The Media Mogul offerings allow centralised simultaneous management of huge volumes of publishing, marketing and branding material, enabling users to readily manage all of their digitised files such as images, graphics, movies, recordings, text, logos, documents and web pages.

Chief executive Lesley Steinitz says Picdar offers automated solutions for both the creation and distribution sides of companies. She explains that the creation,or editorial, side sits within a marketing or publications department - often within a global organisation - where the development of new branding or marketing materials is tracked and managed. Media Mogul helps clients to show their ideas, gain approval and reduce time to market.

Once this stage has been completed, the newly created logos, brand guidelines, packaging, imagery and press releases etc, are made available for use. This - the distribution aspect - has to be made as simple as possible so that people outside the marketing department - and those outside the organisation - can use the collateral correctly, for example by employing the right images in the right context, and using the brand correctly.

"It's all about providing secure access, across the web," says Steinitz, "and you can provide different degrees of access to different people within the organisation." Steinitz underlines the importance of proper asset and content management, especially in financial services: "They need to not only have control, but also be seen to have control. And being able to search for and identify all the documents relating to a particular piece of changed legislation so these can be modified, is of huge benefit. The potential cost of not doing this is massive."

A designer in any organisation will typically spend half a day per week looking for files, observes Steinitz. "But with Media Mogul it takes no time at all," she says. "Without it, the real danger a lot of businesses face is people source new images when they already have something perfectly suitable, or use the wrong file sizes, causing delay and confusion."

Access can be controlled in several ways, and there is huge flexibility in being able to control who sees what and who can amend assets and content. For example, access might be granted only to a marketing department, or to a certain class of user, or to people within a certain country or region. Also, access to low-res images can be given to some users, with access to high-res versions available to others.

This flexibility means organisations can both protect their brand integrity and increase efficiency, by providing access to data on a 'need to know' basis. System development takes place continually in house, providing Picdar with complete control of the software.

Everything is, or can be made, generic, so it can be re-applied to other businesses, including across disparate sectors. "This means," says Steinitz, "that when new things come along, the chances are we've already been developing something to support it. We're continually developing software to reflect the needs of the market. We will either offer an off-the-shelf solution, or shape an existing one to fit."

Another area in which Picdar has the advantage over its competitors is with its understanding, expertise and knowledge of all aspects of DAM. "Over two decades' experience means we have enormous technical knowledge about image and other formats, for example," says Steinitz with pride. "And we know how to make a system fast, responsive, secure, robust and scalable."

Media Mogul: the benefits at a glance
A Media Mogul brand asset management solution allows users to sharpen the clarity of the brand message by offering:

• Easy management of the corporate identity by making it easy to comply with brand guidelines.
• Improved consistency of the end product across all channels, in packaging, advertising campaigns, etc.
• Enhanced collateral value: everything is re-usable, will always be up-to-date and available globally 24/7.
• Improved co-ordination with partners, such as agencies, suppliers, retail outlets, resellers, the media, repro houses and overseas offices, by providing immediate access to approved collateral.
• A faster, controllable approval process that eliminates the chance of the wrong material being either created or sent out.
• A reduced campaign time cycle, because everything needed is now available on demand.
• Reduced cost and increased ROI.