Finding the Balance — D.A.M. in a Creative World

GTB
GTB
Aug 9, 2017 · 4 min read

When we began our Digital Asset Management journey at GTB, we had the typical collection of people, servers, hard drives, and desktops. Assets could be found within one or multiple of these locations (or potentially none of them.) The Wild West was an apt description for the landscape with which we had to work. One respondent from a survey conducted prior to implementing our DAM went so far as to say, “If certain key people in the life of a campaign are not available, no amount of divination can locate artwork.”

The case for DAM was an obvious one. The inefficiency of working without a central source for assets in creative development, including incorrect usage of out of date or product incorrect assets was quantifiable by dollars spent fixing mistakes or hours wasted hunting down assets.

Enter our Digital Asset Management system, fondly referred to in the industry as the DAM. The benefits of the DAM include: improved time to market for creative, increased creative output using fewer resources, minimized use of incorrect art, and provided a better hold on rights management and more control over usage of assets. The DAM itself was working as designed, and all assets were stored in a central and accessible location. We came up with a creative and fun branding for the site and rolled out the DAM. And quickly learned that our DAM journey was just beginning. We needed to find a balance between the typical marketing driven linear approach to DAM and the needs of our creatively inclined users.

Who designs the DAM?

Incorporating key members of creative and account teams into the project team as well as allowing them to participate in focus groups regarding the DAM’s organization, functionality, and new features prior to roll out has provided a major improvement in user experience. This correlates back to linear vs. creative thinking — the asset management team can only take the DAM so far. It’s crucial to understand how actual users need to use the system to work efficiently. Without their buy-in and approval, user acceptance will be sub-par at best.

What goes into the DAM?

Initially this was EVERYTHING — but when you produce staggering amounts of content every day you need a way to filter it. There is a fine line between providing everything users could possibly want and recognizing that they don’t actually want to see everything. Users want to search and find assets that are relevant to them — their projects and their needs. Scrolling through thousands of assets can be just as inefficient as not using a DAM at all. A typical user search within the system has to provide enough results to offer a good selection without being overwhelming. We approached this both inside and outside the DAM. Within the DAM we made sure that the organizational structure was clean, simple, and easy to navigate while the metadata tagging was consistent and accurate. We also took a look at all the assets we collected and determined what needed to be made accessible to users and what didn’t. An additional benefit to this approach was that it also allowed us to optimize our storage usage on the servers.

Where does the DAM fit in?

And finally, where does the DAM fit within the organization? Our situation addresses this beyond the familiar “Does DAM live with IT or with Marketing?” Instead we are determining not only whether the DAM best fits with Production, or IT, or the Studio, Creative, Account, etc. (a case can be made for any of these) but also how the DAM fits into the overall process of the agency. The clear answer is that the DAM needs to be involved at each step of the workflow as process moves through these departments and content is created. The collection and ingestion of assets should be a seamless part of the process, capturing information associated with the project through every step of the process. All of that valuable information can be translated into metadata that is stored with the produced assets within the DAM.

Is the DAM project finished?

Never. We are constantly refining and adjusting both the system and our processes to stay current with industry trends and the evolving needs of our users. Remaining flexible is perhaps the most important lesson in finding the balance of using DAM in a creative world.

Written By: Jennifer Dolcetti, Director, Global Asset Management, GTB

GTB Life

Nice to meet you. We’re GTB. We’re a global creative team working together with a single mission: To make what matters. For people and for business.

GTB

Written by

GTB

Nice to meet you. We’re GTB. We’re a global team working together with a simple purpose: To make what matters. For people. For business.

GTB Life

GTB Life

Nice to meet you. We’re GTB. We’re a global creative team working together with a single mission: To make what matters. For people and for business.

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