Whether you are in the 3rd aisle of Walmart or at the intersection of Broadway and 7th Avenue, brands like Nestlé or Nike are hard to miss. The reason: Brand equity. A great brand identity will have consumers swooning at your products even before they hit the market. So, what’s the secret behind this immense admiration and loyalty? 

There’s no denying that a great product is imperative for good branding. But providing a consistent brand experience goes far beyond the product itself. In the world of consumer goods, details such as logos, slogans, and packaging reign supreme. After all, who doesn’t remember Nike's tagline, ‘Just do it!’ or the memorable ads run by Nestle which are etched in our childhood memories? 

Maintaining a consistent brand experience can be a challenge when you don’t have the right resources by your side. That’s where brand asset management comes in. With the right brand asset management platform at your disposal, you can increase your brand value effectively and stay on top of your game with ease. 

‍

What is brand asset management?

Brand asset management involves managing all of your brand assets to ensure they’re being used effectively and consistently across all channels. This includes everything from brand assets like images and video, to brand guidelines and marketing automation. Let’s break down the three important components of a BAM platform:

1. Brand asset library

It is the central hub for organizing, storing, and sharing brand assets in a way that's easy to access for employees and external stakeholders. By implementing a BAM system, you can ensure that your brand assets are always up-to-date and consistent, which is crucial for building brand recognition and trust among customers. Some BAMs also feature intelligent search functionality and ai-powered smart tags, making it easy to find any brand asset in a split second.

2. Brand guidelines

Brand guidelines refer to pre-designed templates that can be used to create visual guidelines for a particular brand. These templates typically include sections for brand color palettes, typography, logos, image styles, and other design elements that are specific to the brand. These templates can help to ensure that the brand's visual identity is consistent and cohesive across all channels, no matter who is working on the design.

3. Workflow automation

Workflow automation helps your team to automate repetitive tasks and focus their attention on more important work. Several BAM platforms let you build custom workflows and have project management features, enabling you to get 100% visibility into your workflows and speed up approval cycles to meet even the most stringent deadlines.

4. Creative intelligence

Creative intelligence helps consumer goods companies optimize their creative assets to better connect with their target audience. The feature provides insights and data-driven recommendations that help companies understand how their creative assets are performing, and how they can be improved to better resonate with consumers.

‍

Uncover the power of branding in the consumer goods industry

In the consumer goods industry, a powerful brand is more than its product — it’s a story, an identity, and a promise — all of which are conveyed through brand assets. In a world where perception is reality and brand loyalty is king, managing and maximizing the value of your brand assets has never been more important. But with so much at stake, managing those assets can be a tricky business. 

To ensure that your brand identity is intact and you are creating assets that resonate with your audience, it’s important to leverage technology platforms,including a Brand Compliance tool, for streamlined asset creation and consistent brand representation. Below we take a look at the top branding challenges facing the consumer goods industry and how an intelligent BAM platform can help your business stand out in a crowded marketplace, build brand loyalty, and drive growth and success.

Top 7 branding challenges facing the consumer goods industry

As the consumer goods industry becomes more competitive, effective branding has become crucial for success. Let's delve into the top seven challenges that companies must navigate to build a strong brand and stay ahead of the competition.

#1. Staying relevant

Consumer preferences and trends change rapidly, making it difficult for companies to stay up-to-date with their branding. With the rise of e-commerce, it's also crucial to have a strong online presence. 

Solution: A BAM platform provides a centralized hub for managing and organizing brand assets, making it easier to quickly update and adapt branding materials in response to changing trends. Smart features such as emotion recognition, smart tags, and advanced search functionality make it a breeze to find the right asset with ease. Marketing professionals can also focus on launching campaigns and building a strong brand presence, thanks to automated approval cycles and top-notch proofing solutions that enable teams to deliver creatives at a faster rate than ever before.

# 2. Maintaining brand consistency

As the industry becomes more digital, companies must manage an increasing number of brand assets, from product images to videos and other multimedia content. With numerous channels and touchpoints, it can be challenging to maintain a consistent brand message across all platforms and regions.

Solution: A BAM platform can help by providing a single source of truth for all brand assets, ensuring that everyone is using the same logos, images, and messaging. It also allows teams to collaborate on brand asset development and ensure consistency across all channels and regions. Brands can also leverage brand guidelines templates to share within the team and with external stakeholders, so everyone is in the loop on what your brand is and isn’t.

# 3. Scaling up and expanding to new markets

As companies grow and expand into new markets, it can be difficult to scale up their branding efforts while maintaining consistency and relevance.

Solution: A BAM platform ensures that all team members, no matter where they are located, have easy access to the same assets, which helps to maintain consistency and efficiency across the organization. It also facilitates collaboration between team members, allowing them to share ideas, provide feedback, and work together on projects from different locations. This is particularly important for brands with global teams, who need to collaborate across different time zones and languages.

# 4. Measuring effectiveness

It can be challenging to measure the effectiveness of branding efforts and quantify the ROI of branding investments.

Solution: A BAM platform can help by providing analytics and reporting capabilities that allow companies to track the usage and performance of brand assets across channels and regions. This data can help companies make data-driven decisions about their branding efforts and investments, improving their overall effectiveness.

# 5. Maintaining brand loyalty

Consumer behavior is becoming increasingly fickle, and brand loyalty is harder to maintain than ever before. Brands need to maintain a strong connection with their customers to build loyalty. Engaging at-home consumers and creating effective online product experiences is more crucial than ever.

Solution: One way to overcome this challenge is to focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences that build emotional connections with consumers. A BAM platform can help by providing access to customer data, such as preferences and behaviors, that can be used to create personalized marketing campaigns and product experiences.

# 6. Delivering accurate product packaging and labeling

Product packaging and labeling play a critical role in branding for the consumer goods industry. Packaging is often the first point of contact that consumers have with a product, and it can greatly impact their decision to purchase. Similarly, product labeling is important for communicating nutritional information and product warnings. Companies also suffer losses when they have to recall a product due to packaging errors or compliance issues.

Solution: Certain brand asset management platforms offer smart compliance checklists and proofing tools to facilitate compliance with legal and regulatory requirements and reduce errors and redundancies. You can also set up custom approval workflows to ensure that all packaging and labeling materials are reviewed and approved before they are printed or distributed. 

# 7. Launching campaigns that are time-sensitive

Time-sensitive campaigns can be a challenge when you don’t have a technological solution in place to streamline your brand asset management process. This can cause a loss of time, and resources, and miss out on crucial marketing opportunities.

Solution: For your brand to compete with today's convenience-focused customers, you need flexibility, control, and quick distribution. With the right brand asset management platform, you can have a 360-degree overview of your project status and tasks and set up custom workflows to streamline collaboration through the platform, ultimately allowing you to grab the right opportunities and trends and roll out campaigns faster.

Implementing brand asset management in the consumer goods industry

As a consumer goods brand, there are a few things that help you seamlessly implement brand asset management in your existing workflow. Let’s go over a few of them.

1. Set up brand guidelines: 

You can define your brand guidelines (logo, typography, slogan, colors) and share the template with your team to ensure that everyone is on the same page regarding what your brand represents. Brand guidelines serve as a handy document for designers, content creators, and marketers to refer to anything brand-related instead of going through multiple channels and people to get the relevant information.  

2. Identify key stakeholders and teams: 

It's important to identify the key stakeholders and teams involved in brand asset management, such as marketing, creative, and product development. This helps ensure everyone is aligned and working together towards the same goals.

3. Implement the right brand asset management tool: 

There are a variety of brand asset management platforms available, so it's important to select the right ones that meet your company's specific needs. Look out for features such as an intelligent asset library, project management tools, automated proofing tools, and AI analytics and reporting.

4. Ensure user adoption and training: 

Once you've selected the right brand asset management tools and workflows, it's important to ensure that everyone is trained and comfortable using them. This could include providing user manuals, training sessions, or ongoing support to ensure that everyone can use the tools effectively and efficiently.

‍

Consumer goods companies succeeding with brand asset management

Here are some examples of consumer goods companies that have implemented a brand asset management platform successfully:

LesserEvil

Everyone’s favorite snack brand LesserEvil implemented the brand asset management system, Artwork Flow to streamline the design process for its quirky and colorful packaging and release creatives faster. Not only did it result in a 60% faster speed to market, but the brand was also able to reduce its number of revisions by half.

Forest Essentials

Forest Essentials, the global luxury ayurvedic brand, implemented Artwork Flow to streamline their complex label management system and speed up approval processes. With a more intuitive interface and smart features and checklists, the brand was able to create a standardized brand asset approval process and reduce creative approval delays by 60%.

Simply Lunch

Simply Lunch, known for its pre-packaged sandwiches and lunch platters, implemented a brand asset management system to improve workflow automation and get their delicious products on the shelves faster. With a more efficient system, the brand was able to build seamless workflows and create and approve brand assets quickly.

‍

Wrapping up

Brand asset management is a crucial aspect of the consumer goods industry. It not only helps companies create a consistent and recognizable brand image but also ensures that their products stand out on the shelf and in the minds of consumers.

One way to achieve efficient brand asset management is through the implementation of a BAM platform. Not only does it streamline the packaging design process, but it also allows companies to save time and money while maintaining a high level of quality and consistency.

So, if you want to stay ahead in the consumer goods industry, it's time to ask yourself — what are you doing to strengthen your brand identity? Remember, a great brand is not built overnight, but with the right tools and strategies, it can last a lifetime.

‍