The Role of a Digital Asset Manager in Brand Content Protection

Images and videos are an essential resource in today’s marketing practices. The more digital marketing assets your team creates, the more difficult it is to manage them.  

Digital asset management allows companies to effectively store, share and organize all digital content files in a secure and centralized location.

Digital asset managers have an important role in companies as they handle brands' most valuable asset: the intellectual property.

The role and responsibilities of  digital asset managers

Digital asset managers are in charge of curating, cataloging, managing, and protecting an organization's digital assets. They are tech-savvy professionals passionate about images. They take great professional pride in inventorying the creative assets and applying the highest level of seriousness and precision.

In this role, they are responsible for uploading, organizing, managing storage, and creating tags and metadata for creative assets. In addition, they're in charge of digital rights management, which includes educating other members of the organization about digital rights, monitoring access, and ensuring brand consistency, compliance, and copyrights.

Digital asset managers often perform these tasks using a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, which they administer and serve as asset librarians and curators. DAM solutions help digital asset managers to automate business workflows and improve productivity throughout the organization.

The risks of content leaks related to a DAM

If you’re working with a DAM system, you’ve already put in place a process to manage how images and videos are shared across your company’s extensive network of production teams and outside agencies.

But unfortunately, this won’t keep your digital assets from being inadvertently shared outside your defined lists of recipients or by professional leakers intercepting and stealing them.

While digital assets are safe and under your control in a DAM system, no one knows what happens to them once they are distributed. Therefore, finding a solution that works within your company and your workflow is essential.

Digital asset managers also need to be aware of content leak risks in other departments. It is essential to support the communication, marketing, and sales teams since they deal with digital assets and sometimes share them with outside service providers.

Pre-launch leaks are unfortunately common, and tiny mistakes can have tremendous consequences on your product launch campaigns. For example, a product visual can be revealed too early on a marketplace, or your PR agency can share authorized access with their suppliers. Even if a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is signed with your partners and service providers, it does not prevent a person from disclosing confidential information.

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The responsibility of reporting on the usage of assets

One of the primary responsibilities of digital asset managers is to ensure informative and timely reporting on the usage of digital assets. They should make sure employees have a quality user experience when it comes to accessing files and using the centralized DAM system. Digital asset managers also need to ensure real-time version control so that no one in their organization uses obsolete media files or templates.

Once the digital assets are published or shared outside the organization, digital asset managers are responsible for regularly analyzing and reporting on metrics regarding the usage, and lifecycle of digital assets, including statistics on audience engagement.

Digital asset managers & content protection

Digital asset managers have a crucial role in brand content protection. As they’re dealing with a company’s valuable digital assets, they understand what’s at stake if files get lost or shared without permission outside the organization. Thus, putting in place adequate protection and tracking practices is an essential part of their job.

Protecting digital assets also means advocating for better content management. Since digital asset managers know well the risks of digital asset leaks and how to prevent them, they have the rationale to convince decision-makers of the need to set up a proper system for protecting valuable assets.

To monitor the technological developments and innovations in their domain, digital asset managers discuss with other DAM professionals on forums and community groups. They attend DAM technology conferences, such as Henry Stewart Events (UK and US), OnDAM (Europe) and other DAM-related events. Connecting with technical integrators, following influencers, subscribing to curated content such as Planet DAM, DAM news or Another DAM podcast —to name just a few— also helps them stay updated on the latest technologies and recommend the best tools to their company.

Three differentiating skills to excel as a digital asset manager

To become an even better digital asset manager, here are three skills you want to consider acquiring:

• Master visual content protection tools: Knowing the different technologies and systems available today to protect digital assets is essential. Based on your company's needs, you need to be able to recommend the right solution or a combination of solutions: DAM, Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution, and Digital Watermarking.
• Propose new workflows based on your DAM system: By analyzing the usage of your centralized DAM system, you can suggest workflows better suited to your teams and improve the user experience.
• Contribute to the selection of a DAM solution: As a DAM manager, you know the specifications required and different criteria to select the right DAM system. Therefore, it’s vital that you participate in listing all the technical specifications needed by your business.

Want to find out more about how to keep your digital assets safe? Download our ebook “Branded Content Protection” to learn how to secure your images and videos online.

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