Brand Management System iBrams Simplifies Template Creation for Designers

By Cary Sherburne, Senior WTT Editor

July 30, 2007 -- One of Germany's leading branding agencies, the Peter Schmidt Group, has been making some noise in North America through its independent sister company of implementation experts, the Brand Implementation Group, and its distribution partner, Network PDF, with the release of Version 4.0 of iBrams, a template-based brand management solution. Now also supporting Adobe’s InDesign Server CS3, iBrams is a tool for the automatic production of documents and advertising media of all kinds using templates that guarantee adherence to corporate design guidelines. It also functions as a Web to Print solution.

WhatTheyThink spoke with Andreas Michalski, Executive Director of the Brand Implementation Group and Klaus Messlinger, Product Manager of iBrams to learn more about this interesting offering.

WTT:  Andreas, perhaps you can give us a little background about iBrams and the parent company.

AM:  The Peter Schmidt Group was founded 30 years ago, and is one of the big design agencies in Europe working for a lot of the big European companies. The iBrams story begins in 1995, long before we joined the Peter Schmidt Group, when we developed the first version of a design workflow system. This was in response to a desire to allow companies to work more collaboratively with the agency in the development of corporate identity and branded materials.  iBrams has an easy-to-use browser-based interface that everyone in the organization can use. It has design rules behind it that give the brand owner complete control over the look and feel of materials, yet the designer has the freedom to work with InDesign in the way they are most comfortable. After we had served our first couple of major clients such as the German GM subsidiary Opel or BASF, Peter Schmidt Group saw the potential of the application and its value to the design industry, and we agreed to join them in 2003.

WTT:  Who are some of the companies that have implemented this solution?

AM:  There are many large corporations that benefit from our web based collaboration model.  Shell, BMW, Lufthansa, AIMCO, and Wunderman, to mention a few that would be familiar in North America.

WTT:  Why are templates important, and do you see template applications increasing in importance because of specific market drivers?

AM: Using standard templates allows the designers to stick to their professional tools, simply adding rules to ensure brand consistency and automation. Neither agencies nor print shops get any advantage from using proprietary solutions, because file conversions make workflows longer and regularly produce mistakes in the resulting documents. Besides, using iBrams they can continue taking full advantage of the powerful features of Adobe's products and apply their long-practised skills within the new application. As knowledge is the most valuable resource, iBrams helps preserve this asset and offers new possibilities with a set of easy-to-use functions. 

WTT:  Can you give us an example of how this might play out with a particular customer?

AM:  Sure.  Because this is a web-based open solution, it allows some really creative implementations.  One company we work with is Ströer, a company somewhat similar to Clear Channel in the States.  We integrated across three different systems in their implementation so a user could see and create billboards for advertising within accepted design constraints, and then actually see what billboard space was available, including pictures of the site and traffic statistics, and then actually buy the space, all within one application. That delivers some really breakthrough thinking about how management of ad space can leverage technology to be come extremely efficient, while at the same time ensuring brand integrity. This is all based on the open architecture of iBrams as a platform with Adobe InDesign.

WTT:  So explain how the design aspect works.

AM:  iBrams uses 100% InDesign templates.  There is no break between the creative artwork the designer is doing and the system. In other words, the designer can use his or her tools of choice and doesn’t really need to learn a lot of new stuff. The document the designer is creating automatically creates the template.  All changes you do in the system can be downloaded to the designer and can be seamlessly integrated.  In other systems, you have to convert InDesign or Quark, and that results in additional work and potential loss of consistency.  Sometimes things that are working fine in an InDesign document might not work in the template for other systems.

iBrams gives you the flexibility of using InDesign with the rules based engine of iBrams for integration into business systems.

KM:  One of the major benefits in working with InDesign Server and industry standard applications like iBrams is that you can achieve a very good ROI, with the certain knowledge that your investment is safe for the future.

WTT:  What is the pricing model associated with iBrams?

AM:  It is very flexible. From as little as $40,000 you can get a complete solution package that contains everything you are likely to need to give you a head-start in your web-to-print offering. As iBrams is modular and provides a variety of powerful corporate extensions, investment can vary. Major corporations that serve thousands of dealers or branches can scale up the system and provide sophisticated workflows, including point of sale (POS), advertising, out-of-home media and others at a license cost in the 6-digit area.

WTT:  What are some of the modules that are available?

KM:   The most successful features are in the POS production and newspaper and magazine advertising areas, including workflows into the publishers' systems; a pagination module that supports dynamic page arrangements for brochures, marketing collateral, newsletters, etc.; corporate database connectors, which include the functionality to connect to PIM, CRM or other database systems of major enterprise clients; the Outdoor module like in the Ströer example, with integration into the business system process to book billboards and citylights and finalize the entire workflow across the supply chain; the Project planner as a separate module along with any of the above combinations to manage a campaign; and a Translation module with project review for legal and visual review of InDesign documents with the ability to see the files simultaneously in both languages. We are currently working on catalog production, video and other cross-media management modules as well, based on the demand of our customers to manage their entire marketing communication “brand” process.

WTT:  The pricing could be a bit steep for smaller companies. 

AM:  Since it is web-based, we are also offering a hosted ASP model that allows companies access to the system for less than $2,000 per month. This provides an entry level for companies that need a business-to-business connection for marketing communications.

WTT:  Is there a long implementation cycle?

KM:  It can vary, of course, depending on the complexity of the implementation. But basically, iBrams is an out-of-the-box application rather than a project-driven and individually programmed solution.. It is very flexible across a number of projects and allows our clients to configure it without any programming knowledge.  Our Denver-based client AIMCO bought the system in late November, we installed it on December 21st, had a short training session, and they started working with the system immediately after the Christmas holidays.  So basically, you can get up and running almost immediately and then grow it over time.

WTT:  Is this a service a printing company could offer to its customers to help them produce branded materials for a distributed constituency, such as franchise organizations or real estate or insurance agencies?

AM:  This is exactly the type of marketing portal that a printer can use for his clients. It gives the clients the ability to utilize their design tools with Adobe and gives the printer the ability to support his production requirements for integration directly into his business systems with the connectivity  from iBrams.

WTT:  How easy would it be to integrate this with a print workflow?  Do you have any examples where that is being done?

KM:  There is a SOAP interface for print workflow integration that is used for automated bidirectional communication. We have several major clients who are connected to their agencies, print providers and marketing teams with the integration platform of open industry standards that iBrams provides. This includes standards such as JDF, and all sorts of XML-based protocols.

WTT:  Will people be able to see the application at Graph Expo?

AM:  Yes, we are currently working across a partner channel to showcase iBrams at Graph Expo.

WTT:  Thanks for speaking with us.  Is there anything else you would like to add before we close?

AM: The market for brand management systems is still in its early stages, but they will soon play a major role in the way marketing assets are handled. Building on systems with support for international standards like iBrams will certainly mean a step in the right direction.

Cary can be reached via email at cary@sherburneassociates.com, online at www.sherburneassociates.com and by telephone at 603-430-5463.

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