By Cassandra Carnes

In order to achieve consistent branding over multiple channels, marketers manage company assets effectively and efficiently in varied formats. Digital asset management (DAM) and marketing asset management solutions are designed to help organize and protect this rich data.

The advantages of DAM serve a variety of organizations spanning from creative and government agencies to enterprises and publishers. These systems, which were once designated for a select segment within a company, are becoming essential, core platforms throughout the entire business workflow.

Various market sectors recognize the need to better find, manage, and distribute their digital assets, notes Chris Kolodinsky, national sales and account manager, WAVE Corporation. These organizations want to go to market faster by increasing efficiencies for print and Web in day-to-day operations. "Companies are now demanding more ways to collaborate with both internal and external divisions and share content across different medians for access and approval," he adds.

Just as products move from a manufacturer to a distributor to the eventual retailer, media and content also need to flow, explains Tom Rieger, VP of marketing, MediaBeacon. "This re-enforces the primary use of DAM around anything to do with a brand, e-learning, and intellectual property management and enablement."

Beyond generic branding and organizational functions, specific verticals find niche uses for DAM. The insurance industry deals with more claim-related technology and rich content. Connectivity from digital assets into other business process systems is key to document efficiency. Marketing and promotion for the healthcare industry relies heavily on the approval and documentation of files. "In addition to having creative and ad content, you need FDA approval, legal approval, etc. In general, healthcare has many approval layers and thus layers of tracking needed to watch the jobs," says Scott Seebass, CEO, Xinet.

Overall, DAM systems are largely horizontal and designed to meet the needs of many organizations that must communicate, promote, and organize their digital media. "Marketing is the primary consumer of DAM, with its clear charter to use rich media to communicate to a broad range of stakeholders both internal and external. It is increasingly employed for global marketing where the problem of marketing globally, targeting locally, and maintaining brand compliance throughout is a huge challenge yet essential to brand value," says Joshua Duhl, VP, marketing and product management, North Plains.

As mixed forms of media enter the marketing and promotions repertoire, organizations are tasked with maintaining brand consistency, ensuring the latest revisions are accessible across multiple departments, and reducing the time spent looking for these files.

Next week we share the specific challenges of DAM implementation. The July/August issue of Digital Publishing Solutions includes a full-featured article on DAM. dps

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