resolution files resulting in very large file sizes with no tape to put them on, suddenly, organizations are faced with storing, securing, backing up, and distributing files that are ten times the size of the files they are familiar with managing. And remember, it is GROWING!

Bottom line, the increasing demand for video will place demands on DAM software and digital asset hosting providers to make sure that video is handled seamlessly alongside all other assets.


Stats on video usage from VideoBloom's VIEW Index (Video-Enabled Web Index):
100 Web Sites Surveyed

In August of 2009, the VIEW main index for the 100 surveyed companies was 30-75-25, which indicates that 30% of the companies had video on their home page, 75% had video on their site, and 25% didn't use any video on their Web site.

• 41% of the 100 surveyed companies have placed their Web videos 1 click away from the home page.
• 25% of the surveyed companies have placed their Web videos deep into their Web sites, 3 clicks or more away from the home page.
• 25% use online video in an advanced manner: contextual integration of videos, variety of video players, call-to-action tied to the video.
• 32% offer a full-fledged "video center" comparable to a corporate TV channel.
• 21% give access to such video center directly from their home page (one click away).
• 12% display video ads for products on their site; 7% display video ads on their home page.
• 36% offer full-screen video option.
• 4% have video on auto-play (i.e. video starts as soon as the user lands on the page).
• 11% open video in a new browser Web page.
• 18% use a pop-up window to display video.

• Video uses: 48% of the surveyed web sites use video for promotional purposes, 24% use it for informational purposes, 20% use it for demonstrative purposes, 6% use it to deliver news, 5% use it for entertainment purposes, 1% use it for other purposes and 0% use it for UGC (user generated content). (The percentages don’t add up to 75% because many sites use online video for several different purposes.)

• Video formats: 61% use Flash video, 21% use Windows Media Player, 8% use QuickTime and 4% use Real Player. (The percentages don’t add up to 75% because some websites use more than one video format.)

In light of a recent post that zappos.com reported a 6 to 30% increase in sales on items that are accompanied by a video, I wanted to talk about “why” that is. There are a number of research reports on the rise in popularity of online video publishing use within the enterprise. Aside from the obvious answer of “increased sales,” the question of “why” is not so easy to answer. That is probably because we first need to definine "how" it works.

I have been reading the research of Dr. BJ Fogg lately. He directs research and design at Stanford University's Persuasive Technology Lab. He writes that for a consumer to make a purchase, requires a “behavior change.” His behavior model talks about the convergence of three things that need to happen for the change to happen.



There needs to be a “trigger” (cue, prompt, call to action, request, etc.), the consumer must have the “ability” (financially, access, simplicity of UI, etc.), and they have to have “motivation.”

One of his key concepts within motivation is “sensation.” Video, by default, combines the use of more human senses than other tools used in traditional sales and marketing scenarios. The more senses you, as a marketer, can stimulate in your audience, the more emotion and sensation you can evoke, aiding in motivating your customers.

IMHO, I also feel that a video evoking emotion or motivation in a potential customer could also serve as the trigger. Two for one. That should help your ROI if you are looking at adding online video to your marketing efforts and needing a video asset management system.

Of course, as more businesses realize the power of video in their marketing campaigns…those videos will need to be managed in a Digital Asset Management system. Have you ever heard of Widen? ;)

Watch the interview with Brian Becker, VP of Client Development for Widen Enterprises, as he talks about the prepress production processes performed for a large apparel marketer. Part II focuses on Widen's digital sampling and color retouching services in the life cycle of a digital asset.
 

Intro

Widen recently helped a large apparel company improve quality and streamline creative production processes by utilizing a blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management technologies. Widen helped the client make the move from showcasing garments currently shot on mannequins to garments shot on live models for a new women's sports licensed apparel campaign. In meeting the goal of going live inside 30 days, Widen created over 500 images with 20-25% of their shots featuring garments on live models versus mannequins.

To get up to speed with the photo shoot and Widen photography workflow management capabilities, check out Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part I - Photography Workflow Management.


Color Production
The image work for the project was done by the Widen Color Production department, which consists of six master graphic artists. They are the ones that go in and clean-up the files… They take the camera raw data and optimize it for the best environment for lighting of the flesh tones, hair color, garment color, detail and sharpness, etc. Widen’s color retouching experts have a knack for understanding the customer expectations, which was very simple and natural for them given the jobs they work on every day.


Digital Sampling
The Digital Sampling department is the group that applies the graphics to the garments shot on the models and mannequins. The color operators take artwork from Illustrator and merge them onto the actual photograph in Photoshop. There challenge and expertise is to make sure the graphics follow the contours, shapes, highlights, shadows and wrinkles in the garments as they apply logos, team names, numbers and names, etc. supplied in the client's technical specs.

Many people don't realize what a huge production process there is that goes on behind the scenes to get garments sent to Widen, put on models, styled, shot correctly, color-optimized, digital-sampled, posted to a database and eventually marketed on a website or print catalog, signage, etc.


Color Management
Consumers only spend a few seconds shopping for garments online, so it’s critical that what they see on the screen is what they’ll get in real life.  We don’t use our eyes to confirm what we “think” we like on a screen, we use technical data that comes from a strong color management umbrella over the top of everything we do in production. From our cameras to our proofing devices, everything is color managed for the desired output – website or printed material.

In the end, Widen created approximately 500 images, which are upload to their digital asset library also hosted by Widen. From there, the images are ordered for placement on any number of websites. Posting images via embed links will help to ensure the most current images are used across all web domains.

The Widen Advantage caters to the life cycle of a digital asset by offering all of the production, management and distribution services under one roof. The blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management solutions working together help clients in a number of ways, including:

Cost Savings - Increases efficiency in creative/production cycles plus centralization of re-usable assets minimizes efforts re-inventing every process of the creation-production-distribution value chain.

Faster Time to Revenue - Shortens time to market and increases effectiveness of marketing execution by empowering sales channels with on-demand access to use brand-approved digital assets.

Competitive Advantage - Improves brand consistency with quality representation of products and ensures compliance across targeted, multi-channel marketing campaigns.

Better Planning and Strategy - Tracking of usage patterns including reuse and repurposing of assets allows for more effective budgeting, resource allocation and planning of future marketing campaigns.

Check out the Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part I - Photography Workflow Management.

Watch the interview with Brian Becker, VP of Client Development for Widen Enterprises, as he talks about the prepress production processes performed for a large apparel marketer. Part I focuses on Widen's digital photography and photography workflow management capabilities in the life cycle of a digital asset.

Intro
Widen recently helped a large apparel company improve quality and streamline creative production processes by utilizing a blend of Widen premedia services and digital asset management technologies. Widen helped the client make the move from showcasing garments currently shot on mannequins to garments shot on live models for a new women's sports licensed apparel campaign. In meeting the goal of going live inside 30 days, Widen created over 500 images with 20-25% of their shots featuring garments on live models versus mannequins.

This is a case of having a DAM customer, in which Widen provides the technology and service to manage thousands of images, take advantage of Widen’s expertise in premedia services to create their digital assets for this particular campaign.


Models and Apparel – Connecting one DAM Customer with another DAM Customer
Since this apparel customer wanted to use live models for the photo shoot at Widen, we were able to help because we have another DAM software customer that is a model and talent agency. In essence, we were able to connect one DAM client with another DAM client to complete the photo shoot. To get started, the apparel company was able to browse model shots by viewing assets from the Rock Agency online image management system and select the talent for the shoot.


Digital Photography, Review and Approval
When it came time for the shoot in Widen's photo studio, we brought in the models, photographer, and did all the make-up and styling so that we could capture a single garment before it was off to our digital sampling and color retouching departments to create all of the products and get them ready for the customer’s campaign.  (Learn more about Widen digital sampling and color retouching services in Part II.)

Leveraging Widen's online photo approval application, Widen could post the best shots for client approval before the models had even left the studio. Widen’s photo approval system allowed for same-day sign-off by the client who was over a thousand miles away.


Color Retouching, Image Management and Distribution
Once the preferred shots were selected, Widen’s Digital Sampling department created the other variations of the garments by applying logos, team names, numbers and names, etc. supplied in the client’s technical specs with Illustrator files. Widen's Color Retouching department also created the one-of-a-kind pieces by taking a photo of the garment on the mannequin and applying color retouching techniques to create quality digital apparel samples optimized for e-commerce websites. All of the final images were organized and managed in Widen’s online photo asset management system where the client could select the best shots for executing the campaign.


The end result helped the client achieve superior image quality and color consistency for the product images on the web to best represent the real-life garment.


Check out the Widen Premedia Workflow Study Part II - Digital Sampling and Color Retouching.