DAM Productive
EC offers proven expertise in administrating Digital Asset Management systems.
Tim Goodman’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) administrator role was born out of necessity. CNH Industrial needed a better way to organize, find and distribute their vast library of logos, photos, videos, catalogs and marketing assets. Keeping boxes of old CDs, catalogs and film in places that were not always known or accessible was no longer cutting it. The client needed a system that would provide automation, organization, categorization, metadata classification, and remote access. And that’s where Goodman, Director of Account Services at Equity Creative, stepped in.
“Having so many assets coming in from so many different places was a challenge. It’s difficult bringing in 40,000 assets to sort, organize and categorize in order to create a new system and structure,” Goodman said. “Developing categories, creating naming conventions and identifying details before migration all took time.”
In addition to Tim, there are four others who work internally at CNH Industrial serving as DAM admins – one for each of CNH Industrial’s four brands. The four admins worked together to assign groups of assets to each brand, so while there is some crossover in their digital assets, the different groups help to keep things separate. Their approach to DAM incorporates a multi-branded site with different logos, site colors, dashboards and login pages per brand. “Within each brand there are users in product marketing, the dealer network, internal and field sales, corporate employees, agencies, and suppliers who provide parts,” Goodman says.
Working with the core group of admins, Goodman began creating a naming convention and category structure that would drastically improve the search success of his users. “We identified all part lines and assigned categories that way. It’s something we continually modify as we update our communications and materials.”
With a large organization like CNH Industrial, there are as many assets to wrangle as people touching them. For Goodman, it’s important to understand how the assets come in before managing the workflow associated with collecting, categorizing and processing them. “We’re trying to make the admins the gatekeepers of the digital assets as much as possible to establish consistency and to keep everything cleansed.”
According to Goodman, consistency is paramount to the process. “Because we have multiple brands within the company, our challenge is maintaining consistency with all of the various people who are authorized to upload. We standardized our naming convention within the company. Maintaining consistency enables all groups to find exactly what they need. That’s why we’re always using the same language.”
Photos for the marketing collateral, brochures, website, e-commerce site, and spec sheets are constantly being updated for all of the products. “In the admin role, we’re always uploading new images, videos and marketing assets, replacing outdated materials, and updating corporate brand guidelines. Adding new data to assets is an ongoing process,” Goodman explained.
Goodman emphasizes that the DAM system is a convenient, single source. “We encourage people to access the system instead of using Sharepoint, email, a disk or hard drive,” he says. “The idea of giving instant visibility to anyone, anytime is great.” That instant visibility has paid off for Goodman’s client. When sales people, dealers or internal marketing departments attend tradeshows, they can readily access product brochures, sell sheets or videos to train staff or walk customers through materials.
“When people adopt and use DAM, it’s so easy to share assets. It’s made life for our teams so much easier. We use a single sign on, so there are no worries about a login or password — you just click on a link to get what’s been sent to you,” Goodman explains. “The people who’ve taken the time to learn have said the DAM system is effortless for sharing large amounts of information. When it clicks for them, they want to use it more.”
What should new users know about implementing a digital asset management system? “Take a minute to evaluate your organization and how you’re going to utilize the system because it will change as your organization evolves,” Goodman says. “Pre-planning and knowing what to expect helps. If you have to limit user rights and access to preserve the viability of the assets, then you need to do that. It’s a continual process and we’re making our system better all the time.”
