Professional creative teams today are producing way more content than ever before. In fact, the stats might surprise you – creative teams create about 90% of the world’s total data. And the need for content is showing no signs of slowing down. That’s why a creative asset management system is a crucial aspect to your tech stack.

The need for content is coming hard and fast, and showing no signs of slowing down. Modern creative teams are under immense pressure to create – and quickly. So much so that it’s negatively impacting their ability to “create” effectively.

According to InSource, 60% of creative professionals serve more than 20 stakeholders or employees within their organization. Dealing with such a high number of stakeholders means even tighter deadlines – when all creatives really need is the proper time frame to do their jobs well.

The unrealistic delivery times for creatives has hindered the quality of work they can produce when adhering to these kinds of deadlines which is why efficient creative asset management is essential.

What is Creative Asset Management?

Creative asset management is a system or approach designed to organize, store, manage, distribute, and analyze creative assets in a centralized manner.

These digital assets typically include media files such as images, videos, audio, graphics, and other creative content used in marketing, advertising, and other creative processes​.

In fact, creative asset management is generally interchangeable with digital asset management.

Dispersed Creative Teams Need Creative Asset Management

Not only are creatives pumping out more content at a faster rate, they’re also trying to do so while working across various locations and time zones. 63% of companies have someone on their team working remotely, and this is only going to increase with the movement towards a hybrid workforce. These demands have created two major challenges:

1. Managing, organizing and tracking all files within the creative process.
   Creative teams are in a unique position where they need seamless, ongoing access to the increasing amount of WIP, source and final files being worked on across an entire team.
2. Doing so in a way that improves productivity and continuity.
   Despite the distribution of teams, they still need to be able to collaborate on projects as though they’re physically in the same building.

What are the Key Components of Creative Asset Management?

Creative asset management involves several key processes, including storing, accessing, managing, and distributing assets. Let’s break down each process to understand its role in creative asset management.

Central Storage

Creative asset storage involves keeping digital assets in a centralized location for easy retrieval and management. A creative asset management system typically provides cloud-based storage, allowing teams to store various types of assets, such as images, videos, audio files, and documents. Proper organization, such as a clear folder structure, ensures assets are easy to find and access when needed.

Easy Access

With a creative asset management system in place, users can access assets from any location with an internet connection. Access controls are often implemented to ensure security and restrict access to authorized users only. This process ensures that the right people can access the assets they need without compromising data security​.

Effective Management

Effective asset management involves overseeing the entire lifecycle of creative assets. This process includes organizing, cataloging, and updating assets as needed. Creative asset management tools enable version control, allowing teams to track changes and maintain a detailed history of asset edits. Additionally, collaborative features like real-time commenting and automated workflows streamline the management process.

Seamless Distribution

Seamless distribution of creative assets involves sharing with internal teams or external stakeholders. Creative asset management systems provide various sharing methods, such as custom links or user permissions, allowing users to control how others interact with their assets. Sharing options can include download, view-only, or editing permissions. These controls ensure that assets are shared securely and that all users work with the correct versions​.

Solutions for Creative Asset Management

To address the challenges of creative asset management, both marketing and creative teams can turn to a wide range of solutions, from project management systems, to file sharing solutions. But even with these platforms in place, they still have no true visibility into work-in-progress (WIP) assets and typically only see the assets when they’re ready for approval. This causes a huge gap in the range of vision on active projects and can result in significant delays, a loss of critical information and difficulty tracking the most up-to-date versions of assets.

For a creative asset management system to truly work for creatives, the solution needs to address challenges that are unique to creative teams. Specifically, it needs to meet the following five requirements:

1. Maintain Creative Speed
2. Continuously Sync Creative Files
3. Maintain Creative Workflow
4. Improve Asset Discoverability
5. Track and Manage WIP

1. Maintain Creative Speed

Speed is absolutely critical for creative teams. Working with cloud-based assets can be a challenge for high-volume creatives because it introduces a lag-time; relies on an internet connection; and causes frustration as the time delay adds up. A DAM solution needs to address these challenges and can’t slow down a creative’s production time or, ultimately, they’ll find a workaround.

2. Continuously Sync Creative Files

For a DAM to work for creatives, there needs to be a two-way, continual connection between their desktops and the DAM, without adding the extra load of uploading and re-uploading files all day. Project continuity can be a challenge for teams, especially when they cross time zones. Design files should continually be updating in the DAM—no matter where the creative working on it is in the world. The two-way, continual connection provides continuity needed for creative professionals to do their jobs and ensures that projects can continue easily, even when someone is out of the office.

3. Maintain Creative Workflow

A DAM needs to feel just as easy for creatives as working with their desktop—as they already have their set creative workflows in place. If a DAM adds extra steps and, even worse, requires someone to log into another tool to download, upload or access files, adoption will likely be low and creatives will turn to their own desktop files instead.

4. Improve Asset Discoverability

One of the key features of a DAM is the advanced search capabilities it provides. Permission-based categories, along with advanced search capabilities and filters, AI-generated tags, and detailed information on the asset, needs to be implemented thoughtfully – with the creative team in mind. The DAM needs to enable creatives to find their design assets—logos, stock photos, templates – easier than working from their desktop. This means that despite not logging into the DAM directly (such as from a desktop application), they still need access to the same search functionality of the DAM.

5. Track and Manage WIP

While work-in-progress files need to be trackable, creative teams often don’t want to expose their work to end-users until it’s ready for distribution. Within a DAM, creatives should be able to see the entire process from ideation to distribution – the assets considered, inspiration, alternative versions, comments, etc. – while keeping these creative categories private from other departments. When the creative space is kept separate from the rest of the DAM, it becomes a safe place for creatives to work together on projects, even when the teams are globally dispersed. Permission-based settings also enable creative leaders to see progress without having to request updates from each individual creative.

When a digital asset management solution is integrated with creative software and project management systems, it can truly address a creative team’s asset woes. When integrated with CI HUB, MediaValet is the perfect solution for creative asset management.

CI HUB and MediaValet Integration

Our solution to creative asset management? Connecting creative operations software and DAM like CI HUB and MediaValet.

The MediaValet and CI HUB integration combines the benefits of working from a local server or remote computer with those of the Cloud, helping your creative teams secure and manage their creative files while accelerating their creative process. With CI HUB, you can:

• Automatically synchronize and back up your creative team’s local project files in the cloud – 24/7.
• Track and view all source and work-in-progress files – no matter where your teams are located.
• Accelerate and secure your creative process without adding extra steps or changing workflows.

CI HUB ensures the continuity of your creative assets, projects, campaigns and processes. If these functionalities sound like something your creative team could benefit from, learn more about CI HUB here!.