DAM New York 2024 wrap-up: key insights and innovations from Papirfly
Papirfly
2minutes read
DAM NY 2024 has come to a close, wrapping up two incredible days of insights and innovation on October 23-24 at the New York Hilton Midtown. The conference brought together industry professionals and thought leaders to explore the transformative power of Digital Asset Management (DAM) and its central role in modern marketing.
As an exhibitor and speaker, Papirfly was proud to connect with attendees seeking to elevate their content management strategies. A highlight of the event was The Great DAM Bake-Off, where our Head of Product Enablement presented an engaging demo alongside Frontify, Bynder, and Acquia. We were thrilled by the audience’s overwhelming support and especially honored to be recognized by the judges as having the best-looking DAM interface. Winning the audience’s hearts was not only rewarding but also reinforced the value of our innovative approach and user-focused design.
Event highlights and key trends
The conference sessions offered a wealth of insights into the latest trends and technological advancements in DAM. Notably, the increasing role of AI emerged as a focal point. AI-driven asset management is transforming workflows with enhanced efficiency, personalization, and targeted content distribution. Companies like Steg AI demonstrated how AI can streamline workflows, while CI Hub showcased advanced integration capabilities that boost platform productivity. Across these discussions, quality data stood out as a crucial foundation for effective marketing, reinforcing that good data drives better decision-making in the DAM space.
Streamlined workflows for greater collaboration
A recurring theme throughout the conference was the demand for more streamlined workflows and increased visibility across content management processes. Attendees noted challenges like decentralized processes, version control issues, and siloed workflows—roadblocks that can hinder collaboration and delay time-to-market. Revlon’s on-stage discussions underscored the need for a synchronized, transparent content supply chain to overcome these obstacles.
DAM: central to digital transformation
The event reaffirmed that DAM is more than a standalone solution; it’s a vital component in the modern marketing tech stack. For organizations navigating digital transformation, DAM plays a crucial role in aligning content management with overarching brand and business strategies.
For those eager to explore the essentials of DAM further, check out our pre-event article, Serving assets on a silver platter, where we delve into:
The importance of intuitive design for end-user engagement
Techniques to optimize DAM systems for navigation, accessibility, and content delivery
The benefits of integrating DAM systems with other business applications for enhanced productivity
Reflecting on DAM NY 2024
As we reflect on this inspiring event, Papirfly remains committed to helping organizations streamline content creation and management, ensuring on-brand consistency at scale. Thank you to everyone who joined us at DAM NY 2024—we’re excited to continue these conversations and push the boundaries of innovation in the DAM space!
Navigating the future of brand management with integrated DAM solutions
Papirfly
3minutes read
Papirly’s recent webinar “Beyond DAM: Shaping the Future of Brand Management Strategies,” brought together a distinguished panel of industry experts to delve into the evolving landscape of Digital Asset Management (DAM) and its pivotal role in brand management and compliance. The session featured insights from Chuck Gahun, Principal Analyst at Forrester; Jane Robinson, Global Employer Branding Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG); Priya Patel, Senior Market Research Analyst at G2; Thomas Larzilliere, CEO of Keepeek; and Papirfly’s own Max Sihvonen, CoSo.
The webinar explored three main areas:
the latest technological trends in DAM,
the increasing demand for personalised and localised content across diverse channels,
the significance of efficient asset management in creating on-brand assets
A consistent theme throughout the discussion was the synergy between DAM and brand management. This highlighted the need for solutions that not only manage digital assets but also ensure brand consistency across all platforms.
Emerging trends and consumer expectations
The panel unanimously agreed that consumer expectations are driving the need for more sophisticated DAM solutions. Chuck Gahun emphasised the societal shift towards interactive engagement, necessitating brands to centralise assets to deliver immersive experiences across multiple touchpoints. This is pushing DAM solutions to evolve, incorporating features like 3D models for virtual reality and API-driven content delivery to meet the demand for personalised experiences.
Priya Patel shared insights from G2’s user reviews, noting an increased demand for DAM features that support integration with marketing and creative software, digital rights management, analytics, and workflow management. These features are crucial for brands to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketplace by delivering high-quality, relevant, and on-brand content swiftly.
The integral role of DAM in brand management
Jane Robinson shared BCG’s journey of implementing Papirfly to drive global brand consistency. The DAM platform has become a “one-stop shop” for BCG’s employer branding needs, allowing for the creation of personalised and customised assets that adhere to global brand guidelines while enabling local teams to add a personal touch. This balance of global consistency and local relevance has been key to BCG’s employer branding strategy.
Thomas Larzilliere discussed the evolving role of DAM in content production and brand compliance. With the proliferation of content across various platforms, maintaining brand governance has become more complex. DAM solutions are central to managing this complexity, ensuring that assets are produced correctly, efficiently, and in compliance with brand guidelines.
Key insights and future directions
The webinar showcased not only the current state and evolution of DAM but also revealed key insights pivotal for the future of brand management:
The imperative for agile content strategies: One critical takeaway was the growing need for brands to adopt agile content strategies that can quickly adapt to market changes and consumer behaviours. This agility is facilitated by platforms that go beyond traditional DAM, offering robust analytics and insights that allow brands to pivot and personalise content in real-time.
Enhanced collaboration across teams: Another revelation was the increasing importance of fostering collaboration across creative, marketing, and IT teams. Integrated DAM and brand management solutions are breaking down silos, enabling cross-functional teams to work cohesively towards common branding goals, thus accelerating content lifecycle processes from creation to distribution.
Security and compliance in Digital Asset Management: With the rise in digital content, ensuring the security and compliance of digital assets has become a forefront concern for brands. The discussion highlighted how modern DAM systems are incorporating advanced security features and compliance tools to protect brand assets and adhere to global regulatory standards.
These insights highlight the journey beyond traditional DAM, emphasising the critical need for brands to adopt holistic, secure, and adaptable brand management platforms. This will be essential for staying competitive and thriving in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
For further exploration on how these trends impact your brand strategy and how Papirfly’s brand management platform can support your brand’s growth, catch the webinar below, or learn more about our platform.
Staying on brand is a challenge. Especially if you’re a global business or enterprise.
You need to manage a complex matrix of audiences, regions, brand identities, digital assets, distribution channels, collateral, campaigns, creative teams, external collaborators…the list goes on. And the stakes, paces, and competition are high.
Against this background, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system can be a game changer for busy brand and marketing teams. A significant differentiating factor that helps you stay on brand, work smarter, and get to every market faster.
Here are six things DAM can do to keep you on brand in 2024 – whether you’re concerned with accelerating on-brand content creation, improving brand assets distribution, or automating manual tasks that hamper agility.
1. Centralise all of your digital assets in a single library
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Giving all content collaborators fast access to approved assets, to accelerate on-brand content creation, speed to market, and overall agility
The defining feature of a DAM system is that it provides a single, secure platform to store, access, and use all of your digital assets. Whether that’s the building blocks you use to create campaigns – like photos, video, and artwork – or finished collateral that brand ambassadors use out in the world (more on that later).
Without a Digital Asset Management system, brands often struggle to find and use their digital assets. They can be strewn across the organisation and external agencies – hiding on desktops, departmental drives, and intranet sites. This makes it hard to track them down – and even harder to know whether and how they can be used.
This has lots of risks associated with it – such as using embargoed, withdrawn, or older versions of images or logos. Not to mention the disruption and time wasted hunting for assets, which slows your time to market. And, of course, the cost when lost assets need to be recreated from scratch.
Centralising all of your creative building blocks in a digital asset library ensures they’re immediately available for designers and content creators.
Advanced search functionality, visual previews, version control, metadata, and usage rights make it quick and easy to find on-brand digital assets – and know how to use them compliantly.
This enhanced visibility into digital asset availability also reduces the risk of duplicating and recreating existing assets – and allows for repurposing and reuse. This cuts creation time and costs.
2. Get everyone on board and on-brand
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Give everyone access to up-to-date brand guidelines and approved assets
A Digital Asset Management system isn’t just about storing digital assets, it’s also about accessing and using them. A DAM has advanced sharing capabilities that let you provide people with secure access to assets – either as a system user or via share links and portals for external stakeholders.
One use of portals in DAM is to create a brand hub. This provides people with structured access to brand guidelines, approved assets and tools. It’s a dedicated space for people to discover, understand, and apply your brand correctly – whether they’re internal collaborators, regional partners or external contractors, like design and marketing agencies.
You can set up a brand portal to share logos, approved imagery, templates, font files, brand guidelines, examples of on-brand design and copy, etc. And thanks to the structure, searchability, and user-friendly interface in most DAM systems, they’re more accessible and easier to use.
This all improves brand consistency and compliance, and helps reduce the time it takes to onboard new creative suppliers.
Portals aren’t just great for brand hubs. You can set up portals for any purpose. For example:
A sales enablement hub that gives dealers and distributors instant access to marketing collateral for their region
A media hub that provides press and other stakeholders with access to your logo and other brand assets
An employer branding hub that contains resources and assets for recruiters, HR, internal comms, employee advocates etc
3. Provide templates and localisation tools
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Empowering local stakeholders to create on-brand collateral that meets their specific needs, while meeting global brand standards
Even if you have centralised your brand and marketing function, you’ll have a lot of stakeholders in a lot of places. And these local stakeholders can have needs that your central team can’t meet. For example, promotional posters for an event, a brochure addressing a specific local market…
With limited time and resources available centrally, these well-intentioned but poorly equipped brand ambassadors may create their own collateral – and the results don’t always meet brand standards. This risks brand dilution and even damage. [For example, this off-brand PureGym post]
Some Digital Asset Management platforms include – or integrate with – template and localisation tools.
These provide access to a library of on-brand templates for local stakeholders to tailor to their needs – with a choice of formats, approved imagery, and current logos etc. [Advanced DAM systems also offer automatic translation into different languages ?]
This empowers individual branches or divisions easily create the collateral they need, without going off-brand. Plus, it lets organisations leverage the benefits of central control and efficiency, while maintaining responsiveness to local market conditions.
4. Easily archive out-of-date assets
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Flagging dated assets that need retiring or replacing
One of the biggest risks to your brand visual identity is the use of out-of-date assets. Especially if you’ve been through a rebrand. There’s nothing worse than seeing collateral featuring an old logo, the wrong font, or a photo of a product or service that’s no longer available.
A valuable feature of DAM is lifecycle management and the ability to archive assets. You can do this automatically – for example, when an asset hits its three-year upload-aversary. However, it’s better to review each case individually, as some assets may still be relevant and valuable.
One way to assess whether to retire assets is to look at analytics in your DAM. Usage metrics will tell you if an asset is highly used. If so, you may decide to keep it in circulation a little longer. Or, if it is looking dated and needs to retire, you know you need to commission a suitable replacement.
Either way, the archive feature of a Digital Asset Management system helps keep your brand feeling fresh, current, and consistent.
5. Protect embargoed assets
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Providing access to assets for faster time-to-market, while protecting them from premature use
One concern people have about centralising their digital assets is how to protect embargoed files. For example, photos of a new unreleased car model. You want to provide content creators and collaborators with easy access to digital assets. But don’t want to risk them falling into the wrong hands.
A DAM system has advanced permission controls and usage rights. You can safely add any digital asset and restrict access at a granular level – letting individuals and small groups have very specific rights. For example, you can allow a graphic designer download rights but a marketing manager view-only access.
This enables brands leverage the benefit of centralised digital asset management and online collaboration, without worrying that commercially sensitive assets will be leaked.
6. Apply brand treatments at scale with AI
How DAM helps you stay on brand – Automatically editing digital assets to match your brand visual identity
Our last benefit of DAM for brands today is automation. This can take many forms as Digital Asset Management platforms grow ever more sophisticated. AI in DAM is becoming more common and makes previously manual tasks automated and scalable.
Imagine your brand styles photography in a certain way. Perhaps oversaturating the colour to make food imagery extra appetising, or reducing saturation for a more moody monochrome look.
Applying this style manually takes valuable time. AI in DAM can automatically apply these brand treatments, so you achieve a consistent style, even if you use a variety of creative suppliers.
Another time-saving DAM automation is the ability to resize assets on demand for different web, print and email templates – for example, a lower res crop for headers in your CRM system, and a higher res image for printed brochures.
This makes it easy for any team to stay on-brand, reducing their reliance on design-savvy colleagues and external agencies to provide what they need.
Plus AI in DAM can automatically identify the content of assets at upload and tag them with meaningful metadata, so you don’t have to. You can even train a DAM system – using machine learning – to recognise and tag your specific products. But that’s a whole other article…
A Digital Asset Management system (DAM) shouldn’t be complicated – it’s a single source of truth across your organisation, and so should be simple to search and share all official on-brand assets.
With a little preparation and planning, your organisation should quickly see the benefits of DAM, when you discover a solution which saves time, improves your ability to create and share digital assets, and enables consistently high-quality customer experiences.
In this article, we will introduce you to what you need to consider before investing in, and implementing, DAM software.
1. Understand why you need a digital asset management system
Before you start the process of acquiring and setting up a DAM system, you need to carefully consider why you need it.
It’s important that you take the time to think through your DAM challenges and needs, as these will influence your investment. If you cut corners here, you could end up with an inefficient and ineffective solution – just a shiny new object that makes up part of an expensive wider ecosystem, consuming resources without saving time or improving brand asset management.
Once you have a clear picture of why you need a DAM solution, you should do a thorough analysis to establish what the best outcome would be. Consider questions like:
Does this system help us reach our project goals?
Does this system meet our expectations?
How does this fit with the rest of my tech stack?
How do we ensure the system has long-term sustainability?
How do we ensure the implementation goes smoothly?
2. Establish a proper DAM team
Just as important is making sure you have the right people collaborating. It takes a dedicated team with knowledge and input from multiple departments to implement a strong Digital Asset Management solution.
The team must have ownership of the DAM system from start to finish, setting them up for long-term commitment. For the best outcome, it’s recommended to include colleagues from across your organisation’s production and service operations, to ensure you cover a wide range of expertise.
The team should consist of:
DAM initiative leader
DAM librarians
DAM infrastructure lead
Project manager
Project steering group
3. Use existing data and digital content
Don’t make the mistake of testing with a “dummy” system. Use your actual data, brand assets and creative files throughout the entire process. If you don’t, you’ll risk building a DAM solution that overlooks critical functionality and workflow needs.
Real data and content gives you the full picture and helps you make the right decisions without making assumptions.
The following questions will help you to build a system that will offer the full benefits of DAM:
Does the system take the file formats we are using?
Can the system handle our file sizes?
Does the system perform seamlessly with other products?
What data is being transferred from the current to the new system?
How is the data being transferred?
4. Learn the DAM system early
Your DAM system should serve as a digital library for your brand. Having good knowledge of how a DAM platform should work, and how your specific asset management software will look and function, will prepare you to ask the right questions and perform better analyses during the build process. This means making sure your chosen vendor has an excellent Customer Success team to support you.
The DAM team and investment managers should aim to create a system that offers value from the moment it is launched. By learning how a Digital Asset Management platform should work, you’ll be better project owners, making it easier to get the most out of your DAM software over time. As with anything, knowledge drives optimisation.
5. Prepare thoroughly
It bears emphasising – don’t just copy your existing workflows and structures. Take the opportunity to properly analyse how you are producing and storing marketing materials, and evaluate if anything needs reform.
A great DAM solution should meet your company’s present needs and expectations as well as its future aspirations. Upgrading your tech stack without improving your processes and workflows will likely result in increased costs and confused employees, without saving time or increasing efficiency.
Make your investment count and set yourself up for success by creating a system that reflects your initial intentions. The goal should be a tangible improvement in how creative files and brand assets are being used across the organisation.
The following checklist will help you prepare and optimise your DAM system implementation:
Can we streamline our workflows?
Can we eliminate tasks that don’t add value?
Can we connect the DAM to key branding and marketing operations?
Can we remove bottlenecks?
Can we establish a sustainable system for our organisation?
6. Think again about customisations
Only customise your DAM software if strictly necessary. Any customisation can increase the likelihood of software bugs, slow down performance, and may make the system less user-friendly.
The more generic your system is, the better it will perform over the long run. Trust your DAM solution provider’s expertise to set up a system that is optimal for your organisation. Simplicity reduces maintenance costs further down the line.
7. Implement step-by-step
Plan and implement effective project management. Dividing your project into phases and implementing them one at a time will ensure you have control of the entire process.
By working step-by-step on your Digital Asset Management solution, you can identify issues or unexpected results as they arise and address them before you proceed to the next phase. The risks of project overwhelm, and of wasting resources on firefighting, are minimised.
Gradually introducing your DAM software to select users in a timely and controlled manner also allows you to handle the training properly. It enables you to see how the system will work when complete, and gives you opportunities to improve your training as you go.
Digital Asset Management with Papirfly
At the centre of Papirfly’s all-in-one brand management platform is a powerful, cloud-based DAM system called Place – a powerful single source of truth for your brand management needs. It expands on the traditional functionality of a DAM as it works with a seamless UI across our product suite. With your own brand portal educating your people on brand guidelines, as well as on-brand design templates that means you can ensure your DAM is at the heart of digital content creation, and your teams achieve total brand consistency every time.
Curious to see the value our DAM as part of our brand management platform can add to your organisation? Book a demo with us to see how you can empower your people to unleash your brand.
Digital assets are indispensable valuables. They consume our surroundings more than we probably are aware of. In your private life alone, you have family photos, video recordings, insurance papers, banking papers, and personal papers to name a few. At work, any file you create, capture, copy or consume on your digital devices are considered digital assets. In 2020, this data required 64.2 zettabytes, in 2025 this number is expected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.
Where is this data stored, and most importantly, how is this data stored? Do you have control of your digital assets, and are you prepared for the data growth?
Every company and every person has some sort of system for their digital assets, but the devil is in the details. How you do this means the world of difference and the impact when something backfires can be devastating.
Digital assets are valuables
Images are a good example of why digital assets are valuables. We constantly take pictures with our phones or cameras because we want to preserve a moment, whether it is of our kids, pets, partner, or a place. But then what? Do you store these images on your iCloud, Google Photos, or do you just leave them on the memory card?
Digital assets are indispensable valuables. They consume our surroundings more than we probably are aware of. In your private life alone, you have family photos, video recordings, insurance papers, banking papers, and personal papers to name a few. At work, any file you create, capture, copy or consume on your digital devices are considered digital assets. In 2020, this data required 64.2 zettabytes, in 2025 this number is expected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes.
Where is this data stored, and most importantly, how is this data stored? Do you have control of your digital assets, and are you prepared for the data growth?
Every company and every person has some sort of system for their digital assets, but the devil is in the details. How you do this means the world of difference and the impact when something backfires can be devastating.
Digital assets are valuables
Images are a good example of why digital assets are valuables. We constantly take pictures with our phones or cameras because we want to preserve a moment, whether it is of our kids, pets, partner, or a place. But then what? Do you store these images on your iCloud, Google Photos, or do you just leave them on the memory card?
Digital assets play an essential part in company operations. Files and documents are created daily by someone for someone. But where are these files stored? And who has access to them? What happens if the file creator leaves the company? Are the files still in the company’s possession, or are they lost? A ton of questions and possible disasters waiting to happen come to the surface when we dig into the asset universe.
Not to worry. In this guide, we’ll take a look at the importance of a proper digital asset management system and what you need to know before making your DAM choice.
Digital assets play an essential part in company operations. Files and documents are created daily by someone for someone. But where are these files stored? And who has access to them? What happens if the file creator leaves the company? Are the files still in the company’s possession, or are they lost? A ton of questions and possible disasters waiting to happen come to the surface when we dig into the asset universe.
Not to worry. In this guide, we’ll take a look at the importance of a proper digital asset management system and what you need to know before making your DAM choice.
Buzzwords are impossible to avoid when you work with marketing and brands. Sometimes you might know the meaning of them, while other times you use them daily without being sure what they exactly mean.
One buzzword you should know is DAM, or Digital Asset Management. But what does it mean? Take a look at our definition and explanation as to why it’s an important subject.
Buzzwords are impossible to avoid when you work with marketing and brands. Sometimes you might know the meaning of them, while other times you use them daily without being sure what they exactly mean.
One buzzword you should know is DAM, or Digital Asset Management. But what does it mean? Take a look at our definition and explanation as to why it’s an important subject.
Are you responsible for your company’s brand and digital assets? Do you have a proper system for this, or is it a bit messy and unclear where all files are stored?
These are matters that may steal a lot of your time. Lets take a closer look at time thieves in regards to brand management and how you can arrest these thieves.
Are you responsible for your company’s brand and digital assets? Do you have a proper system for this, or is it a bit messy and unclear where all files are stored?
These are matters that may steal a lot of your time. Lets take a closer look at time thieves in regards to brand management and how you can arrest these thieves.
The term brand building is not unfamiliar to marketers, however many struggles to have control and keep up with their brand and also lack a seamless system that ensures brand consistency. The result is a messy brand that lacks structure and control.
There are many initiatives that will lead you on the right path towards brand control, but let’s start with the basics. You need to get control of your assets, let’s take a look at why and how you need to organize your digital assets.
The term brand building is not unfamiliar to marketers, however many struggles to have control and keep up with their brand and also lack a seamless system that ensures brand consistency. The result is a messy brand that lacks structure and control.
There are many initiatives that will lead you on the right path towards brand control, but let’s start with the basics. You need to get control of your assets, let’s take a look at why and how you need to organize your digital assets.
In other words, brand guidelines alone are not enough to secure brand consistency. Fundamentally, central, and local marketing must work in harmony. To do this, marketers must adopt and use a brand platform that makes it possible to have one single source of truth for all marketing and branding efforts. Let’s have a look at how digital asset management is a central piece in this equation.
Collect assets in one single location
It is not a secret that companies are challenged with assets spread all over the place, and remains a hidden secret for most stakeholders. This often results in time and resources spent on looking for assets that are never found, which in itself is unnecessary. Then you have the time and resources spent on re-creating the assets on top of this which is twice the waste.
In other words, brand guidelines alone are not enough to secure brand consistency. Fundamentally, central, and local marketing must work in harmony. To do this, marketers must adopt and use a brand platform that makes it possible to have one single source of truth for all marketing and branding efforts. Let’s have a look at how digital asset management is a central piece in this equation.
Collect assets in one single location
It is not a secret that companies are challenged with assets spread all over the place, and remains a hidden secret for most stakeholders. This often results in time and resources spent on looking for assets that are never found, which in itself is unnecessary. Then you have the time and resources spent on re-creating the assets on top of this which is twice the waste.