BRAND YOUR DAM FOR SUCCESS! A Position Paper revised June 26, 2012 By Jillian Gibbs & Mandy Burch Advertising Production Resources Co.

Transcription

1 BRAND YOUR DAM FOR SUCCESS! A Position Paper revised June 26, 2012 By Jillian Gibbs & Mandy Burch Advertising Production Resources Co. Introduction For the purposes of this position paper, Advertising Production Resources (APR), a leading ad production management consultancy in North America, proposes that when facilitating the implementation of a creative content management solution such as a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, unique branding will significantly impact the consistent use of the DAM system bringing added value to your end users, versus that of a generic non-branded or software company branded system. It may sound like an optional or nice to have element of a Digital Asset Management system, but our research and experience shows that designing a well thought-out branding strategy and communication plan with your marketing department and its creative agencies will truly Brand Your DAM for Success! APR presents the following position paper to share our creative experiences through our clients successes and define the branding process of a DAM solution for you. Page 1 Business Case Systems databases technology are everywhere in our world. Are they always useful? They re developed for our professional use with the age-old goals of increasing productivity and performance. But, do they really? From the Marketing perspective, our premise is that properly branding your technology and making the tool part of the company culture and ad production process is important to ensuring healthy system usage and enhancing ROI. Further, what we re proposing in this paper is that by creating a spot-on branding strategy for your Digital Asset Management system, you will increase, not only such easily monitored metrics as system use, but your Company s Marketing productivity, by 50-60%!!! You typically don t use the words fun and system in the same breath, do you! Hence came the need to look at how our clients Digital Asset Management systems could create an enjoyable experience; making marketers want to return and utilize what is an invaluable tool to assist them with all of their advertising and marketing communication needs. And, let s not forget the return on investment (ROI) that you get when a Company is truly vested in making their DAM more usable which is measured on reuse of assets and less redundancy.

2 Problem Statement / Introduction How can I get my marketing/communication team and agencies to utilize my online creative libraries and approval tools more often? How do I get them to stop sending large files via s? How can we change the culture and incorporate our DAM technology into our workflow? Regarding the technology systems that you ve worked with through the years, ask yourself how many of them: Simply died on the vine? Were not successful the first time around and reinvented? Were difficult to use? Seemed too technical in nature? Didn t contain current, relevant information? Were I.T. designed and supported with little or no regard for the user? Took too much time to use? Required many calls to the Help Desk? Most importantly (for our discussions), were not fun to use? Increased Productivity Most of us appreciate tools to help us be more productive. A well-utilized DAM solution allows for: More productive employees Quicker turnaround to market Less time wasted searching for images Less redundancy in producing assets that already exist Page 2

3 The Solution BRAND YOUR DAM! After carefully configuring your DAM system and assets have been uploaded and tagged, branding considerations become critical before rolling out access to users. Some questions to begin asking yourself: We have this slick new DAM system, which holds much of our advertising collateral. How can we make it interesting and fun for our users to get to? What kind of identity can we give the system? Corporate, cute, or fun? Can we give it a personality? Is it necessary to use company sponsored icons, or can we deviate a bit? Beneficiaries! Support from above is essential to the success of a branding effort. We recommend getting system beneficiaries involved early and throughout the process of defining and developing your DAM solution. It may include something as simple as getting DAM BRANDING as an agenda item on your departmental team meeting for a brief brainstorming session, or as formal as taking the branding idea to a professional brand and advertising firm for their seasoned perspective and options. We ve seen system branding that lives on a shoestring budget that involves nothing more than clip art on the web, and the creativity of a few consultants! Or, we ve seen an agency partner become vested in supporting their client with some polished branding. Decide what s right for your company and develop a communications plan. Three Easy Steps There are three easy steps to implementing your DAM Brand! 1. Create a Name, a Mascot and a Personality for your solution 2. Develop a Communication Plan 3. Work the Plan Incorporate the System into your Business Culture for Results Page 3

4 1. Create a Name, Mascot and Personality What s in a Name? We ve conceived some rather ingenious branding for our clients DAM systems, and those that are successful focus on a name that is, creating a Proper Name from an acronym. Finding the right name can be a fun project relegated to an internal person/people/team. You may conduct a Name the System contest with nominal prizes. This approach begins to create a community around the DAM and keeps all levels of the Marketing organization vested in building a participative process. Additionally, creative agency partners can also be invited to take part in the fun. Now, what kind of names for your DAM system could you envision? Here are some ideas: ART Archive and Reference for Technology DALE Digital Asset Library for the Enterprise/Everyone DARREN Digital Asset Resource Repository & Enterprise Network EMMA Enterprise Marketing Management Asset system MARK Marketing Asset Resource & Knowledge system MARLA Marketing Asset Reference Library & Archive Next, Create a Mascot or Visual Image A three-dimensional person or mascot can be the keeper of the system. This is someone that almost comes to life, can even live in the system and call it home. Hint: Make sure that it s an image that complements your company culture and branding. They are there specifically to support the system, help you, have fun and ultimately, help you to have fun with the system. Believe it or not, there is even the perception by some users that the system functions more effectively because of person-based branding! Create a personality! As defined, personality is a description of consistent emotional, thought, and behavior patterns in a person. For our purposes, our person or mascot needs to be consistently identified in all of your company recognition activities and can be folded into your branded DAM, via theme-based newsletters, system announcements, tips and tricks, etc. Page 4

5 2. Develop a Communications Plan In order to set yourself up for success, it s important to have structured communication throughout the lifecycle of selecting, branding and institutionalizing your DAM solution. We ve coupled some communication activities with key steps in selecting a DAM. They are as follows: DAM Solution Step Define Business Use Cases Develop System Requirements RapidRFP Development Vendor Selection DAM Implementation/Integration Testing Introduction to User Groups Ongoing Communication Communication Ideas Introduce benefits to business Engage business in defining needs Deliver needs to vendors within 2-4 weeks Create vendor scorecard, communicate results Conduct naming contest, design launch activities Via branded Quick Reference Cards, test aids Town Hall meetings, Brown Bag lunches DAM Newsletters, Tips & Tricks, etc. 3. Work the Plan Incorporate the System into your Business Culture for Results Why did you decide to invest in a branded DAM solution to begin with? Results, results, ROI! Changing the culture at your office and across your organization is important to the successful utilization of your DAM tools. Building incentives, turning off the old ways of retrieving assets, creating a supportive environment and making it fun, can all lead to better deployment and ongoing health of your systems. Be sure to update your Advertising Production Guidelines so they include how and when to access the DAM. Our experience has demonstrated that building a DAM takes some upfront planning, as well as ongoing communication throughout the life of your DAM systems. It can be easy and fun, and it s definitely worth the effort. A Librarian or Archivist is necessary in order to manage and work the plan. Someone needs to be responsible to keep the plan going, manage the communication and ensure the asset library is updated regularly. Page 5

6 Benefits of a DAM With a useful DAM that s actually incorporated into your creative ad production process, your ROI will increase by 60%. From day one, some of the metrics to measure include tracking increased efficiencies, hard cost savings, and some of the following: Efficiencies in DAM and Workflow Concurrent asset review Quicker turn-around time for approvals (internal and external) Improved communication and version control Awareness of assets owned Time savings in workflow and less time spent searching for materials Availability of historical database, otherwise inaccessible An archive with appropriate usage rights and terms associated to each asset Cost Savings Less photography and film production costs as you create awareness of the assets Less color copies, duplication and video dubs because you work in a virtual online environment Less shipping costs Less agency and client travel needed, providing more time for productivity More opportunity to use, reuse and repurpose assets without reproducing Additional opportunities to sell existing assets or stock footage Conclusion In conclusion, branding your DAM will get your users closer to your creative assets thus ensuring proper, consistent and timely use and enhanced ROI. And, for the purposes of this position paper, it more effectively engages users, making for a richer technology experience. Page 6