bethebrand VS. generic DAM systems

Many teams first come across bethebrand and think of it as a DAM. The comparison makes sense. Storing, organising and distributing marketing assets sits at the core of the platform, just as it does for systems like Frontify, Aprimo, Brandfolder and Bynder.

bethebrand is the financial promotions workflow, approval and asset management platform built for regulated financial services firms. 

For regulated firms, campaigns and projects is where the job starts. Every financial promotion and piece of regulated content has to move through review, approval and sign-off, with each step logged and evidenced. That requires workflows built around how regulated teams actually operate and system configuration shaped by people who intimately understand the specific requirements and challenges.

This page explains where a generic DAM serves you well, where regulated marketing asks more of a system and what to look for when you evaluate options. 

What is a digital asset management system?

DAM systems store, organise and distribute brand assets across marketing teams. They handle version control, creative collaboration and agency access and they help organisations keep their brand consistent across markets and channels.

It is a mature category with capable, well-resourced vendors. Platforms such as Frontify and Bynder serve creative and brand teams across every industry and they do that job well.

That breadth gives capability but not specificity. A generic DAM has to work for a global retailer producing out of home campaigns in fifteen languages just as well as it works for a UK building society producing a savings leaflet.

Where regulated marketing asks more of a system

Financial promotions content and regulated marketing assets carry obligations that most marketing content does not. 

Consumer Duty requires firms to evidence that customer outcomes have been considered. FCA scrutiny of financial promotions continues to intensify. 

When an auditor asks how a promotion was approved, the answer needs to be available quickly and in full.

In practice that means:

• Structured approval workflows with named sign-off at each stage
• Documented rationale for compliance decisions
• Audit trails generated automatically, not reconstructed after the fact
• Controlled asset withdrawal when products change or promotions expire
• Version history tied to compliance decisions, not just file edits
• Multi-party review across internal teams, agencies and senior managers

A capable generic DAM can support much of this. Individual logins, workflows, approvals and activity records are standard across the category. The hard part is configuring them to match how a regulated firm actually produces, reviews and approves assets. 

Capability and configuration are not the same thing

Firms without a system

Many marketing and compliance teams still run their processes through email, shared drives and spreadsheets. Approvals live in inbox threads. Evidence lives wherever someone saved it in the file structure. When an audit request arrives, the team often rebuilds the trail by hand. 

For these firms, the case for a platform to manage the process is straightforward. 

Firms with a generic system

Whether a capable system delivers depends entirely on how it has been configured, who configured it and whether they understood the regulatory requirements they were configuring for. A platform built to serve every industry starts from a blank page. The financial promotions specifics are something you build in, not something the system arrives with.

This is where teams get caught. The system was theoretically capable. The configuration never quite got there. And without specialist support, the gap between the two becomes the marketing team’s problem to manage every day.

Where the differences show up

The real test of any system is not the headline feature list. It is the specific, sometimes awkward realities of how financial promotions and regulated marketing assets actually move through teams and processes. 

Rejection routing

A reviewer rejects an asset partway through an approval chain. The amendment needs to go back to the original designer. But the first two approvers have already signed off and do not need to see it again, while the compliance reviewer does. The asset needs to rejoin the workflow at the right point with the full history intact.

This is the kind of routing logic a generic system rarely handles without significant custom configuration, because nothing about it is generic.

Final Approval of a Financial Promotion

Not all approvals are the same. When it comes to getting final approval from Compliance, the marketing team needs to make sure that everything is in place so that Compliance can easily review and approve the selected asset(s).

This requires that the right stakeholders and subject matter experts have already given their approval. Claims need to be substantiated, Consumer Duty testing needs to be attached and audience consideration proved. A system built for Financial Promotion approvals such as bethebrand will support all of this.

Visibility of expiring assets

When you are managing the approval of regulated content you also need to manage its mandatory review and potential expiry. 

With a system that was built with this in mind it is easy for users and managers to see what is in the approval stages of the system, what is “live” and when each asset is due for review or expiry. 

This allows stretched marketing and compliance teams to spot bottlenecks in approvals, upcoming asset expiry and plan resources efficiently.

What about AI functionality in DAM systems?

AI functionality is arriving across the DAM category. Automated tagging, smart search, content suggestions and workflow assistance are becoming standard features in many systems. 

Our position is that AI should be applied deliberately. Deterministic automation suits explicit rules that need enforcing consistently. Generative AI suits contextual support and refinement. Governance and auditability sit at the centre of how we approach both in bethebrand and SeeDynamic.

If AI functionality is a factor in your evaluation, ask any vendor what AI influences within the approval workflow and how accountability and auditability  is maintained under your existing compliance obligations.

Want to go deeper on what you need to know about AI? Read our report: Governing AI in Financial Promotions

How bethebrand is built differently

bethebrand does what you would expect a DAM to do. Assets are stored, organised, versioned and distributed from a single platform, with the access controls and agency collaboration regulated firms need.

 The difference is everything built around that core. The approval structures, audit trails and asset lifecycle controls that a generic platform asks you to configure are the foundations the system arrives with and can then be tailored to fit your exact needs..

The platform is complemented by more than 20 years of experience implementing financial promotions workflows alongside UK financial services marketing and compliance teams. 

Our team has seen how approval processes actually run inside regulated firms, which means we ask the right questions at implementation and configure the platform around your firm’s needs. 

Kensington Mortgages went from green light to go live in eight weeks with our team’s support. 

The Cambridge Building Society

“The bethebrand team took the time to understand exactly how we worked and what we needed from the platform. The implementation process was smooth, and they provided great support throughout.”

What to ask when evaluating any system for regulated marketing

• Can the system produce a full named approval trail without manual reconstruction?
• Does the workflow support multi-party sign-off with documented rationale at each stage?
• Can assets be withdrawn immediately, completely and with an auditable record?
• Is version history tied to compliance decisions, or only to file edits?
• Can the system evidence Consumer Duty checks on a specific asset if asked by a regulator?
• How does the system handle agency and third-party access within a controlled approval process?
• Who configures the system for financial promotions requirements, and what experience do they have of regulated marketing?
• If an auditor asks for evidence of how a financial promotion was approved, how long does it take to produce it?

Frequently asked questions

Is bethebrand a DAM?

At its core, yes. bethebrand stores, organises and distributes marketing assets like any DAM. Around that core sits what regulated firms need on top: structured approval workflows, named accountability, automatically generated audit trails and controlled asset lifecycles, configured by a team with more than 20 years of experience in UK financial services.

What DAM or workflow systems do regulated financial services firms use? 

Firms across the sector use a range of systems depending on their size and structure. Some use generic DAM platforms for brand asset management alongside separate compliance processes. Others use purpose-built platforms like bethebrand that bring workflow, approval and asset management together in a single system designed for regulated marketing.

What is the risk of using a generic DAM for regulated marketing? 

The main risk is the gap between capability and configuration. A generic platform may be capable of supporting compliant workflows, but getting it there requires specialist configuration and ongoing support that generic vendors are not set up to provide for regulated firms. If an auditor requests a full approval trail and the firm cannot produce one without manual reconstruction, that is a governance weakness regardless of what the system could theoretically do.

How is bethebrand different from a standard DAM system? 

bethebrand is a financial promotions workflow, approval and asset management platform built for regulated financial services firms. The compliance structures a generic system asks you to configure are built into the platform from the start and customisable to fit your firms needs. Alongside the system, clients work with a team that has spent more than 20 years implementing financial promotions workflows in UK financial services.

Does bethebrand replace a DAM system? 

For many regulated firms, bethebrand brings together what would otherwise require separate systems: workflow management, compliance approval, asset storage and audit records. Whether it replaces an existing DAM depends on the firm’s setup and requirements.

More than just a DAM

Plenty of systems can store assets and route approvals. When you are evaluating options for regulated marketing, the harder questions are whether the system was designed around the compliance, accountability and evidencing requirements you work under and whether the system is supported by people who understand those requirements in practice.

bethebrand was built for exactly that, by a team that has spent two decades doing it.

Police Mutual and Forces Mutual 

“Without bethebrand, I wouldn’t feel confident that we could meet our obligations as a regulated business.”