When the Henry Stewart Events team (organizers of the Digital Asset Management conference across the globe) asked me to speak at the Chicago event, my first reaction was why a conference on DAM and what is there to talk about. But it did not take me long to realize that the answer to the question was in the question itself – the perception of a DAM platform and what it means brands, marketers and technologists. Whether it’s a:

• a rudimentary Operational Tool that manages digital assets across channels
• a Strategic Capability that drives Omni Channel Consumer Experiences & Shopping Behavior
• a vehicle that drives Experience Innovation through Agile Testing & Learning

Here is a short presentation that I had presented at the Henry Stewart DAM summit in Chicago followed by a quick summary of my perspective on DAM and it’s evolution.

DAM – An evolution from OPERATIONS to INNOVATION

It’s not uncommon for marketers and technologists to refer to DAM as “just a tool” needed to manage all kinds of digital assets. But in reality, as DAM solutions start to integrate with other parts of the marketing technology ecosystem, they convert into more strategic capabilities that start to drive connected and consistent omni channel experiences and consumer’s shopping behavior.

It’s a journey across horizons, that may have started to solve an operational and efficiency need, but a lot in isolation as a tool or a repository. Then it matures into a more strategic capability; driven by a more connected solution that drives omni-channel consistent experiences as well as consumer’s shopping. And lastly it’s the final horizon where it becomes a strategy that drives experience innovation, through agile marketing, test, learn & optimize almost real time. As you go through your journey and perceive DAM as a more connected part of your broader digital strategy and ecosystem, it’s impact and influence on your brand and eventually on the consumer behavior continues to grow.

So if you do a bit of a deep dive into each of these horizons, as an operational tool, you have creative teams, brands and agencies managing brand assets, corporate assets across .COM, mobile, social, probably offline as well. Focus is time to market, productivity & re-usability and so on. That’s how you start.

But it starts to expand into a more strategic capability, and you start to think about driving sales. Expand the REACH to eCommerce, your own eStores, product syndication across channels, drive consumer’s shopping behavior.

Lastly, you start to drive experience innovation, leveraging data and analytics to execute real time testing & creative optimization (AB Testing, MVT), targeting consumers and creating a personalized system of engagement.

There is no question about how DAM platforms have evolved both in capability and maturity, there are brands and organizations that are still in the early operational stages while there are others that have expanded and adopted DAM as a core component of their innovation practice. The bigger question though is where it fits in your landscape and what does it mean to you as a brand.