Overview

Brandfolder is a leading Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform that enables brands to efficiently manage and distribute assets while gaining valuable insights into their performance. The introduction of Brandfolder's Content Automation and Templating feature aimed to empower designers in creating on-brand, customizable designs and videos for non-creative team members. However, during the initial launch of Content Automation, the customer experience and user adoption faced some challenges. The Brandfolder team identified opportunities to enhance the solution further, particularly in terms of providing more control over the user experience and integrating a unified solution for digital, print, and video formats.

To address these areas of improvement, Brandfolder sought an ideal partner. Eventually, they found  Design Huddle's embeddable, white-label graphic design and video platform. This collaboration allowed Brandfolder to refine and enrich the Content Automation and templating feature, ensuring a smoother and more satisfying experience for their users. With Design Huddle's comprehensive capabilities, Brandfolder was able to elevate its product, making it an even more powerful and user-friendly DAM platform.

The Customer

Brandfolder, Smartsheet’s Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform, is a highly sought-after solution for marketers and creatives who are faced with an influx of content requests across more channels than ever before. According to recent reports, marketers on average are using more than 12 different tools to manage their projects, while 40% of organizations have difficulty in finding their digital assets. 

In light of this market challenge, Brandfolder set out to create a unified platform that improves the way marketers and creatives work together to deliver impactful brand experiences to their customers, with unparalleled speed and efficiency. Because of their unified platform vision, Brandfolder’s top priority in identifying technology partners is the ability to deliver a seamless experience for their customers. 

Brandfolder is ranked as the number one DAM platform by G2 in the 2023 Summer Grid Report and has the highest ratings in customer satisfaction for the quality of support, ease of use, ability to meet requirements, ease of setup, and more.

The Challenge:
Creating a Seamless User Experience With a Third-Party Solution

Before joining forces with Design Huddle, Brandfolder had integrated a different graphic design editor to power their Content Automation product. However, this integration posed several challenges. The user experience fell short of their expectations, failing to align with their vision of a unified platform. One major drawback was the absence of video editing capabilities, limiting the platform's potential for comprehensive content creation. Moreover, the lack of control over the editing experience, coupled with an outdated user interface, made it evident to end-users that the editor was not seamlessly integrated into the Brandfolder product. Additionally, the integration process itself was cumbersome and left their product and development teams feeling uneasy and frustrated.

Recognizing the importance of enhancing their content automation and templating solutions for their customers, Brandfolder understood that developing a superior, unified editor supporting digital, print, presentation, and video mediums exceeded their core expertise and would be challenging to build in-house. As a result, they embarked on a quest to find a new technology partner capable of providing a best-in-class editing experience for their users, complete with comprehensive templating functionality.

Their top requirements were:

👉 A fully customizable, white-labeled, and embeddable solution
👉 Powerful API and Javascript SDK (JSSDK) to build a well-crafted, seamless experience within their platform
👉 The ability for Brandfolder customers to create or upload editable templates for their users to easily customize without leaving the Brandfolder environment
👉 The power to leverage existing client brand assets to programmatically populate design templates on behalf of the customer
👉 A dedicated technical implementation team that would partner with their product and development teams

The Solution:
Leverage Design Huddle’s Embeddable Design and Video Editor

Fortunately, a former colleague of Brandfolder’s Vice President of Product Development, referred Design Huddle for the company to research as a potential solution. After having previously researched and integrated other solutions, the Brandfolder team already had a strong understanding of their options and was able to quickly evaluate Design Huddle’s design and video editor against their project requirements. Brandfolder selected Design Huddle to power its Content Automation product because of its highly flexible and embeddable design coupled with its powerful integration capabilities via API and JSSDK.

After re-launching Content Automation using Design Huddle in November 2021, Brandfolder is now able to provide its 5,000+ customers with:

• The ability to seamlessly access brand assets stored in Brandfolder during template creation and customization.
• Marketing materials that have been automatically populated using their branding assets.
• The option to convert previously created designs into editable templates using the PDF Import Tool.
• A native display of their templates within Brandfolder because of the seamless integration.
• Templates, locking, and a consistent editing experience across media types (digital, print, video) that empowers non-design team members to assist in content creation while staying on-brand.

"Empowering product teams to build robust in-app design tools quickly
& efficiently. The Design Huddle team is highly collaborative and responsive -- they have been fantastic partners. Design Huddle provides the capabilities to create solutions that help design and creative teams scale. The flexible editor makes it easy to dream up solutions and bring them to life. The possibilities truly feel endless. The design tool makes building simple creative projects and templating a breeze, primarily because of the editor's simple UI and ease of use. The locking mechanisms for templates are easy to navigate and control. I love the Design Huddle product and am thrilled to work with such a phenomenal team.”

- Skye Bacus, Director of Product Management at Brandfolder