Rich Media: Images, Video, Business Asset and Intellectual Property
Beyond the significant cost and time savings, process optimization and the ability to streamline the flow of rich media across required channels, organizations that deploy DAM will increase their ability to control the brand and include rich media in broad enterprise content management strategies.
The bottom line is that rich media represents intellectual property and regulators are beginning to consider them "business assets" in the same way that a contract, email, product design or financial report is treated under the many regulations that are being imposed today. Progressive organizations need to begin considering rich media assets as "business content" and not just the realm of marketing departments.
DAM at Work: A Brief Case Study
The world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances, with annual sales of more than $18 billion, 68,000 employees and 50 manufacturing and technology research centers around the globe, found itself struggling with establishing distinct brand identities and messaging. They needed assurance that accurate images were delivered in the correct manner to the correct channel, in order to protect, sustain and expand their worldwide market.
For example, the company was dealing with an average of 10 or more phone requests per day for images. The current manual process of burning 10 or more CDs per week, some with only one file intact, was extremely wasteful of time and prone to human error. This laborious, manual process resulted in increased potential for the distribution of incorrect product images and model numbers, which in turn irritated trade partners and confused consumers. The company needed a solution that was appropriate for an industry leader.
The Business Solution
This industry leader was in need of a totally digital environment, one that would convey the message of consistency, reliability and speed-to-market to their customers. However with email and manual processes providing the vehicles for product, brand and advertising manager communications, a backlogged workflow chain was created, which resulted in frustration and extreme counter-productivity.
The frustration of dealing with multiple agencies internally and thousands of trade partners externally meant that the best-case scenario for fulfilling image requests was one to three days, on average. Obviously, with an average waiting period such as this, speed-to-market was not the message that customers were receiving.
A robust digital asset management system was required to ensure this critical speed-to-market brand image was reaching customers. A centralized and accessible repository of images for licensed products images, and for repurposing images and content, was critical.
They chose the Artesia DAM implementation to organize, manually retrieve and distribute approximately 48,000 images (this number rose from 3,000 images per year prior to DAM). Their Artesia DAM repository now protects over 13,000 product shots that represent their entire house of brands.
The Business Value
The Artesia DAM implementation provided the "anytime, anywhere, anyway" edge for meeting internal and external customer needs, which was deserving of the image of this industry leader. Thanks to DAM, the company is now able to easily manage brand messaging by ensuring that accurate images are delivered in the correct mode to the correct destination. Trade partners are now provided with quality images for branded co-promotions and product demonstrations, which translates into global brand consistency as far as trade partners and customers are concerned.
An estimated savings of at least $400,000 per year was the result of DAM’s automated search and retrieval functions, simply by eliminating CD-based and manual fulfillment, and establishing easeful recovery of in-house photography. Now a centralized repository brings in-house control over product shots, eliminating the cost of image recreation, storage and retrieval. The company can now provide trade partners with branded imagery according to their market and geographic needs, and departments can offer "image-enabled" applications to external customers via a Web-based, self-service merchandising tool, point of sale materials and product specification sheets, as well as print advertising to trade partners and buying group representatives. Suddenly the company is able to create and distribute a collection of assets for a particular marketing campaign or product launch—for example, reusable digital packages that can be used for multiple deliverables including point of sale materials, literature and e-commerce websites—in an efficient, organized and timely manner, which saves the company time and money, and ensures a solid and trusted brand identity.
The ROI that resulted from the DAM implementation is revenue-generating, productivity-enhancing and competitively profitable, because DAM provides trade partners with a self-serve, zero-cost environment to support sales and marketing efforts. That translates to a clear and measurable competitive market edge.
Artesia (
www.artesia.com), Open Text’s Digital Media Group, is focused on helping organizations maximize the value of rich media assets—however unique they are. Marketing departments understand the need for digital asset management, but many have overlooked the importance in their overall ECM strategies. By incorporating the benefits of DAM, organizations realize tremendous business value by enhancing responsiveness and service to customers, partners and distributors, by providing greater transparency into projects, by maintaining historical records of campaigns/products for compliance purposes, by cutting superfluous marketing costs and by establishing increased collaboration across their entire enterprise.