Through its technology, Bynder is a company that helps all types of brands – including Spotify, Puma, Five Guys, and Icelandair – create timely and culturally-relevant marketing content for its advertising campaigns and branding efforts.
Working at a company that helps brands deliver engaging, personalised, and compliant content, as well as being a driving force behind Bynder’s own content marketing, Ljubica Jovanova, Global Director, Creative and Content Marketing, is in a unique position to see both sides of the marketing industry.
She deeply understands the challenges facing marketers as they pivot their content to react to timely events and cultural moments, and the trends that are shaping the way brands do marketing. From TikTok to creative automation, here, she speaks candidly about which ones she believes are set to change the way marketers work.
How was your company born and where are you based?
It was 2013, and clients of Label A, Chris Hall’s marketing and development agency, needed a better way to share marketing content. The clunky, first-generation digital asset management (DAM) systems their IT departments ran were too slow and hard to use.
So Chris created Bynder, the first DAM delivered as pure SaaS and designed for intuitive ease of use. Bynder’s platform can enable better creation, management, and distribution of digital assets when placed at the center of a connected digital ecosystem.
Through our network of integrations, Bynder serves as a system of record for content and helps over 3,700 customers and 1.7 million marketers, creatives, and brand professionals worldwide.
We are headquartered in Amsterdam, with office hubs in the United States, Spain, UK, Australia, and UAE. Across the world, we have a team of over 550 ‘Byndies’ as we like to call ourselves! We have grown the business from fulfilling a single customer 10 years ago to a thriving $100m ARR business that works with 20% of Fortune 500 companies.
What was the biggest challenge to the growth of your company?
Brands have invested heavily in improving the online customer experience, leading to higher expectations and changes in buying behavior. To stand out, brands must do more than provide a seamless digital experience.
The pandemic has accelerated the need for digital transformation, and in today's turbulent economy, brands must invest in new methods and tools to meet the customer’s evolving needs and stay competitive. However, this can be difficult without the right technology in place.
Which was the first huge success that you can remember?
Every new customer has felt like a success since the company was founded in 2013. It’s safe to say that we wouldn’t be where we are today without them.
But when asked this question, I can’t help but think of reaching the 10-year milestone. This year marks our tenth birthday, which has made us reflect on how far we’ve come and all the successes (and failures) we’ve experienced along the way.
This was followed by receiving a majority investment from Thomas H. Lee Partners (THL), which will further accelerate 2023 growth plans. Despite economic uncertainty and limited resources, we're better positioned than ever before to help brands thrive. Seeing our efforts make a difference motivates us to keep going.
What’s the biggest opportunity for you and your company in the next year?
In the past 10 years, the digital customer experience has elevated the importance of content. Content has become a valuable asset for businesses, and they are using digital marketing to monetise it.
We help brands execute digital marketing at scale. In the future, the demand for targeted content across multiple channels will keep growing, making our role in digital asset management more important than ever.
Can you explain your team’s creative process? What makes it unique?
We’re proud to have a team of individuals from different backgrounds and disciplines. When we kick off a project, we loop everyone in. Strategists, copywriters, designers, and videographers are involved from the start, sharing ideas in an open, judgment-free zone.
Part of this is, of course, our culture. But it’s also the process to make sure everyone understands the goal of the project, the target audience, and the message we’re trying to convey so that they can contribute to it in the best way possible. It’s a supportive environment where we celebrate successes together.
How does your team remain inspired and motivated?
We ensure everyone in the team knows how they’re contributing to the company's success, which I think is the best way to keep people motivated. We also have weekly meetings where each team member shares work they’re proud of and what challenges they see that week. We hold regular feedback sessions on projects to facilitate healthy discussions on where we can improve.
But beyond the daily work, we believe it’s important to share inspiration and best practices from branding, art, film, and photography. Working in the world of brand marketing, we must keep up-to-date with the best-of-the-best in terms of campaigns and creative ideas we’ve seen from other companies.
How has COVID-19 affected your company?
The need for content accelerated during the pandemic, and having it all in one place (and searchable) was essential for many teams as they worked remotely. Consequently, more brands sought a solution to centralise content creation, management, and distribution.
The pandemic was hard enough without the additional headache of finding a suitable content variation or reformatting a piece of content from scratch.
Which agencies do you gain inspiration from? Do you have any heroes in the industry?
Among our favorite design agencies are those specialising in brand experiences and design, including Pentagram, Design Studio, and Mother Design. We also find it interesting to look into the UX and UI design world for inspiration.
For example, Figma is a great source of inspiration. Not only does it share creative ideas from its customers for people to learn, but it also has a good hand in community-building by sharing these resources.
What is one tip that you would give to other agencies looking to grow?
The key to agency growth lies in encouraging ongoing learning and professional development. People are the holy grail for all businesses. They’re the cogs in the wheel that keeps it turning.
Agencies must create a safe environment for their team to thrive and share ideas, all while challenging them to take ownership and responsibilities that aren’t always within their comfort zone.
It’s also critical to lean into experimentation. Adopting an experimental mindset keeps creativity flowing and innovation alive. By taking calculated risks, testing different approaches, and being brave, agencies can give their people the learning curves necessary for personal and team development. In the end, the work pays off.
What’s your one big hope for the future of the industry?
One of my biggest hopes for the industry's future is that B2B businesses will start to understand the value of high-quality creative content. In general, it seems like B2B marketing content usually follows the same pattern, and there isn’t a lot of innovation and change going on.
It hasn’t yet caught up with the evolution in decision-makers' habits when buying solutions for their company, which is considerable when you factor in the shift in working practices since the pandemic.
Another thing I hope to see is the rise of the Chief Creative Officer (CCO). In response to the competition heightening in the market, the CCO has become a key figure in driving creative content experiences.
With new C-suite job roles - Chief Experience Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, and Chief Culture Officer, to name a few - the CCO has an earnt place in accelerating brand perception and purpose with more of a customer-centric lens.
Do you have any websites, books, or resources that you would recommend?
I’m a big fan of the following three:
- The Brand Flip: Why customers now run companies - and how to profile from it – a great book by Marty Neumeirer that gives you a lot of practical examples of how to create more value for your customers.
- How to use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, make people laugh, make people cry, and every once in a while change the world - a book authored by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut, packed with inspiration for any type of design, branding, and art.
- Creative Capes – a creative leadership podcast by the Future London academy with amazing guests sharing inspiring stories, mistakes they have made in their careers, and trends in the industry.
