Co-operative Financial Services have just gone live with the latest upgrade (version 1.8) of their “alf” system.

The main additions were adding functionality to automatically inform relevant channels whenever a new or updated item goes live and also further enhancing the suite of TCF reports taking the total number of customized TCF reports to 10.

After 5 good years at The Tea Building it was time for a change. ‘be the brand experience’ have moved. We are now based in Scrutton Street, Shoreditch. Yes, the street well known for banksy’s ‘Smiley Grim Reaper’ (http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/banksy/Banksy_reaper_scrutton.htm)

Please note for full address details do view our contacts page on the website.

For further articles regarding Noughtilus please see the following:-

An article by MarketingWeek - Noughtilus unveils Carbon Calculator for marketing:

An article by B2B Marketing online - CAMPAIGN NEWS: Marketers must be seen to be green:

An article by MediaWeek – How Green is your medium

An article by UTalk Marketing – Carbon calculator for the Marketing Industry

Noughtilus was developed during 2008 to enable marketers to measure the environmental impact of marketing campaigns. The solution is configurable to enable different clients to define supply chain resources (in terms of their impact and impact variables/ drivers).

Noughtilus has been launched with The Guardian under the banner of eco:metrics; we configured a version of the solution to reflect The Guardians campaigns and resources.

Eco:metrics overview (from The Guardian.com)

Measuring the CO2 impact of media schedules

We recently launched eco:metrics, a world-first web-based tool that enables us to measure the CO2 impact of our own media schedules. We are offering this tool to clients and agencies. It includes data on supplements, microsites, audio, video, mobile, events and promotional ads.

Adam Freeman (Commercial Director) says: "We will use this knowledge to have an open and collaborative dialogue with our advertisers, which explores more sustainable ways to do business. In short, we want to combine creativity and innovation with sustainable thinking and best practice. Our aim is also to introduce tools and metrics to which the whole media industry can contribute. We hope that this will add to the debate around sustainable and effective marketing communications." “

You can view the eco:metrics article here.

Scottish Life have become the latest leading player in the financial services sector to select be the brand experience as their partner for deploying a Financial Promotion lifecycle management system.

This further cements our position as clear market leaders in the provision of Marketing Resource Management (MRM) technology to the UK Financial Services industry

Case study to follow.

National Savings & Investments goes live with PhinPro, our Financial Promotion lifecycle management system.

National Savings & Investments also adds to our expanding list of Government credentials with the Environment Agency already having been live for over a year; reflecting our ability to offer demonstrable benefits to Government clients.

Case study to follow.

Available to both PhinPro and Brand Asset Management users we released our Print Management module this month. The modules manages the print request, briefing, quotation request, response and ordering process. This expands the scope of both solutions to incorporate the print procurement and stock ordering.

Following the launch of our PhinPro product we are pleased to have ended 2008 on a high with three new client wins in December. The clients continue to demonstrate that PhinPro is the strongest marketing automation solution for Financial Services.  All three wins followed extensive tender processes during which we were evaluated against others; and won.

Further details will be released during 2009.

PhinPro (Phinancial Promotion) is an off-the-shelf, configurable version of our Marketing Resource Management solution customised specifically for Financial Services. Operating in a highly regulated environment demands standardised, compliant and efficient process; Directors need to confidence that the Financial Promotion lifecycle is being effectively managed to minimise risk exposure.

We have embedded our extensive experience in delivering marketing resource management solutions to the FS sector in PhinPro. PhinPro provides a rapidly deployable solution delivered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) basis.

Contact Adam Hainsworth (Link to contacts page) to find out more.

The ‘be the brand experience team’ decided to do something a little different this year by donating the money that would have been spend on sending Christmas cards to clients to the Scottish Wildlife Trust – The Return of the Beaver appeal. Charity # SC005792 – Our donation will help raise the £750,000.00 required to accomplish this conservation project. http://www.scottishbeavers.org.uk/ 

We must review our pricing structure; after the first year of use the Environment Agency have reported back that the solution paid for itself in less than six months of use. Great news, especially as the value generated will only increase as the system beds in and use increases.

The UK’s leading ethical financial services group has selected be the brand experience to create and deploy a large-scale marketing resource management system. The customised system (alf), caters for Co-operative Bank, Co-operative Insurance and Smile Bank, and provides a robust and auditable process for managing the development and use ofall marketing materials. The system is customised to suit the size and complexity of CFS’s organisational processes and supply chain, and also includes a centralised asset store from which the latest versions of all marketing materials can be accessed.

The system places a particular emphasis on ensuring compliance with FSA regulations during the approval process, and key anticipated benefits include greater control and visibility, reduced lead times, faster signoff and less document circulation. Other benefits result from increasing the value realised from brand assets, and reducing the costs associated with creating and updating them.

CFS has recently undergone a large restructure and alf is a key part of their new way of working. The transformation was a collaborative effort involving a number of parties, including be the brand experience.

be the brand experience provided full training for all users, who ranged from Compliance and Marketing to Legal, Technical and Business Management. be also successfully integrated multiple design and print agencies into the final solution and had them fully trained prior to going live. The system was successfully launched late February 2008, following a well-executed pilot run.

“We are delighted that CFS chose be the brand experience to help them manage the process for creating, approving and storing their marketing and communications materials and we are proud to be working with the market leader in ethical FS products”

Jes Ongley, be the brand experience

About Co-operative Financial Services (CFS)

With some 6.5 million customers, Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) is a leading provider of car insurance, mortgages, current accounts, home and contents insurance, credit cards, life assurance, personal loan and pensions. CFS was formed in 2002 to bring The Co-operative Bank, Smile and the Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) together, and has developed a reputation for providing quality products and services and leading the way on ethics and the environment.

About be the brand experience

Be the brand experience is a leading provider of Marketing Resource Management technology (MRM). Be the brand experience enables clients to achieve more by developing effective, affordable custom-built technology solutions that empower users to better manage marketing workflows, brand assets and suppliers, resulting in lower costs, lower lead times and greater brand consistency and compliance. For more information, please contact info@be-thebrand.com.

be the brand experience has just launched a powerful new tool that revolutionises the way document owners interact with their colleagues during the reviewing process. The solution emerged out of be’s extensive experience of reviewing processes in a number of blue-chip client organisations, and not only ensures that the right people are involved at each stage, but also captures their comments in a simple and collaborative online environment. The final document is only made available after having been approved by all stakeholders.

Early uptake amongst a number of be’s existing clients has confirmed that the tool is able to significantly reduce the number of times documents need to be circulated, freeing up valuable time and resources within client organisations.

Main Features:

- Collaborative reviewing – allows reviewing to take place in a simple collaborative online environment

- Full comment history - captures all comments in full

- Enables rapid creation of agency brief

Recent Client Highlights

- “Removes need for every system user to have Adobe Acrobat in full, which greatly reduces our Adobe licensing fees”

- “Process efficiencies – no need to collate all comments from different reviewers into a single document, (saves project manager huge amount of time and effort)”

- Reduced number of document circulations saves effort and reduces lead times”

For more information, or to take advantage of this fantastic new solution, contact your client services manager now, or email us at info@be-thebrand.com.

About be the brand experience

be the brand experience is a leading provider of Marketing Resource Management technology (MRM). be the brand experience enables clients to achieve more by developing effective, affordable custom-built technology solutions that empower users to better manage marketing workflows, brand assets and suppliers, resulting in lower costs, lower lead times and greater brand consistency and compliance. For more information, please contact info@be-thebrand.com.

In their recent special ‘Green Supplement’, Media Week highlighted how the media sector has arguably been “slower than other industries to adopt environmentally friendly policies into everyday practice”, also noting how it has never been under more pressure to do so:

“Reducing carbon footprints is simple housekeeping for businesses in areas such as retail and finance. These firms are turning attention to their supply chain. If an agency hasn’t been asked about this already, it certainly will be this year.”

Solitaire Townsend, CEO of sustainable communications agency Futerra

In light of this, journalist Patrick Dye used Noughtilus to illustrate the carbon footprint of a typical TV ad Vs a Standard Press Campaign. The analysis highlighted some of the most carbon intensive activities involved in each campaign, which ranged the sheer volume of paper consumed to a series of long haul flights for filming overseas.

The report voices growing concern amongst brands, media owners, agencies and clients about the environmental impact of marketing activities, and further emphasises the need to measure and manage the environmental impact of marketing campaigns.

Good news for Noughtilus, which is uniquely positioned to help them do just that.

The MediaWeek Green Supplement is available online at the following address, http://green.mediaweek.co.uk/index.aspx

Or to find out more about Noughtilus, please visit www.noughtilus.com, or email info@noughtilus.com.

One of the UK's leading investment management firms has selected be the brand experience to provide them with a customised marketing resource management solution.

The system, (which Baillie Gifford have called ‘M&RS’), provides a robust, transparent and auditable process for managing the creation and use of marketing communications, and features a centralised asset store with comprehensive version history and access controls. It is also designed to assist in the compliance with FSA regulations during the internal approval process.

MKey anticipated benefits include efficiency savings, reduced lead times, faster signoff, less document iteration, and, to help comply with FSA requirements a more robust and easily accessible audit trail. It is also expected to increase the utilisation of brand assets, and to reduce the costs associated with creating and updating them.

The system went live in August 2007 following a speedy four-week deployment. This involved scoping, testing and user training - all in quick succession.

“Baillie Gifford’s approach to system scooping and deployment enabled them to realise the benefits of their MRM system very quickly. Working with them is a pleasure.”

Jes Ongley,COO,be the brand experience

“The new M&RS system brings internal and external stakeholders together under one fully electronic web- based system. This allows marketing communications to be coordinated much more efficiently. It’s a paperless environment which provides a full and complete audit trail. MI functionality allows managers to know exactly where a project is at any point in time and it also allows us to have a tighter control over when communications need to be updated. The system has already proved itself an invaluable marketing services tool.”

Stuart Conlan, Marketing Services Manager, Baillie Gifford & Co

About Baillie Gifford & Co

Baillie Gifford & Co is one of the UK's leading independently owned investment management firms, managing investments globally for pension funds, institutions, charities and retail investors. As of 31 September 2007, Baillie Gifford & Co had more than £54 billion of funds under management and advice. Baillie Gifford & Co has developed its reputation through combining experience, enthusiasm and sound judgement.

About be the brand experience

be the brand experience is a leading provider of Marketing Resource Management technology (MRM). Be the brand experience enables clients to achieve more by developing effective, affordable custom-built technology solutions that empower users to better manage marketing workflows, brand assets and suppliers, resulting in lower costs, lower lead times and greater brand consistency and compliance. For more information, please contact info@be-thebrand.com.

StudioBe is a ground-breaking new design service based on a technology that streamlines and automates much of the non-creative side of design agency work. The technology produces a wide range of quality post-concept communications materials quickly and efficiently, providing you with a far superior return on your investment than conventional alternatives.

This technology based creative production service has been created in response to the accelerating trend of disaggregation of creative services. StudioBe saves time and money by looking specifically at post-concept tactical design and communications work, and tackling it efficiently from an automated mass-customisation perspective.

How it works:

Benefits:

About be the brand experience

be the brand experience is a leading provider of Marketing Resource Management technology (MRM). be the brand experience enables clients to achieve more by developing effective, affordable custom-built technology solutions that empower users to better manage marketing workflows, brand assets and suppliers, resulting in lower costs, lower lead times and greater brand consistency and compliance. For more information, please contact info@be-thebrand.com.

Distributing files is difficult and time consuming, especially with standard file size restrictions on emails. However, it’s becoming increasingly important to be able to access and distribute large files, both internally and remotely. In order to overcome this problem, you may find that you are unofficially resorting to unsecured removable media or a number of questionable websites offering free-upload services. Such practices don’t just expose your organisation to inappropriate content and spamming devices, they also create serious security risks and undermine process controls that manage access to content.

The solution is 'My Store'.

My Store lets you professionally store, access, and share large files with ease, whilst also enabling you to manage access parameters. Below are some of the highlights and benefits of this

Highlights:

Adam Hainsworth (CEO of be the brand experience) attended the Westminster Carbon Counting Conference on the 24th of January 2008 on behalf of Noughtilus; a radical new online tool that enables marketing professionals to measure and manage their environmental impact.

With support from the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group (APPCCG), the Open University and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, the conference launched the first of a yearly Carbon Counting initiative, bringing together leading figures in the field of carbon accounting to collectively review, develop and update the main carbon counting methods using case studies and rationales.

The leading public body for protecting and improving the environment in England and Wales has selected be the brand experience to create and deploy a centralised online brand asset management solution across their supply chain. The system will not only manage the development and use of key brand resources, but will also empower people to generate brand consistent marketing materials using templates.

Key benefits of the system include reducing the costs associated with developing and updating brand assets, increasing the utilisation of and value realised from key brand resources, and strengthening brand consistency. It will also free up design resources to focus on more creative tasks. From October 2007, a user base exceeding two hundred have been using the system with great success.

"We are excited that the Environment Agency selected us after a comprehensive competitor review. They are a fantastic client and we are very much looking forward to working together"

Adam Hainsworth (CEO), Be the Brand Experience

"Our Brand Bank system is a fantastic way to manage our brand. It means that our assets are up-to-the-minute and everyone works to the same standards. And our templates make for flexible, easy and cost-effective communications."

Margaret Gladstone, The Environment Agency

Who is the Environment Agency?

The Environment Agency is the leading public body for protecting and improving the environment in England and Wales. They work to ensure that the environment is looked after by everyone, so that tomorrow's generations inherit a cleaner, healthier world.

As brands are becoming more aware of the need become sustainable the scope of Marketing Resource Management systems needs to expand to consider the footprint of resources that are used in marketing. As the link between the consumer and production marketeers need to both incorporate sustainability into their brand message and ensure they work in a way that minimises the footprint of marketing activites.

be the brand experience has deepened the functionality within the MRM solution to incorporate sustainability gateways into workfow processes.

In a separate venture with Clownfish Marketing we are launching Noughtilus llp; a solution focussed on enabling marketeers to evalute the social, environmental and ethical impact of channel marketing activities.

be the brand experience has supported the initial phase of the recently launched AchieveZero. AchieveZero is a WOM (Word of Mouth) concept focussed on creating a community of people who want to support businesses that have committed to a sustainable future through changing their purchasing pattern (and influencing their friends and colleagues).

Fur further information on be the brand experience's leadership in marketing automation please contact us.

be the brand experience to present at the DMA Ethical Marketing seminar

Adam Hainsworth, CEO of be the brand experience, is to hold a session on green marketing at the DMA's Ethical Marketing: The Business Opportunity seminar.

Key Content at the seminar:

- What the latest research shows about consumers' buying habits and changing trends and how they are affected by ethical marketing around a product.
- How to be more ethically sound in communications in order to appeal to more environmentally friendly consumers.
- How to get your initiatives heard by the relevant parties.
- Plus a series of case studies from leading brands.

Please visit Ethical Marketing: The Business Opportunity website for more information.

Introducing MRM to Adetem, French National Marketing Association

09 March 2007, Paris La Défense: Adetem is the French National Marketing Association consisting of 670 companies and over 1300 members.

Adetem has 3 main objectives:

- to organise and promote exchange between marketing professionnals
- to provide information about markets, business environments, events and marketing news
- to communicate marketing best practices to all members

The presentation will develop understanding of how technology can be used by marketers to manage the challenges of maintaining brand equity in a multi-channel environment. Some of the issues discussed will be brand dilution, need of increasing speed to market/ internal process efficiency and lack of visibility on activities and costs.

Presentation will be for the 'Communications et Marketing' club (Adetem has 11 professionnal active clubs).

Details and subscription (text in french) HERE

News HTML CommsBuilder extension:

be the brand experience adds HTML template capability to CommsBuilder module

January 2007: be the brand experience have enhanced the CommsBuilder module, to allow end users to easily create professional, personalised HTML communications via customised pre-loaded design templates. The user needs no HTML skills or knowledge what-so-ever.

Templates have fixed place-holders built-in, which gives marketers the freedom to insert images, text, links or imbed video. These placeholders give great flexibility in design, but always adhere to brand guidelines specified during the creation of the template. Additional features include being able to easily hyper link the reader/recipient to on-page or external destination.

The templates link to a central database (the Asset Store), where all approved images are kept. In addition, users can also be allowed to add images from their local directories.

The HTML extension builds on the current (print) CommsBuilder functionality, with its easy to use interface, and can be linked to your existing e-communication distribution engine - drastically cutting the cost of creating and re-working e-communications.

The HTML CommsBuilder is currently in beta testing and will be live in the first quarter of 2007.

Prudential Expands use of Prustore beyond Marketing:

July 2006

After 12 months of running their marketing literature creation and sign off processes, and storing all materials via Prustore, Prudential are now rolling out Prustore to other areas of the business - thus further increasing its benefits. Over 9,000 projects (each equating to creating or updating a piece of literature or web page) have been run so far with a full audit trail of approvals easily accessible as per FSA requirements.

First to come on board was PruHealth (a joint venture with Discovery - a South African company) who went live in March 2006 after a short proof of concept. Where necessary, Prustore has been tweaked to accommodate variations in their workflow process.

The Customer Response Unit (CRU) went live in May and use Prustore to store, access and update all templates of all customer facing letters and post sale support.

Customer Services are likely to be the next area of the business to begin using Prustore and are currently going through the scoping process to agree their exact needs and required processes.

UIA has deployed a customised Marketing Resource Management solution, consisting of all 4 modules, to improve marketing efficiency and help keep marketing campaigns in line with financial regulations.

23rd June 2006

UIA has deployed a new customised marketing resource management solution to improve marketing efficiency and help keep marketing campaigns in line with financial regulations. The deal was signed with be the brand experience, a services provider firm.

Brandstore will enable UIA to co-ordinate direct mail, advertising and digital marketing campaigns, improve approval processes and keep complete, easily accessible, electronic audit trails for regulatory compliance purposes.

"We were impressed with the functionality of be the brand's MRM solution," said Damian Reilly, head of marketing at UIA. "The tool gives us the ability to electronically co-ordinate all parties involved in the marketing campaign process...

To read the full story, please register HERE to continue.

be the brand experience sponsors the annual Henry Stewart MOM conference held in the Radisson Hotel in London.

22 May, London: This summer marks the five year anniversary of Henry Stewart's Digital Asset Management (DAM) Symposium and sees the international event for DAM and Marketing Operations Management (MOM) return home on 20 & 21 June for its 2006 London show. The event features a wealth of case studies highlighting real world knowledge and lessons learned, and the successes and ambitions of DAM and MOM professionals who have successfully deployed and leveraged asset management to create new capabilities and revenues.
The symposium offers an intensive two-day programme tailored to the specific objectives of project leaders in all phases of DAM & MOM implementation - from basic storage, search and retrieval, to the integration of metadata into ingest-create-manage-distribute workflows.
Renowned for respecting the value of real world experience, Henry Stewart hands over to the true experts, professional practitioners of DAM and MOM, to provide essential best practices and actionable advice on how to select, deploy, maintain and leverage these technologies and strategies.

Read the full press release HERE

Citrix further integrate asset store and projects modules, linking with print mgt company stock systems

18th May 2006

be the brand experience have just updated Citrix System Inc's OneBrand MRM solution. This upgrade enhances the design of OneBrand to ensure that Citrix's brand management tool followed Citrix's latest website guidelines.

This update also saw OneBrand integrating with JKG Group, Citrix's print management vendors, print fulfilment system. The was a joint project in which be's technical team worked with JKGs technical team to provide a end to end asset management, workflow and print fulfilment ordering system for marketers in Citrix and their channel partners.

OneBrand added a cart shopping basket functionality that enables users to add selected orderable collateral. On checking out, the order is placed into the JKG fulfilment system.

"Implementing an MRM system can greatly improve the efficiency of a company's marketing function" says Adam Hainsworth in the May Issue of Financial Marketing Magazine.

05 May 2006

While it's fair to say that in the past financial services companies were never pioneers in brand management, over the last decade, they have done a lot to change this.
Today, successful brand building and management is vital to ensure survival.
With non financial brands entering the market and stepping up the competition, traditional financial institutes are being forced to re-examine the strengths of their own brand strategies.
In the past, banks and financial services companies spent little time and money on marketing activities. With tight regulations, they focussed attention on their traditional markets, avoiding competing on any other levels.

For the full article, please refer to the 05-05-05 edition of Marketing Magazine, issue 144.

be the brand experience launches a tailor made MRM toolkit for Financial Services Industry

be the brand experience have released their latest industry customised solution. The unique challenges faced by marketers, compliance officers and agencies in the Financial Services (FS) market require an MRM solution that manages the financial promotion literature creation and approval process, automates the job-bag/ archiving process and manages item availability/ withdrawal dates. Automating the literature approval across multiple locations delivers reduced cycle time increased visibility. The solution also captures all approvals and sign off given for items - providing a comprehensive audit trail to help meet FSA guidelines.

With the Financial Services MRM toolkit, FS clients will be closer to having an off-the-shelf MRM solution that meets their industry needs without requiring significant customisation during the deployment; reducing the time and cost of set-up and deployment compared to starting with a vanilla MRM solution.

With Prudential UK, UIA and Winterthur live as well as 2 other top 10 FS providers in deployment and other large UK Financial Services clients in the pipeline, be the brand experience has established its credentials providing a market beating MRM solution within the FS sector.

Please contact busdev@be-thebrand.com for further information on our various off the shelf toolkits and customised solutions.