The Complexities of Digital Asset Management for Retailers

Digital asset management (DAM) has become increasingly complex for retailers and brands to manage. With the proliferation of touchpoints like social media and digital marketplaces, companies now require more content and assets than ever before. This new era of retailing is therefore creating challenges around tracking assets, ensuring brand consistency, and personalizing retail experiences.

To help unpack the issues around DAM, Chris Walton and Anne Mezzenga of Omni Talk recently spoke with Brian Kavanaugh, the Director of Global Field and Customer Marketing at the DAM solution provider Bynder.

Here are some of the key takeaways from their discussion:

Consolidating Global Operations

Many retailers still manage assets regionally. By centralizing DAM globally, companies can reduce duplicate photo shoots and create efficiencies. For example, one brand went from 8-9 regional shoots per year to just one global shoot.

Matching Assets to Personalize Experiences

Retailers want to deliver personalized experiences to different customer segments. To do this, they need sufficient visual assets to match the right images and offers to each segment. Without enough variety and volume of images, personalization falls short.

Connecting Front-End and Back-End Systems

To power relevant customer experiences, DAM systems need to integrate with front-end e-commerce and apps as well as back-end data platforms. This enables assets to automatically flow into the right touchpoints for each user.

Leveraging AI for Automation

AI is already transforming DAM capabilities and operations. For example, image recognition can auto-tag assets, while AI search tools can find images based on conceptual queries. Generative AI like ChatGPT can even help create product descriptions and other text-based assets.

Analyzing Performance Data

With DAM systems, retailers can now see usage metrics for assets across channels. This data can provide insights into the best-performing colors, products, models, etc. to inform future content production.

The Final 411

The biggest takeaway is that while managing digital assets has become more complex, new technologies like DAM platforms, AI, and cloud services can help retailers centralize assets, distribute them intelligently, and glean data-driven insights from their performance.

Omni Talk believes that companies that leverage these solutions will gain significant advantages in delivering personalized, relevant customer experiences at scale in the years ahead.