For printers and other graphic communications specialists, harnessing digital asset management as a revenue stream may be getting easier thanks to clients’ awareness of the technology’s power to enable consistent, customized product distribution across geographic distances.

“Now PMS blue in Los Angeles will match PMS blue in Peking because everyone is using the same colors, logos, and so on,” remarks Robert Sternau, manager of sales and marketing for Toppan Printing Co., Somerset, N.J., which caters to Fortune 500 companies and the ad agencies and design firms that serve them.

The service has matured somewhat, and people like Mr. Sternau have to spend less time evangelizing when they look to sell it. By and large, the marketplace already understands how asset management is used to archive or repurpose digital assets. Newer frontiers, however, include integration with print clients’ sales teams for simultaneous access to Web-based data.

“Some clients want us to create an entire asset library for them to access worldwide via the Web,” Mr. Sternau says. “This is exciting. They want online solutions so they can really sculpt their own scenarios, which becomes key to creating brand consistency if you have a company with 100 worldwide offices,” he remarks. Entree into the digital realm, he adds, “becomes a whole new world when you can access a digital template online, customize it, view a soft, PDF proof, approve it, and order quantities directly online. That’s what’s really driving our business today.”

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