A branding control platform provides fast, easy and traceable control over the use of company branding across all divisions and ensures that marketing executives fulfil their strategic roles more efficiently and effectively, says branding software firm BrandQuantum CEO Paula Sartini.

The BrandOffice system is a cloud-based plug-in platform for Microsoft Office that provides the most recent templates and legal disclaimers validated by the legal and marketing teams to all employees based on their functions. In short, it provides marketing teams with the ability to ensure singular and coherent representation of and communication by the company.

Any document, from a simple letter to a complex legal document, will have access to the correct images and logos – correctly scaled for the format and resolution – and information, such as a list of directors in a footnote, and disclaimers, sourced from the cloud.

“Effective control over branding and marketing materials means that marketing divisions can provide greater value, improve their strategic impact and better support operations by providing easy and fast access to only their materials that have been reviewed by the legal and compliance teams,” says Sartini.

The BrandOffice system supports mobile working through the cloud. Additionally, the platform enables colleagues to collaborate and reduces the amount of data that needs to be transmitted by only uploading changes to documents to the cloud from where other participants access them, she says.

“Marketing divisions’ roles include protecting the goodwill of the company and brand, ensuring accurate and effective communication and marketing, as well as supporting operations by ensuring that all documents and materials are available, correct and meet customer and legal requirements,” Sartini outlines.

The BrandOffice platform enables the ownership of a brand to reside with the correct legal entity and reduces the risk of intellectual property being used outside the control of the legal owner. The cloud system means that companies can retain control over the exact version of images and materials used by venture partners or third-party companies contracted to carry out a marketing campaign.

Similarly, the platform also means that subsidiary brands, such as products or business units, and branding are controlled by the relevant people in the parent company’s marketing team and those responsible in the subsidiary. Full traceability of all changes made to any document or image and permissions determined by role ensure that control is rigorous and can be audited.

“Brand consistency and effective marketing and communications are crucial to reinforce and protect the perception of brands and companies. The platform is designed to address specific challenges in the marketing industry, to support the operations of multinational companies and also provides document language settings for various territories and version control by region.”

Sartini – who is a marketing veteran currently reading for her doctorate and who transitioned to software development to create products to address the challenges marketers encounter – emphasises that the BrandOffice platform is the flagship of a range of additional marketing and brand management systems that the company will release over the next year.