Ugh, it happened again.
Ten team members from your international offices called looking for marketing or branding files. One can’t find the brochure they are certain got approved last month, and others are seeking images, guidelines, and the latest industry white paper. And this was today alone!
No one wants to be a stand-alone gatekeeper of their company’s digital asset collection. The work is never-ending and often goes unappreciated.
We’re here to tell you you’re not alone. This is exactly what happens in many oil and gas businesses that are making their way into the age of digital marketing and growing their collections of content and marketing assets in the process.
We’ve compiled a list of the top 5 pains companies in the oil & gas industry experience around managing their digital assets for branding purposes and explain exactly what it is about digital asset management (DAM) technology that makes such a difference in easing the suffering.
The Top 5 Digital Asset Pains in Oil & Gas
These are the top digital asset pains that most oil & gas organizations experience:
1. Dysfunctional Search
Whether they’re in central headquarters or working from satellite offices, most people across the organization can’t find digital assets. This is because files are stored on personal computers that are only searchable by the owner of that machine or on shared drives with out-of-date search functionality and identifying metadata.
2. Duplicates
Once an asset is found and given to someone for use, a duplicate of that asset now lives on this second person’s computer. They are then free to store, share and edit the file as they please. And they do many times over.
3. Lack of Version Control
There is no guarantee that these end-users will take initiative to check back for updated file versions. All of these duplicates lack version control standards and rules, which means that duplicates multiply and become altered exponentially.
In many businesses, what ends up happening is that the wrong asset goes live in marketing collateral. This problem can become so widespread that even something seemingly simple happens, for instance, an outdated logo makes it to publication. Brand consistency quickly becomes impossible as there is no way to control who is using which asset, for what purpose, and when.
4. Tribal Knowledge Required
A common solution to these issues is to assign one person as a kind of “gatekeeper” of brand assets, visuals and product images, and this person often works under a graphics department. But this leads to a requirement that a single person must be consulted to find anything.
We’ve seen many people in this scenario feeling stuck, and their productivity suffers as they rely upon their memory to find assets. They are not able to fulfill their direct responsibilities, because of constantly serving the demands of others for finding or altering assets.
As the oil and gas industry has grown, so has the company’s collection of digital assets. This growth has been rapid enough that graphics teams can no longer find certain assets when someone requests them. What’s more, if the “digital asset gatekeeper” ever leaves the company, knowledge of asset location and purpose can be completely lost.
5. Sharing is Siloed
More and more, we also see the people who handle these kinds of disparate collections of digital assets frustrated by the amount of time they put into all of this. Without a proper search function that allows people across an organization to self-serve and find the assets they need on their own, the digital asset gatekeepers are wasting hours each day and week, which takes away from their other work. When sharing becomes siloed within one person’s workflow, everyone loses.
Why Are Digital Assets So Valuable in Oil & Gas?
Whether we think about it or not, crude oil is one of the most used resources in modern everyday life. Aside from the gasoline most of us still use to power our vehicles, cosmetics, synthetic rubber, medications, cleaning products, asphalt, fabrics and all things made of plastic contain substances derived from crude oil.
Digital assets in oil & gas are not merely photos and rich media stored as digital files – they are literally a means to critical business results.
Digital assets are the backbone of impactful messaging that empowers consumers to appreciate the role of oil products in their everyday lives.
Teams should be empowered to get the assets they need, when they need them. And there is so much more that DAM technology can do for businesses in the oil & gas industry.
How DAM Technology Helps Oil & Gas Organizations
With DAM users spread across entire organizations, oil & gas businesses benefit from:
Security
Cloud-based DAM solutions offer the highest level of security that comes guaranteed directly from the hosting platform. If the DAM you choose, for instance, runs on Microsoft Azure, the security agreement comes directly from Microsoft.
Brand Consistency
With a DAM acting as a central library of digital assets, all users across an organization have structured access to files that are subject to permission and control standards. Only the most up-to-date assets will be available to users, and brand consistency is much easier to structure, create, and maintain.
More Efficient Workflows
Since a single person or small team are no longer responsible for finding and distributing digital files, time will be freed up for other critical functions. Also, the users across an organization no longer have to experience and plan for long wait times in requesting materials. Individuals merely log in to the DAM and serve themselves by searching, finding what they need, and using those files to build out their projects.
In essence, a carefully chosen DAM solution will become a single source of truth. A small marketing team or skilled admin person will be in charge of consulting with the DAM vendor (and other consultants if desired) to produce a system that has an accurate and functional metadata standard. Assets will then be found easily by all users who have personal access to the DAM via a login page from any web browser.
