5 DAM Essentials for Effective Asset Management

5 DAM Essentials for Effective Asset Management in Media & Entertainment

Hot metal, deadline day, cut, print – the language in the media & entertainment (M&E) sector is full of urgency, and for good reason. Whether it’s working to tight production schedules on weekly TV shows, or getting today’s news out accurately and on time, there is plenty of potential for something to go wrong. But thankfully, with a robust digital asset management (DAM) system on board, media & entertainment brands can deliver on time, every time.

Media & Entertainment: DAM to Keep the Reels Turning

More than any sector, digital assets are the lifeblood of the media & entertainment industry. The need for an efficient system to manage these assets cannot be underestimated. Without being able to find, store, edit and use digital assets in media & entertainment, there would simply be no show business.

If you’re a publisher looking for the right image to leap out on the newsstands, a blogger wanting to make sure you give the correct attribution to your lead image, a podcaster wanting the right sound file to accompany your interview, a film studio, TV crew, newshound or more, a digital asset management system, or DAM, should be at the heart of operations. Here are just 5 ways a DAM in media & entertainment can keep your organization ahead of the pack.

Rapid Scalability for Any Project

A modern DAM for the media & entertainment industry should be scalable to handle the vast number of media files, enabling growth without compromising performance or data integrity. Scalability may need to be rapid – creating a supplement for a magazine, Christmas specials, pilot programmes all need a responsive system that can easily deal with a flood of assets.

Handling large file sizes is also vital. Everything is multimedia today. Unless it’s physical print, newspapers all have interactive elements, videos, quizzes, podcast files and so on. This means storing large files in Media Asset Management (MAM), a specialist branch of DAM.

Metadata Management for quick and accurate search: Efficient metadata tagging and search capabilities are essential in media and entertainment. The sheer volume of information contained in and about any particular asset means editors have to be able to trust they’ve selected the right asset for the job. Getting the wrong asset significantly hinders smooth workflows, disrupting collaboration and media distribution.

Did you know

Harry Potter star, Daniel Radcliffe, used to wear the same looking clothing day in, day out for months to make paparazzi pictures of him worthless. Without a way to organise pictures effectively, picture editors may not have been aware and could have been paying for and publishing content that looked old and out of date.

Integration Capabilities for a Smooth Production Process

Assets in the M&E sector are rarely used ‘raw’. Each asset will pass through multiple hands before reaching its destination. It will have been edited, images cropped or enhanced, audio trimmed, film cut to meet shoot angles and length and much more besides. Seamless integration with other media production tools and software, such as video editing platforms, to streamline workflows and enable easy sharing of assets across the organization.

Peace of Mind Rights Management

Even the wild west of the Paparazzi has to deal with rights issues. The person being photographed may not have any rights (in the editorial sense) over the image but the photographer and the photo agency do. Image rights do not last forever. A brand may have an expiration date on its publicity material, for example, to protect future brand refreshes. People may sell an image of themselves that is only valid for a certain period, as is the case with Slimming World’s member success stories. Robust digital rights management features are critical for ensuring compliance with licensing and copyright regulations, preventing legal issues in media content usage.

Secure Storage and Management of Sensitive Content

Whether you’re a weekly magazine guarding a high-profile celebrity exclusive or trying to keep images of a much-anticipated finale under wraps, you want to make sure images are only ever accessed by the people who have authorisation. High-level security features are vital to protect sensitive media assets. Encryption, access controls, and audit trails help safeguard intellectual property and media content from unauthorized access or breaches.

DAM for Publishing

F.A. Davis is a specialist nursing publisher, with a range of both physical and digital publications under management. Books can range from 300 pages to multi volume releases running to thousands of pages. And each one requires the input of dozens of people, both internally and externally. Titles can take up to nine months to produce – and that’s after a manuscript has been approved by the editorial team.

Initially, the team implemented censhare as a DAM to store, manage, and make the company’s artwork accessible. A second phase of work saw censhare adopted as the organization’s workflow management system. And a third major project is to integrate it with F.A. Davis’ Klopotek ERP system.

Through censhare, the company saves up to $200 per image. With over 100,000 images stored, this is a considerable cost saving. The publisher has also cut hundreds of hours spent on tasks across the 100-plus projects managed by more than 50 internal users.

Read more about the F.A. Davis' success story, here.