Brandfolder vs. Widen

It is so well suited for a cloud based DAM. It's loads so fast, works well in every browser. With remote work now it is so easily for our team to upload, organize, share, and view analytics on our assets. The best feature is the templating system which allows your designers to take what they design in Adobe Indesign and denote which areas are editable and it keeps the formatting, style, and fonts to the end user. The only other options on the market would require the designer to rebuild the design on a separate platform like Canvas. I wish the platform did more to help with handling videos. It doesn't display the runtime on a video, the specs, or play captions inline with the video. I also wish it would do media pushing to social media platforms.

I think Widen offers a great solution for any company looking to add a Digital Asset Management tool. They provide excellent support and really listen to their customer's requests and concerns. Their customization options are great for addressing the company's individual needs. Being powered by metadata has tremendously improved our searching experience - we no longer have duplicate files saved in multiple locations, with team members constantly wondering if they have the most up-to-date version or team members wasting time digging through folders and shared drives looking for a single asset.

• Documents such as contact lists and cooperative programs
• Featured listings, agents, and maps are just a few examples of creative advertising concepts
• Provides organization

• Once the structure is planned and implemented, metadata functionality allows for robust search and filtering
• Asset organization options facilitate more than one way for users to find what they need. Once any complexity in planning and configuration is complete, with clear guidance the user experience is simplistic enough to increase chances of engagement and adoption
• Customer Success Managers, Live Chat Support, and Widen Connect all combine to provide a real wealth of material to lean on while in the early stages of planning your Collective, and refining for continuous improvement once things are live

• If you have a large collection of images, like we do, and you go 2 or 3 pages deep and select an image, then close the image, the collection snaps back to page 1. It's pretty frustrating.

• Workflow has its limits and could easily become easier to manage deliverables/set up workflows for asset creation and approval.
• Steps in the DAM that work for other customers often times add time/clicks/steps for us in how we use it.
• The updates that affect me and how I use Widen seem to be few and far between.
• While I'm one customer, I don't feel that my feedback makes a difference. I'm not upset, but I enjoy providing feedback to my reps and would love to see it have a positive effect on updates. Again, I'm one voice among many, so I'm not upset by this.

Widen is currently the hub of all our assets and it has been easy to connect it with the CMS and our PIM. It's easy to connect it with other systems and Widen support makes the difference in this area. We also have access to Widen University with current content to train new users and to be updated on Widen's capabilities.

We used to have to respond to any email questions from our library users about how to find assets. With Widen, the system is similar to online shopping, workable with keywords for those who like to search that way, or with filters for those who like to browse.

Implementation support was fantastic. We were paired with an implementation consultant who met with us weekly, guided us through the many steps, answered questions and helped with problem solving. The only time I have ever looked forward to an 8:30 am meeting! DAM maintenance support is also excellent. If I can't figure out how to get something to work within the DAM or if something strange happens, I can either chat with support immediately or start a ticket through Widen Connect. If the first level of support can't help, I usually hear back from the second tier within hours. They are very responsive. As I've mentioned elsewhere in my review, support in getting some of our integrations set up has been a bit lackluster (speaking of integrations not covered by the standard ones offered by Widen). I feel that Widen should step up to the plate for the things we are asking, because the integrations that we want (building e-mails, for example) are obvious functions that a modern enterprise DAM should perform. Fortunately, we do have engineering support in our company, but it's still be frustrating with Widen.

It was a lot of work! But worth the effort to get our assets cleaned up and organized. Enough time and personnel need to be allotted for any implementation, but we had some advantage in having our assets in a previous DAM with attached metadata in XML, and our users were prepared with knowledge of our existing DAM at that time. Though old habits present their own issues, a company that is starting from scratch with no DAM has to think farther ahead about how it will organize and collect assets. Far more pre-planning with stakeholders would be needed for a company starting an implementation from scratch.

Brandfolder has the best UI/UX for the end user and the administrator. The UI/UX is modern and not just a recreation of a folder system like old OS file systems. Brandfolder is so visual based and loads so quickly that makes it easy for users to find their assets quickly. The templating is totally unique when compared to other options on the market. The tagging system, duplicate detection, collections, and stacking files into an asset makes the platform efficient to manage and use

We have used Google Drive in the past to share assets with partners and customers. There is no way to track the usage of the assets with Google Drive. Not only for usage but security reasons as well. Google Drive is limited on adding tags whereas Widen provides customizable metadata fields for us to control.

• Cut down on time doubling time on assets
• It took a long time to set up and train.
• It is very expensive.

We would like to see further adoption of the use of the DAM by our creative teams to help them handle WIP files.

• Whenever we have a new product launch, we are able to have all the assets ready to go but protected as confidential. Once we have the product finalized and publicly announced we can batch rename all the files and release the images within an hour.
• Previously this took a team of 3 people all day to perform the same function 1 person does in 1 hour.
• With the DAM accessible by both product and marketing teams, we are all to ensure the latest images are always available for team members.
• Team members report saving time searching for images.