In the highly competitive world of digital marketing and content creation, efficiency is key. Yet, many organizations struggle with disorganized content feedback and slow approval processes, making it difficult to provide feedback efficiently, which can lead to significant financial losses and poor brand reputation.

Incorporating content feedback forms at the end of each blog post can gather ideas and enhance customer interaction, helping to streamline these processes. In this post, we’ll explore how these inefficiencies impact your bottom line and what you can do to streamline your content workflows.

The Financial Impact of Inefficient Content Approval Process

When feedback is disorganized, and approval processes are slow, the financial ramifications can be severe. This is especially critical for marketing content, where timely feedback and approval can significantly impact campaign success and ROI. The content approval process often involves multiple stages and multiple team members, which can contribute to delays if not managed properly. Here are some ways these inefficiencies can hurt your business:

Missed Deadlines and Delayed Campaigns: Timing is crucial in marketing. Whether launching a new product, executing a time-sensitive campaign, or responding to market trends, delays in content approval can cause you to miss critical deadlines. These delays result in missed revenue opportunities, reduced market impact, and potential loss of competitive advantage.

Increased Operational Costs: The longer it takes to approve content, the more it costs your business. Extended review cycles lead to higher labor costs as teams spend more time revising and resubmitting content. This not only inflates operational expenses but also diverts resources from other valuable projects, reducing overall productivity.

Production Bottlenecks: Disorganized feedback often creates bottlenecks in the content production pipeline. When one piece of content is held up, it can delay the entire project, leading to a backlog that slows down subsequent tasks. These bottlenecks can significantly reduce your team’s ability to deliver content efficiently, impacting your ability to meet business goals.

The Brand Reputation Damage of Slow Content Review Processes

In addition to the financial costs, slow and disorganized approval processes can also damage your brand’s reputation. Adhering to brand guidelines is crucial for maintaining a consistent brand voice, which helps in avoiding inconsistencies in branding and ensures that you maintain consistency across all content:

Inconsistent Branding: When feedback is scattered across multiple channels, it can lead to inconsistencies in your branding. Conflicting input from different stakeholders can result in content that doesn’t align with your brand voice or messaging, confusing your audience and weakening your brand identity.

Reduced Audience Engagement: Delayed content releases can lead to missed opportunities for engagement. Timely, relevant content is key to capturing and maintaining your audience’s attention. If your content arrives late, it may no longer be relevant, resulting in lower engagement rates and diminished impact.

Client Dissatisfaction: For agencies or businesses working with clients, inefficient approval processes can lead to dissatisfaction. Clients expect timely delivery of high-quality content. Consistently missing deadlines or delivering content that doesn’t meet expectations due to disorganized feedback can damage client relationships and lead to lost business.

How to Avoid the Pitfalls of Disorganized Content Feedback

To avoid the costly consequences of disorganized feedback, it’s essential to implement strategies that streamline your content review and approval processes. A structured content review process is crucial to maintaining high-quality output:

Centralize Feedback Channels: Consolidate feedback into a single, organized platform to eliminate confusion and ensure that everyone is on the same page. This reduces the time spent tracking down comments and ensures that all feedback is considered in the final product. Feedback collection plays a vital role in improving content and measuring its effectiveness.

Set Clear Deadlines and Expectations: Establish clear timelines for each stage of the content approval process. Establishing clear timelines for each of the review stages can prevent delays and keep projects moving forward. By setting expectations upfront, you can prevent delays and keep projects moving forward. Final approval is essential as the concluding stage of the content review process.

Use Version Control Systems: Implement a robust version control system to manage revisions effectively. This helps ensure that the most current version of a content asset is always being reviewed and that changes are tracked accurately. Maintaining consistency in content reviews ensures quality and alignment with established standards.

Foster Collaborative Communication: Encourage open and efficient communication among all stakeholders. Use tools that facilitate real-time collaboration and feedback, reducing the time spent waiting for approvals and revisions. Providing positive feedback enhances the performance and learning of content creators.

Invest in Training and Processes: Equip your team with the skills and processes needed to handle feedback efficiently. Regular training on best practices for content review and approval can help streamline workflows and reduce the risk of delays. Writing tools are important to assist in improving writing in various contexts.

A DAM platform can be incredibly effective when it comes to managing content and enhancing brand management operations. The next step? Integrating with a content proofing tool!

Introducing MediaValet Proofing

Disorganized content feedback and inefficient approval processes can have serious financial and reputational consequences for your business. By implementing strategies to streamline these processes, you can protect your bottom line, maintain your brand’s reputation, and ensure that your content always meets the highest standards.

While the strategies mentioned above can significantly improve your content approval process, leveraging a specialized tool like MediaValet Proofing can further enhance your efficiency. MediaValet Proofing offers centralized feedback management, real-time collaboration, and version control—all designed to streamline your workflow and help you deliver high-quality content on time.

If you’re looking for a way to further optimize your content approval process, consider exploring tools like MediaValet Proofing. Even a small improvement in efficiency can have a significant impact on your overall success.

It’s no surprise that artificial intelligence (AI) has been a major topic of conversation as of late. Promising significant cost and time savings, organizations from almost every industry are eager to see how they can leverage AI to improve their businesses and products and gain a competitive advantage.

However, despite 80% of enterprise organizations having already implemented some form of AI, around 91% still say they expect significant barriers to adoption. Why? Because, regardless of all the excitement around AI, there are very few people familiar, let alone comfortable, with how to effectively use it.

The truth is, depending on your use case, artificial intelligence can often be as complex or as simple as you need it to be. With an increasing number of AI-focused solutions ranging from plug-and-play to fully customized, it’s easier than ever to get started with AI.

For marketers, one of the key areas that AI can be impactful is in content marketing. Here are 4 ways you can use artificial intelligence to enhance your content marketing.

1. Optimize Your Content for SEO

Every content marketer’s fear is investing a ton of time, money and energy into a piece of content, only to see it underperforming. Improving the reach of your content is more complex than selecting key topics that may resonate with your audience. With 93% of all online experiences beginning with a search engine, it’s more important than ever to optimize your content for discoverability and readability.

Without AI, optimizing content is a lengthy, manual process that can often involve a good amount of guesswork. While over time you can start to see similarities between your highest performing content, it can be a challenge to truly identify the individual aspects that, when combined, result in a highly-successful piece of content.

How AI Can Help

Optimization tools that leverage artificial intelligence can help you create, edit and optimize content to perform better across all channels. Using machine learning algorithms, they analyze your text in real-time to determine how well it will perform with your intended target audience and offer suggestions on the fly to improve future performance. Over time, the algorithms of such tools will analyze your published content and provide you with suggestions of what time to post in order to achieve the most engagement, and what words and phrases will resonate best with your audience.

Tool to Try: Atomic Reach

2. Create Better Content Than Your Competitors

Content has become key to building trust with your customers and, ultimately, driving sales. In fact, it was found that the average B2B buyer will read at least 13 pieces of content before making a purchase decision. It can be a challenge to keep up with the amount of content required to stay competitive, especially when 80% of content creators are doing all the work in-house, without outsourcing any tasks. With restricted time and resources, the content that you create needs to consistently deliver value and drive traffic. To achieve this, your keywords need to be optimized for your target audience and your writing needs to be on point. You don’t want to risk losing a potential customer by not delivering what they were searching for.

Using a suite of tools, you can access the analytics you need to create a solid content strategy and optimize the content you create. The part that’s missing, however, is the ability to ensure your content is optimized to cover the topic more comprehensively than your competitors.

How AI Can Help

Artificial intelligence takes content optimization to the next level, analyzing your own content, as well as hundreds (or thousands) of other pieces of content to understand what performs well and why. It’s then able to offer topics, keywords and other suggestions to ensure your content is not only optimized for search engines but also leaves your visitors satisfied.

Tool to Try: MarketMuse

3. Get Sales Using the Best Content

More often than not, marketing teams are tasked with creating the collateral that sales teams need to spark interest with potential customers, move them along the sales funnel, and, ultimately, win deals against competitors. From eBooks and brochures to case studies and ROI calculators, this collateral takes time, effort and budget, which makes it that much more frustrating when you discover the sales team isn’t using the collateral you’ve created for them. In fact, the range of content that goes unused can be as high as 70%.

More often than not, sales content follows a similar cycle: there’s a spike in use when the piece is first released, followed by a steady decline as the sales team returns to their typical content cadences. This problem often stems from a lack of communication of what’s actually helping sales to close deals – both between departments and individual sales reps. This can be combatted by hosting content success meetings and creating feedback loops, but even that is dependent on everyone sharing honestly and applying any given advice. Even with a small local team, this can be challenging to maintain.

How AI Can Help

AI-driven tools can provide a platform for salespeople to discover the content that’s proven to close deals. Over time, these tools learn which pieces of content perform best in any given situation to help move prospects down the funnel. They can also give your team insights into which content needs improvement so you can prioritize what needs to be updated.

Tool to Try: Showpad AI

4. Improve the ROI of Your Content

In recent years, there has been a steady increase in consumer demand for personalized content across multiple channels. It’s required teams to build more and more content, more and more frequently. But the more content you create, the more challenging it becomes to manage and keep track of it, leading to issues with version control and discoverability. When your content is hosted across various systems or even worse – on isolated hard-drives – it can be near impossible to for you to scale your content creation engine effectively. A study by M-Files found that 83% of organizations have had to recreate content – at least once – because they couldn’t find it.

To better manage, distribute and track their collateral and brand assets, marketing teams often turn to digital asset management systems. However, putting a central library in place is not the final solution; you need to tag your content to make it discoverable, which can be a lengthy and resource-intensive process. While this process is manageable on a small scale when you’re uploading hundreds or thousands of files each month, the process can be daunting.

How AI Can Help

Cloud based DAM systems enhanced with AI capabilities can relieve some of this burden, tagging your content with common object, facial and text recognition. Some solutions even offer custom AI solutions, that allow you to tag your content with tags specific to your business and products. While AI isn’t meant to completely replace manual tagging, it does give you a strong jumping-off point to improve the discoverability and re-use of past, current and future content.

Tool to Try: MediaValet

Getting a Head Start on AI

As you can see, implementing artificial intelligence doesn’t need to be intimidating. By starting small, using some of the plug-and-play solutions, you can begin infusing your content with AI with minimal requirements from your team.

This post is an excerpt from our eBook 8 Ways AI Can Power Your Digital Strategy. Download the full eBook today to learn more ways you can use AI in your marketing and tools that can help you get started today.

Brand management is one of the most important responsibilities for any company, in any industry. Managing your brand and effectively communicating its message to your target audience and the world ensures that people can understand your goal and connect with your brand in meaningful ways. Successfully managing your digital assets is a huge part of effective brand management.

In this post, we discuss how to choose the best brand management software in addition to answering questions to help you get started building brand loyalty, trust, and long-lasting customer relationships.

Let’s dive into each question below:

1. What is Brand Management?

Brand management is the strategic creation, organization, control, distribution, and consistent use of all elements that represent your brand. This includes adhering to brand guidelines, such as using the correct font in press releases, launching new brand videos, or ensuring the latest logo appears on printed materials. Every asset associated with your brand reflects its identity, making it crucial to have a robust system in place for securely storing, protecting, organizing, and responsibly distributing these assets.

What is The Purpose of Brand Management and Why is it Important?

The purpose of brand management is to maintain and control the usage of your brand assets and language to ensure brand consistency. Without a strategy for brand management and the right tools in place, an organization can easily lose control of the use of its logo, product images, or brand messaging. This weakens the brand and can threaten earned brand loyalty with established audiences and customers. The overall goal behind brand management and increased brand loyalty is to ultimately drive revenue and growth within your company.

Brand management is important for companies to maintain consistency in brand identity and messaging, and helps them stay connected to and understood by target audiences and existing customers. Without proper brand management, your message gets lost or confused, and your core values are more likely to get missed. Your brand is your identity, and it’s integral that you protect it in every way possible.

What are the Pillars of Brand Management?

The pillars of brand management are fundamental principles that guide the development, maintenance, and growth of a brand. These pillars ensure that a brand remains strong, consistent, and relevant over time. Here are the key pillars of brand management:

Brand Identity:

Brand identity is the visual and verbal representation of the brand, including its logo, color palette, typography, tone of voice, and overall design elements.

A strong brand identity helps differentiate the brand from competitors and creates a lasting impression in the minds of consumers.

Learn more about brand identity and brand association here.

Brand Positioning:

Brand positioning involves defining where your brand stands in the market and in the minds of consumers relative to competitors. It includes the brand’s unique value proposition and the key attributes that set it apart.

Effective brand positioning ensures that your brand occupies a distinct and valued place in the target audience’s mind, which drives brand preference and loyalty.

Brand Equity:

Brand equity refers to the value that a brand adds to a product or service beyond the functional benefits. It is built through customer perceptions, experiences, and emotional connections with the brand.

High brand equity enhances customer loyalty, allows for premium pricing, and can lead to greater market share and profitability.

Brand Consistency:

Brand consistency involves ensuring that all brand elements, communications, and experiences are aligned and deliver a unified message across all touchpoints.

Consistency builds trust and recognition, making the brand more reliable and easier for consumers to understand and remember.

Brand Loyalty:

Brand loyalty refers to the emotional and behavioral commitment of customers to a brand, often leading them to choose it over competitors repeatedly.

Building brand loyalty leads to repeat business, word-of-mouth referrals, and a stronger competitive position.

Brand Experience:

The brand experience is the sum of all interactions and touchpoints a customer has with the brand, from the initial awareness to post-purchase engagement.

A positive and memorable brand experience fosters deeper connections with customers, enhances satisfaction, and encourages loyalty.

Each of these pillars plays a crucial role in the overall strategy of brand management, ensuring that a brand not only remains strong and consistent but also grows and adapts in a competitive marketplace.

What Are The Benefits of Effective Brand Management?

An effective brand management strategy will not only maintain brand consistency, which is the overarching goal, but it will also increase the value of your brand assets. Here are the top six benefits of having an effective brand management system in place:

1. Maintain brand consistency: By controlling the use of your brand assets, you ensure that on-brand visuals and language are always used.
2. Control your brand message: Your brand team has worked hard on developing brand messaging, like tone and voice that represents your core values. Effective brand management ensures only the right messaging is being used in all promotions and communications.
3. Ensure all paid campaigns are on-brand: When only the right brand assets are being used, this ensures that paid campaigns never have outdated logos or messaging.
4. Increase ROI on-brand assets: Brand assets are expensive to create. By controlling and protecting your assets you are able to reuse them, update them, avoid making duplicates and never lose them!
5. Strengthen your overall brand: A truly strong brand always stays true to its core visuals, language, and messaging, across all channels and communications. This engrains the brand’s core values in the minds of its audiences. A strong brand creates stronger customer loyalty.
6. Stay connected to customers. Always using on-brand materials and messaging helps to stay connected with your audiences and established clientele in a meaningful way.

How to Ensure Brand Consistency Across Your Organization

As mentioned above, when managing your brand organization-wide, software is typically needed to store, organize, and distribute brand assets. Brand management software features vary, but essentially it is a tool for marketing and brand managers to house brand assets, control who has access to them and how they can use them, and streamline the distribution of these assets.

Dealing with outdated brand assets is a big part of brand management. A comprehensive system will have archiving functionalities to make sure only up-to-date assets are being used, as well as sophisticated search capabilities. This is where cloud-based software comes in:

Cloud-based brand management software is a system where all brand assets live in one, central cloud-based hub. From this hub, the assets can be found and used. The key features of a high-performing and comprehensive cloud-based brand management system are:

• Organization, using tags and metadata,
• Advanced search functionalities,
• Capability to download from the cloud,
• Easily share brand assets from within the system, and
• User permission settings.

A cloud-based brand management software system at its core should enable brand managers to organize and distribute the assets in a way that ensures brand consistency. This means user access permissions and version control are of enormous importance.

Choosing The Best Brand Management Software

As the number of digital brand assets being produced by companies continues to grow exponentially, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll need brand management software. The sheer amount of assets most marketing departments are working with is overwhelming. Not to mention the need to control who is using what, and make sure all efforts and campaigns company-wide have brand fluidity.

It’s important that whatever system you choose can scale as your organization grows and can help alleviate the major pain points like asset loss, effort duplication, and productivity loss. The right solution will help achieve brand consistency across the organization, will help everyone do their jobs better, and overall, just make everyone’s lives a little easier. (No one likes looking through multiple versions of a logo, agonizing over which one is the most up-to-date.)

Depending on specific user and organizational needs, there are four tiers of brand management software available:

1. Digital asset management software (DAM)
2. File management
3. Online document portals
4. Image management

Below, we cover each in more detail.

Tier One: Digital Asset Management (DAM)

A digital asset management solution is one of the more advanced brand management software options on the market. DAMs can manage and preview images, videos, design files, 3D files, documents, and more. This type of platform allows for both manually added and AI-generated keywords and offers advanced search filters that enable users to find the images they need faster. DAM offers multiple sharing options, and advanced user permissions for actions and category-level projects. DAM is a comprehensive solution for medium and large teams, especially those with large media assets to manage, and those working remotely.

Best For: medium and large organizations looking to manage an entire suite of photos and/or other high-value media assets.

Example: MediaValet

Pros:

• Advanced search functionality
• Asset security
• Sophisticated user permission settings
• Able to scale with the company
• Integrations
• Cloud-based

Cons:

• Bigger price tag
• More training needs for users

Bottom Line

While the cost may be higher, a sophisticated cloud-based DAM is needed for companies with very large brand asset libraries that are looking to better manage their assets and how they are used. It is especially a fit for medium to large companies who need their solution to scale with the organization, and who have a remote workforce. Finding a DAM partner with unlimited training like MediaValet is a huge advantage.

Tier Two: File Management

A file management system, or file management software, is a solution to store, organize, use, and share digital files. Cloud-based file management software means that files can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Features can vary, but most file management systems offer tagging, impressive search functionalities, and a high level of security. A good file management system will have collaboration features and offer integrations with other tools.

Best For: Medium to large organizations who deal with a large number of digital files and need a cloud-based solution.

Example: Microsoft Sharepoint Online

Pros:

• Sync functionalities
• Seamless collaboration
• Well-organized file library
• Search capabilities
• Integrations

Cons:

• Lengthy data migration
• Training needs for users
• Price tag

Bottom Line

File management software is valuable for companies who are collaborating on, and sharing, a voluminous number of digital files, such as word documents or PDFs. While the price tag is higher and the migration of data can take a while, for larger organizations the security, tagging, and searchability functions are highly important.

Tier Three: Online Document Portals

Online document portal software is a cloud-based solution for organizations looking to securely store and distribute a variety of documents. Essentially functioning as a document exchange, it offers a central location for employees, stakeholders, clients, and external partners to access documents, sign sensitive documents, and download documents.

Best For: Any sized businesses that require secure document management, and document signing capabilities, and who frequently need to share documents with clients and partners.

Example: Moxo

Pros:

• Document security
• Streamlined workflow
• Client interaction capabilities
• Client insights

Cons:

• Only specializes in documents
• Doesn’t specialize in creative assets
• Cannot edit design files from within

Bottom Line

Online document portal software is a one-dimensional system that can be used by companies that need secure access to documents. It is still a valuable system for organizations that deal mostly with documents that need review, interaction, and signatures from clients, and who don’t deal with a lot of creative assets.

Tier Four: Image Management

Image management software can range from a basic digital tool for storing and managing photo and video files to more sophisticated systems that allow for advanced image editing and integrations. Most photo libraries have AI-generated metadata tags and facial recognition for easy search capability, along with basic photo editing capabilities.

Best For: Small businesses or individuals looking to keep photos in one centralized location.

Example: Adobe Lightroom

Pros:

• Auto-tagging of images for advanced searchability
• Organize images through ratings, flags, and albums
• Automatic backup of your images

Cons:

• Focused only on photo and video files
• Does not manage some other types of digital assets

Bottom Line

Image management software is an affordable solution for businesses that only need to organize visual assets and have them accessible in the cloud.

Brand Management FAQs

1. What is a brand manager?

A brand manager is responsible for overseeing and developing a brand’s image, ensuring it remains consistent and aligns with the company’s values and goals. They manage the brand’s positioning in the market, coordinate marketing initiatives, and work on strategies that strengthen the brand’s presence and reputation. Their role often includes analyzing market trends, understanding customer insights, and managing brand equity to ensure long-term brand success.

2. What is the difference between marketing and brand management?

Marketing is a broad field focused on promoting products or services to drive sales, encompassing activities like advertising, public relations, and market research. Brand management, on the other hand, is specifically concerned with building and maintaining the overall image, perception, and value of a brand over time. While marketing may be more campaign-focused and short-term, brand management is a continuous process aimed at nurturing the brand’s identity, reputation, and equity in the long term.

3. Why is brand consistency important?

Brand consistency is crucial because it ensures that all brand-related messages, visuals, and experiences are aligned across all touchpoints. This uniformity helps in building trust and recognition among consumers, making it easier for them to understand and connect with the brand. Consistent digital branding also reinforces the brand’s identity and values, making it more memorable and reliable in the eyes of the audience.

4. How does brand equity impact a business?

Brand equity refers to the value a brand adds to a product or service beyond its functional benefits. High brand equity allows a business to command premium pricing, foster customer loyalty, and create a competitive advantage. It also provides leverage in negotiations, attracts better partnerships, and can lead to higher market share. Essentially, strong brand equity translates into greater financial returns and long-term business success.

Ready to Take Control of Your Brand?

Brand management is a key part of overall success, for any company, in any industry, and controlling your brand assets is a huge part of a successful brand management strategy. When all the pieces come together to help your brand stay consistent across the entire organization, your brand is able to grow stronger.

Learn how a MediaValet DAM can help your organization take control of your brand. Take the self-guided tour here:

Learn more about brand guidelines and best practices here, or book a demo to see how a DAM solution can become the cornerstone of your brand management solution.

What do customers remember about your brand? Probably much, much more than you think. From your visual branding to the experience you offer your customers, every micro-minute someone spends with your brand adds up to their perception of your company and expectation for future interactions. This, over time, builds brand association – how customers perceive and remember your brand.

In this post, we’re sharing everything you need to know about brand association and how to build it.

What is Brand Association?

The most straightforward definition of brand association is how customers remember a brand—what’s burned in their minds from interactions with a brand.

Positive emotional associations with people, places, and things connected to a brand are what define positive brand association.

In order to build a strong, long-lasting brand, positive traits need to be entrenched in customers’ minds in connection to that brand. Positive brand association sells products and increases company value.

Why is Brand Association Important?

Positive brand association connects people to your brand in the right way. If customers relate your brand to enjoyable or high-quality experiences, they’re going to prefer you over competitors with which they don’t have as strong a brand association (or even have a negative one). Non-existent or negative brand association can harm your brand’s reputation, cause brand dilution and result in lower sales or stagnant growth.

The top three reasons brand association is important are:

1. Brand Awareness: The more memorable your brand is, the more it remains top of mind for consumers or users.
2. Brand Loyalty: The more positive associations with your brand, the more likely you are to gain repeat and loyal customers.
3. Increased Revenue: It goes without saying the more loyal customers you have and steadily gain, the more you grow your revenues.

Types of Brand Association

Brand association refers to the attributes, qualities, or concepts that come to mind when consumers think about a brand. These associations can be positive or negative and are critical in shaping consumer perceptions and decisions.

Here are the key types of brand associations:

Type of Brand Association #1: Product

Product Attributes: Features or characteristics of a product or service, such as quality, durability, design, or performance. For example, Volvo is often associated with safety.

Organizational Attributes: Traits related to the company behind the brand, such as reputation, values, or corporate social responsibility. An example is Patagonia’s association with environmental sustainability.

Type of Brand Association #2: Benefits

Functional Benefits: Practical or utilitarian advantages provided by the brand’s products or services. For example, Tide is associated with effective stain removal.

Emotional Benefits: How the brand makes consumers feel, such as happiness, confidence, or security. Dove, for instance, is associated with promoting self-esteem and body positivity.

Experiential Benefits: The experience of using the product or service, including how it feels, tastes, or sounds. Apple, for instance, is associated with a sleek, user-friendly experience.

Type of Brand Association #3: Personality

Brand Personality: Human characteristics attributed to a brand, like being sophisticated, rugged, fun, or reliable. Nike is often associated with being bold and inspiring, while BMW is seen as sophisticated and prestigious.

Association with a Lifestyle: Brands that reflect or align with a particular lifestyle or way of living. For example, Red Bull is associated with an adventurous, active lifestyle.

Brand Experiences: Associations formed through personal experiences with the brand, like customer service or in-store experiences. Disney is associated with magical, family-friendly experiences.

Type of Brand Association #4: Visuals

Logos and Symbols: The visual identity of a brand, including logos, colors, and designs, which trigger associations. The swoosh of Nike, for instance, instantly brings to mind the brand’s association with athleticism and performance.

User Imagery: The type of person or group that is typically seen using the brand. For instance, Chanel is associated with elegant, fashion-conscious individuals.

Type of Brand Association #5: Values

Cultural or Social Symbols: Associations with broader cultural or social concepts, like heritage, tradition, or nationality. Harley-Davidson, for instance, is often associated with American freedom and rebellion.

Core Values: Principles or standards that a brand stands for, such as integrity, innovation, or sustainability. TOMS is associated with the value of giving back through its “One for One” campaign.

Type of Brand Association #6: Associations

Sponsorships and Events: Associations formed through sponsorship of events, such as sports teams or music festivals. Coca-Cola is associated with major sporting events like the Olympics.

Endorsements: Associations that arise from celebrities or influencers who endorse the brand. For example, Michael Jordan’s association with Nike’s Air Jordan brand.

Comparative Associations: How the brand compares to its competitors. For example, Pepsi is often associated with being an alternative to Coca-Cola, with a youthful, rebellious twist.

Each of these types of brand associations plays a role in how consumers perceive and interact with a brand, influencing their purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.

Strong Examples of Brand Association

Strong brand association can take memorable brands and turn them into iconic ones. Some of the top examples, as reported by Business Marketing Blog (BMB) are:

• Coca-Cola is classic;
• Downy is soft;
• Apple is simple;
• Tesla is electric;
• Nike is performance.

For the most iconic brands, something as simple as the right shade of blue can stir up pleasant memories and images – that’s next-level brand association (the dream of marketing departments everywhere).

Barriers to Positive Brand Association

A lot of companies struggle to earn positive brand association effectively due to problems that are relatively easy to solve. Unfortunately, not finding solutions to pain points for too long can lead to negative brand association—something that’s hard to recover from.

Some common barriers to positive brand association include:

• Lack of access to current, on-brand assets,
• Lack of understanding of the brand voice, and
• Lack of communication of brand strategy and vision.

These challenges can all eventually become detrimental to a brand. There are plenty of solutions out there to move past these kinds of branding pain points, such as a digital asset management solution (DAM).

How Do You Build Positive Brand Association?

It’s important to understand that people associate brands with a vast array of memories, emotions, and other elements. According to BMB, other factors aside from the product or service itself include memories of past interactions; how the memories made them feel; locations to find the products or services; and influencers who have endorsed the brand. Stringent and thorough training processes can help ensure employees and other representatives understand how to portray the brand effectively.

Aside from customer experiences, logos, graphics and colors are a fantastic way to entrench your brand into a customer’s mind. To do this, brand consistency is absolutely necessary at every level. This means that everyone at the company has access to the same tools. Is an office administrator using the most recent logo in their email signature? Did the latest social media graphic use the correct, on-brand fonts? All of these branding cues make a huge difference in the long run, which is why everyone needs a solution to ensure access to the right brand assets – all the time.

Brand Association Building Checklist

There are three key factors to consider that can help or hinder your brand association:

• Visuals and Graphic Design
• Brand Language
• Personification

Strong Visuals and Graphic Design

Visual elements like colour palette, font style, shapes and symbols help to engrain your brand in the minds of customers. These visual elements should immediately trigger memories and emotions for customers who have come in contact with your brand – good ones. To ensure consistency, it can be valuable to share brand guidelines with those representing your organization.

Brand Language

Slogans, jingles, brand voice and tone are all important aspects of sending a consistent brand message across all channels, at all times. This is incredibly important in the age of social media, where the brand language needs to be consistent with everything being published—including print, radio, display, email marketing, and TV advertising. Everything needs to sound like the same person.

Personification

While not possible for all brands, personification is very effective for companies that offer inanimate products or services. A famous example is the very successful ad campaign from Apple that used a person to represent their computer, and another person to represent a PC. This gave a relatable personality to the machine instead of just listing features.

What is a Brand Association Map?

One tool available when trying to get a handle on brand association is a brand association map. The map is a visual, perceptual representation of a brand and the possible connections to it, helping to understand how a brand is perceived in a relevant market. Studying attributes, attitudes, and images or visuals and their relative association to a brand, the map will show the closer attributes to the center as the stronger associations.

Having a brand audit completed by a third-party company can save a lot of time and effort, plus eliminate biases when evaluating the associations. Having maps done on your competitors is also valuable. If you want to take on this project internally, Brandwatch has a great guide on discovering and measuring your brand association.

Start Building Strong Brand Association

There’s no denying that brand association can make or break a brand. Fostering positive brand association needs to be the underlying theme in all your company’s branding activities. Putting processes in place and using platforms to ensure strong brand assets are ready, available, and used by everyone at your company is achievable.

At MediaValet, we work with clients every single day helping them to create strong brands and push for growth year-over-year.

Interested in how a MediaValet DAM works? Check out our self-guided tour here.

Book a demo with us to find out more!

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, it’s more important than ever to ensure your assets are easily accessible to improve collaboration and ensure your organization is accurately reflected across all channels. A brand portal is the key!

While distributing your assets is important, equally as critical is ensuring they’re distributed in a way that reflects your brand. Not only is brand consistency reported to generate a 33% increase in overall growth, but it’s also been linked to improving employee morale. Ensuring asset security is crucial in this process, as it protects digital assets while providing appropriate access for users.

With this in mind, it’s no longer enough to share assets using traditional distribution solutions like Dropbox, Flickr, or WeTransfer. You need a solution that looks and feels like your unique brand.

Brand portals, like MediaValet’s Branded Portals, enable you to extend the reach of your assets while maintaining your brand identity.

Brand portals can be used across numerous industries for better content distribution initiatives. From brand management to agency collaboration, brand portals can streamline and enhance organizations across various industries. They also enhance process efficiency and provide a streamlined digital experience for internal teams.

In this blog post we cover:

• What is a Brand Portal?
• What are the Benefits of Brand Portals?
• Common Brand Portal Examples and Use Cases
• A Quick Peek at MediaValet Branded Portals

Understanding what Brand Portals Are

A brand portal enables organizations to curate and share collections of digital assets with internal and external users as a custom-branded online library. With an easy-to-use page builder, you can customize portal sections to organize your assets by project, campaign, file type, and more.

Connected to your digital asset management system, brand portals update in real time as you upload new asset versions or delete assets within your digital asset management (DAM) system. This ensures your portal is always up-to-date, without having to manually swap-out images, re-upload PDFs, etc.

What are the Benefits of Brand Portals?

Brand portals help brand and marketing teams get their files to the right people, while maintaining their visual identity. They alleviate a number of pain points and introduce countless benefits, including:

Streamlined Brand Consistency: Brand portals allow organizations to maintain a consistent brand image while sharing vital assets. Whether for internal team members or external stakeholders, these portals ensure that all shared content aligns with the company’s brand guidelines. This feature is particularly useful for distributing marketing campaigns, brand guidelines, and onboarding materials, where the brand portal sets the tone for the engagement.

Effortless Sharing and Management: Each portal can be shared through customizable URLs, making it simple to direct stakeholders to relevant content. This ease of management not only saves time but also enhances the effectiveness of communication campaigns. By organizing portal sections by asset type, campaigns, or projects, users can find what they need quickly and efficiently, streamlining the user experience.

Unrestricted File Sharing: Brand portals eliminate the common barriers associated with file size limitations by enabling you to share large collections of assets effortlessly through a simple, customizable URL. This feature is especially beneficial for sharing high-quality multimedia files (such as videos), extensive document sets, and other large-scale resources without compromise.

Optimized for All Devices: Accessibility is key in today’s mobile-first world. Brand portals are designed to provide a seamless viewing experience on any device, including a responsive mobile platform. This ensures that users can access content conveniently, whether they are on desktop computers or mobile devices, enhancing user engagement and satisfaction.

Enhanced Security and Accessibility: With the option to add a password and expiration date, brand portals offer flexibility in controlling who can view your content. This security feature is crucial for safeguarding sensitive information while making it readily available to authorized users. The added convenience of password-protected access helps maintain the integrity and exclusivity of your content.

Brand Portal Examples and Use Cases

Brand portals can be used for countless projects, including sharing brand guidelines and supporting various campaigns. Below are 4 common use cases and examples for brand portals including:

1. Brand Management,
2. Approval and Collaboration,
3. Post-Event Asset Sharing, and
4. Partner Enablement.

Let’s dive into each in more detail below.

Brand Portal Examples 1: Brand Management

Brand Portals are a prime tool to use when sharing assets that enable those in your organization (or external parties) to represent your brand. You can share your brand guidelines, logos, brand colors and more all in a single, branded location that’s always up-to-date, eliminating the risk for old logo versions or the pain of constantly re-sending lost brand assets.

Brand Management Example

Erin is a Brand Manager at Urban Square, a leading Canadian furniture retailer. Her role is to ensure that all internal and external stakeholders use the correct logos and assets to maintain Urban Square’s brand identity. Recently, Urban Square rebranded as part of its 50th anniversary. With this rebranding, Erin has received multiple emails from colleagues and agency partners, requesting the new brand assets.

Erin curates all of the new brand assets (JPEGs, PNGs, videos, etc.) in a Branded Portal and shares it with all employees and partners, ensuring everyone has access to the new brand assets. When new versions of the shared assets are uploaded to the DAM, the Portal is instantly updated.

Brand Portals Example 2: Approval and Collaboration

When working with external parties, such as agencies, clients or partners, brand portals can help keep everyone on the same page and streamline any approvals needed. You can add assets for review in a view-only portal, or enable downloads for final assets.

Approval and Collaboration Example

Digital Agency, BEAR, is currently working on a new social media campaign for their client, Tourism Express. The Art Director, Monica, needs to submit the final assets for approval to the marketing team at Tourism Express. Email is not an option to share the multiple assets that need to be shared.

To securely share the assets with Tourism Express’ Marketing Manager, Monica creates a password-protected Branded Portal. The Marketing Manager of Tourism Express accesses the Portal using the password provided. They are able to view the assets for the upcoming campaign. She is not able to download them as Monica did not select this option when setting up the Portal.

Brand Portals Example 3: Post Event Asset Sharing

Brand Portals are the perfect way to re-engage with event attendees with visuals from the event or additional information. They can be leveraged to share on-demand recordings of any live sessions, professional photography taken during the day, additional material about your products or services, and more.

Post-Event Asset Sharing Example

In June, Hill University will host its graduation ceremonies for its Science, Education, Business and Art faculties. As there are four faculties and multiple grad classes, Hill University will need a system to organize and share ceremony photos with the graduates.

Using Brand Portals, Hill University is able to share a single portal for each graduating class. The appropriate degree program name is added to each section, allowing visitors to quickly jump to their graduating class photos. Each section is synced with a category within the DAM, so as each photographer adds photos to the category, the Branded Portal is automatically updated. With this portal, the university can easily share the ceremony photos with each graduating class, using the same custom URL, without needing to continually update the portal.

Brand Portals Example 4: Partner Enablement

Brand portals can allow you to better enable your external team members and partners, such as franchisees, distributors and re-sellers. It enables them with seamless access to the product collateral, specs, pricing sheets, and anything else they may need to effectively sell your products – both in the office and on-the-road.

Partner Enablement Example

Leed Lighting, one of North America’s largest lighting manufacturers, is preparing to launch its newest LED flood light. For the launch, the Leed team wants to ensure that all of its distributors are equipped with the necessary product collateral – including product images, specification sheets, product pamphlets etc.

To prepare for the launch, Leed’s Marketing Manager, Dominic, creates a Branded Portal and organizes it into several sections: Product Photos, Specification Sheets, Brochures, and Videos; making it easy for distributors to find and download what they need.

Learn More About MediaValet Brand Portals

Introduce a new level of asset shareability with MediaValet’s Branded Portals. Curate content, maintain brand identity, and share collections via simple URLs without file size limitations.

According to the DAM Vendor Comparison Guide (based on G2 reviews), MediaValet customers report enhanced brand guidelines at a higher rate than alternative DAMs.

A DAM system is pivotal in reinforcing brand guidelines across an organization, ensuring that all marketing and communication efforts are aligned with the brand’s core identity and values.

According to G2, MediaValet stands out as the premier DAM in the enterprise space for this critical function.

Customers across industries have achieved amazing results with Brand Portals:

“I LOVE Branded Portals! I can just quickly throw together a portal and share some amazing content. It’s so easy to update a portal quarterly to share current photo assets of staff volunteering and working events with HR to use in their recruitment efforts.”

Jannette Whippy, United Way of King County

Start distributing your content, while maintaining your brand identity - Learn more about MediaValet’s Branded Portals here.

MediaValet is a leader in cloud-based digital asset management that helps organizations manage, organize and share their digital assets, improving productivity and increasing ROI.