Matt Roy
General Manager, PIM, Canto
Brands can suffer when product images and information are spread across different systems. A centralised hub makes this key material more accessible — and businesses more efficient.
Brand consistency isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s crucial for building customer trust and loyalty. Yet, the steady proliferation of sales and marketing channels — from ecommerce platforms and retail partners to social media, marketplaces and in-store experiences — makes it harder for companies to keep their messaging, imagery and product details aligned.
Challenges of brand consistency
If brands are juggling myriad of product images and pricing information across multiple spreadsheets, systems, folders, email chains and shared drives, teams must spend time hunting down the right data. That creates workflow bottlenecks and missed sales opportunities. It also makes it worryingly easy for out-of-date or inconsistent information and images to be shared or published, which can damage hard-won brand reputations.
“In our economically uncertain world, a brand will have to constantly update its product information and prices,” explains Matt Roy, General Manager, Product Information Management, at digital asset management solutions provider, Canto. “But when sales and marketing information is stored on different platforms, it increases the chance of the wrong material being used. That can lead to lack of trust and credibility with customers and partners.”
A centralised hub makes
a brand more agile.
Centralised content hub for agility and adaptability
To prevent this, Roy recommends bringing all sales and marketing information into a centralised content hub, which he calls “a single source of truth.” When marketing, sales, ecommerce and creative teams connect in one platform, they can be confident that they are all accessing the same up-to-date information and visuals. It’s a time-saving benefit, too, because instead of searching for files in different places and double-checking product specs, they’ll be able to focus on what they’re good at: strategy and storytelling.
“A centralised hub makes a brand more agile,” says Roy. “As consumer behaviour, platforms and technology continue to evolve, brands will need flexible systems that allow them to react quickly — but also to adapt without losing momentum. With the right foundation in place, they’ll have clear visibility into their content, streamlined access to product data and the ability to pivot campaigns or update assets without unnecessary back-and-forth. They can launch faster, test new ideas more easily and respond to market shifts without skipping a beat.”
Manage content throughout the organisation
The fact is that brands don’t have to work in an unconnected, inconsistent and inefficient way. “Some don’t realise that this is an easily solvable problem,” says Roy. “A centralised system can help them create, share and manage content effectively across their entire organisation.”
