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Why a Digital Asset Manager is Critical for Branding

By BLUE Software

From logos and icons to slogans and brand voice, a Digital Asset Manager provides manufacturers and retailers with the brand consistency they need.

It’s official.  We’re living our lives in a digital, mobile world.  From tablets… to mobile phones…  to smartwatches and virtual voice assistants, the way in which we consume and communicate information has transformed.  Case in point: consumers are now using their mobile devices to connect to the internet more often than computers, and some studies suggest mobile devices account for more than 80 percent of internet traffic.  80 percent!  To go a little “old school” and quote Bob Dylan: “The times, they are a changin’.”

In this new normal, consumers are more autonomous than ever before. With information right at their fingertips 24/7, they are spoiled for choice – and this means your branding is vital.  It’s no longer enough to identify the media your customers consume and buy ad space in those channels. Now, you must engage with consumers on their terms.  This means joining the conversations they’re having, when they’re having them, and promoting a consistent brand image and consolidated message every time.

Is your brand prepared?

Your Visual Brand Identity

The look of your brand is comprised of your logo, lovemark, layout, imagery, colors, and other design elements. The success of your visual brand identity is greatly influenced by the consistency of these elements and how they work together.  Developing a seamless look for your brand across your website, all social media channels, on the store shelf, and on your product packaging will make consumers feel more comfortable with your brand – and more likely to purchase from you again.

However, social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter contain a ton of customization options – which makes it easy to create versions within versions of your brand identity and accidentally go “off brand.”

Some general guidelines to keep in mind when it comes to visual branding:

  • Keep colors, logos and layouts similar across all platforms.
  • Maintain visual cohesion in all customer engagement channels.
  • Adhere to your style guide: color palette, font, and other graphical elements.

Your Brand Voice

Conflicting messages will confuse your customers and harm your brand. For example, if your social media voice is playful but your product packaging is sterile, you’re sending mixed signals that will confuse consumers and leave them feeling like your brand can’t be trusted.  Hence, it is important to keep the content you share on digital channels consistent.  That said, in today’s digital environment, manufacturers and retailers are under pressure to be immediate, and unfortunately, immediacy can result in confusing, misleading, or even harmful communications that detract from the brand voice you’ve worked so hard to establish.

Some general guidelines to keep in mind when it comes to your brand voice:

  • Use similar tone and language in all content.
  • Your online voice should reflect your core values.
  • Your online customer interactions should reflect those values as well.
  • Your customer service standards should represent a consistent level, no matter the channel of interaction.
  • It should be easy for customers to describe what your company stands for after digesting content in any channel.
  • Customers should be able to easily recognize your brand voice in all channels.

Achieve Brand Consistency with Label and Artwork Management

A Label and Artwork Management solution with a Digital Asset Manager can help manufacturers and retailers achieve the brand consistency they need in the digital, mobile world by instilling better control over the brand strategy process and providing visibility over distinctive brand assets – from logos and icons to slogans and brand voice.

At its core, a Digital Asset Manager is a powerful brand management system.  It can efficiently store, organize, and distribute large numbers of approved, brand standard digital assets, media, and content with internal team members as well as with external agencies and printers, thereby ensuring corporate guidelines for values and visual integrity are retained, regardless of application or location.  Furthermore, it enables brand teams to control versions and provides them with usage traceability – increasing content quality and consistency so that from Twitter to Instagram… from Amazon to Overstock… your brand fosters a consistent consumer connection across all channels and inspires consumer loyalty.

A Digital Asset Manager can also provide valuable brand protection by simplifying governance.  A sophisticated Digital Asset Manager will offer Defined User Permissions, through which asset access permissions are set for employees, clients, and vendors alike.  When this rights management information ‘travels’ with the content, you prevent misuse.  For example, you can ensure brand images and multimedia resources are only used in accordance with con­tractual usage rights; so, an image licensed for print use would not be accidentally used in an online format or shared with the wrong agency.

Keep Pace with Innovation

Whether it’s e-commerce or mobile, video or virtual, innovation is ever evolving and good brands keep pace.  Learn more about how you can maintain your brand fundamentals across all digital channels and optimize the consumer experience in our e-book: Online Collaborative Proofing & Asset Management: Must-Haves for Marketing.

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