How easy is it to automate marketing processes? In addition to creative claims and campaign ideas, each marketing department is responsible for logos, flyers, image material and presentations in a uniform corporate look. The corporate identity is represented in many small elements and should nevertheless represent the uniform corporate image to the outside world. To this end, the look is based on clear guidelines, which are usually laid down in sets of rules. Such corporate identity guides can run to several hundred pages. Large companies such as Apple have a complete team that monitors compliance with the corporate identity at all levels. The time and coordination required is correspondingly high. What if the marketing managers and their agencies did not have to check and enter everything manually, but could adapt their materials in their daily programs to conform to the CI with a single click? Completely automatically? That’s what Andreas Michalski, Jörg Seidler and Jasper Ullrich from the Potsdam start-up CI Hub thought.
All three founders have years of experience with brand management software and are familiar with the daily requirements of complex marketing processes. “You actually have to find an application that goes to the user – that focuses on the user’s problem,” says Jörg Seidler, explaining the initial idea. Although there are many applications that take over automation at this or that point, it’s all about using them correctly. Many teams use their materials in several programs and tools. CI HUB has therefore worked on a cloud-based platform with plugins that can be used across systems in popular programs from Adobe and Microsoft. The tool is integrated into the target programs. This means that the software can support virtually all media that play a role in marketing. CI HUB does not store the data itself, but connects the end user with the data sources via its own platform.
The amount of data that large companies use for their marketing processes is enormous.
There is customer data from CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management), image data from a DAM (Digital Asset Management) or product data in a PIM (Product Information Management).
There is also content from image agencies such as Getty Images and other stock services or from clouds such as Dropbox and Google Drive.
With CI HUB, all this content can be easily filtered, called up and used in the applications using drag-and-drop.
For example, if a company works with agencies around the globe on an international customer, time-consuming coordination processes are no longer necessary. Every employee in every country in the world has direct access to CI-compliant documents via CI HUB. Everyone works with the same data source. If someone opens a document with an outdated layout or logo, the CI HUB plugin will notify them and replace it at the touch of a button.
The special feature: The original image is centrally stored only once in one size and can be made available in a larger or smaller resolution for different requirements. CI HUB also generates a preview image – regardless of whether other programs normally make it available. This allows users to quickly know whether they are accessing the right file. This allows teams to work with the most up-to-date and approved content across all programs at all times. If the company has a product information management system, the associated texts or product descriptions can be displayed directly as data alongside the images and inserted into the layout.
The information is brought together and bundled in one place and fed in from where the users need it. What works for large companies also works for small teams or freelancers.
The start-up is currently in phase one. Further data sources are to be connected in the future. This would allow automation processes to be driven forward, particularly for e-commerce platforms and websites.
The story of CI HUB is now one of the most recent success stories from the MediaTech Hub. Just this February, the startup announced a seven-figure financing round with well-known VCs. In 2019, CI HUB has already gained Dropbox as a partner and is now represented on the market with 13 major partners (including Bynder, Celum, Aprimo, Adobe Stock and Gettyimages).
The three founders are originally from Hesse, but Brandenburg offered the most exciting environment and the ideal funding landscape for their business idea in 2018. They moved into a table in the startup space at Potsdam Transfer and were ultimately accepted into the MediaTech Hub Accelerator program. The product launch in fall 2019 at Adobe Max in Los Angeles was well received and opened up the international market.
CI HUB and its core team are now based in the MediaTech Hub Lab, where they meet up with other founders to exchange ideas and enjoy a beer after work.
On Thursday, June 4, there will be a webinar on “Streamlining Adobe CC Content from your DAM to Accelerate Workflow”. Registration at
More about the MTH Blog
The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.
