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Channel 4 is a publicly-owned, commercially-funded public service broadcaster in the UK. As a household name in the UK, it has established itself as an innovator in the creative industries, driving change through its diverse range of entertainment programming, from TV and online streaming to full-length feature films.
With a mission to continuously refresh creative content, develop emerging talent, and explore new ways of reaching audiences, Channel 4 plays a pivotal role in shaping British culture and driving growth in the creative economy. At the heart of Channel 4's approach is a commitment to affecting positive change in society, leveraging its influence to make a difference in the wider world. As a result, the brand stands out as a unique force in the entertainment landscape.
Read on to discover the benefits Channel 4 has experienced since implementing Bynder's Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform.
What sparked the search for a platform like Bynder?
The significant growth of creative teams and digital content output pushed the need for Channel 4 to adopt a DAM system. The company has three different creative teams that are all producing large amounts of content. Recognizing the importance of managing their assets effectively and promoting collaboration across teams and external agencies, Channel 4 prioritized the need for a secure and centralized platform.
Before Bynder, all Channel 4 teams stored assets on servers or hard drives which offered little visibility for other creatives. This lack of visibility led to individual requests for digital assets, causing bottlenecks in the creative processes and restricting the team's asset choices. The three main problems Channel 4 had were asset visibility, inefficiency in creative processes, and teams working in siloed workflows. The brand wanted one system in which all creative teams, as well as everyone else in the company, could self-serve digital assets to scale content operations and achieve speed of execution. By empowering internal teams to access the assets they needed, Channel 4 could strip away the time spent answering requests, create visibility in terms of available assets, and drive forward with an overall more efficient, streamlined way of working.
Bynder solved all of these issues and more. Channel 4 now has a system of record for all its digital assets, which gives the creative teams far more choices and ensures they have quick access to everything they need. This is a huge time-saver and helps Channel 4 deliver the highest quality content every single time, for every single project.
Bynder as a DAM platform: The benefits
There’s now a system of record in place for all its digital assets, which gives creative teams access to a wealth of branded assets and ensures they have quick access to everything they need. Bynder's DAM system is a versatile tool that helps Channel 4 manage a wide variety of creative business processes and workflows. Channel 4 uses the platform to manage digital assets for a number of channels, including web and CMS, a popular social media presence and targeted, personalized communications.
The broadcaster also uses Bynder to create bespoke social media assets, including the large amounts of user-generated content it receives. Bynder has helped the company create and distribute branded content for videos, packaging, and print. In short, Bynder has become an essential part of Channel 4’s digital creative process, helping it to manage, share, and publish assets across multiple channels, while ensuring brand consistency at all times.
Channel 4 has a holistic approach to building its tech stack, introducing additional modules as it grows. Brand Guidelines has been a particularly effective addition, allowing the organization’s teams to ensure stakeholders remain on brand across all touchpoints and protect the integrity of one of Britain’s most cherished entertainment brands. Creative Workflow is another powerful tool that injects efficiency into the processes of creative teams, helping them churn out fresh, engaging content faster than ever without endless feedback loops and with clear accountability. The team’s workload more than doubled recently with no provision for extra staff, and Bynder’s DAM and associated modules really came to the rescue. Channel 4 is currently aiming to integrate its automated image delivery system, which will save the program information team upwards of 30 hours a week!
Why Channel 4 is a winner
“In 2020, Channel 4 launched Future4, our core long-term strategy focused on digital growth across all departments and workstreams. New foundational technology was required to support this long-term strategy, and the DAM system has quickly proven to be essential in supporting our digital growth. Having all our picture assets in one easily accessible location and available to all staff to self-serve has freed up huge amounts of bandwidth for staff to invest in creativity, deliver higher quality content, and cut out bottlenecks in our workflows. It’s also our brand hub and we have integrated it into multiple other systems within the company. The DAM system has already become integral and is used by hundreds of staff on a daily basis.” - Stephen Green, Asset Manager, Channel 4
Channel 4's well-deserved award for best DAM deployment is a testament to its remarkable achievements in optimizing content creation and distribution processes. For a brand like Channel 4, being able to react quickly to market trends and deliver a synergized content experience across customer touchpoints is absolutely crucial. By deploying Bynder’s DAM as a system of record, and then building a connected ecosystem with additional modules and integrations, the brand has been able to save time, improve workflow efficiencies, and create memorable pieces of content that will resonate with an entertainment-savvy audience.
In a naturally very competitive space, Channel 4 recognized the importance of investing in a best-in-class tech stack to futureproof long-term strategic goals while ticking off short-term objectives. In the long term, the business has secured a solid single source of truth to create, manage, and distribute branded assets, with a low barrier of entry for new users. In the short term users and stakeholders, who previously had to juggle a chaotic asset storage system with a siloed way of working, can now take advantage of a fully accessible DAM that is integrated with the wider Channel 4 ecosystem.
Through its outstanding DAM deployment and multi-channel approach to marketing, Channel 4 has laid the foundation for the brand to grow and evolve along with future generations of consumers to continue serving up exceptional content experiences.