A better brand experience – for every team

BEAM
March 8, 2023 By BEAM

Ask yourself a basic question: Do I need a software or a partner? How you answer has everything to do with your stakeholder experience.

In the past, you chose off-the-shelf, brand in-a-box platforms.

Today, you know you need a dynamic, branded experience where your employees, partners, and other stakeholders go to find brand assets, get smart and source dynamic resources.

BEAM (Brand Engagement & Asset Management) is the dynamic brand asset management (BAM) choice for leading US and global companies, with almost 1,000,000 combined registered users. BEAM is a BAM, but with the secret ingredient of E which stands for Engagement.  The technology to house and provide access to your brand assets is relatively simple, but leading branders understand that the strongest brands are dynamic and must be humanized to engage, inspire, and move people.

Brands come to life through storytelling and there is a growing consensus that if we have an ambition for all of our employees to understand and live the brand then we must do better than providing a static, text heavy, PDF technical document. That means leaning into re-imagining guidelines into content that can educate, inspire and help different groups of individuals get stuff done. Look no further than Salesforce’s publicly available brand center (built on BEAM) for an example of this idea in action

Learn more: Diving into the shifting mentality of modern brand teams

BEAM is the perfect solution for these large, complex, distributed, brand-centric companies because BEAM was created by Monigle, one of the largest independent brand experience firms in the country with a 50-year history of innovation.

Balancing technology and brand expertise, our BEAM team doesn’t “push software.” Instead, we act as a partner to determine the optimum solution, helping clients clarify their brand goals and pinpoint the right tools, people and processes needed to achieve a heightened state of brand governance. And, after implementation, your BEAM Team is there to support you in your brand management and engagement journey ranging from ongoing and dedicated client service support and strategy and design to keeping things fresh, to building robust client communities where leading branders can exchange ideas.

Instead of settling for an anemic BAM section within a complex DAM solution, many large companies seek best-in-class solutions to both and connect them via API.  In these cases, BEAM becomes the single source of truth for all things brand and acts as the front door to their DAM. Users have only one destination to remember. Recent and ongoing BEAM implementations with global organizations like Salesforce, Peloton, Optum and Deloitte all follow this approach.

Learn more: Linking brand to results: How, when and what

Increasingly, companies have realized that different tools are good for different things. Too many brand teams are still unaware of the need to create a connected brand-tech ecosystem. That’s where you have a few interconnected systems, each one great at doing what they do. DAMs are good for static assets, but when they’re asked to house brand guidelines, these software companies lack the expertise and the functionality to help bring them to life.

Here’s a closer look at considerations when comparing BEAM versus a typical DAM and why an increasing number of companies choose to add both as a connected brand-tech ecosystem–

Feature BEAM Typical DAM
Access to brand and creative experts to maximize outcomes X
A roadmap driven by brand enablement + governance challenges X
Annual strategic reviews with actionable recommendations X
API Integrations (custom and pre-built) X X
Diagnostic of existing guidelines X
Up front business case assessment X
Site navigation and content hierarchy recommendations X
Unlimited user seats included with every subscription X
Single Sign On X X
Custom/Vanity URL X X
Dedicated support team X X
Brand Showcase module that enables sharing of best practices X
Onboarding program including input of all content and assets X
Multiple language support X
Multiple entity support (sub-brands) X
User Analytics X X
Connection to a community of other brand leaders X
Permissioned access with customized content available by role X X

Your size, complexity, use, and understanding of brand will tell you whether you’re ready for a BAM solution. A phased approach to digitizing brand assets and continually building on the importance of organizational alignment may be right for you. Our first step is to understand your needs and determine how important to you it is to elevate your approach to brand enablement and engagement. If your static brand guidelines are working for you for now, then using a single consolidated DAM may be the best path.

To learn more about companies are thinking through the right approach to their brand management ecosystem and how it might help you, reach out to us here.

What to learn more about the difference between DAM and BAM? We’ve got you covered.