Brandkit vs Simpleview

Caveat: I am the founder and CEO of Brandkit and so obviously have a bias in this analysis. That said I asked ChatGPT to help write this article, and have tried to be as fair as possible in my analysis. However while I know Brandkit intimately, I do not have intimate knowledge of Simpleview’s product, and this analysis is based on what I can glean from their website, and from feedback I have had from present or past customers of Simpleview over several years

Here goes.

With regard to Tourism and Travel marketing, both Brandkit and Simpleview offer robust platforms designed to streamline marketing and the organization, management, and distribution of brand content.

These platforms cater to distinct niches. This blog post provides a comparative analysis of Brandkit and Simpleview, highlighting key features, differences, and how to choose the right solution based on your organizational needs.

Brandkit: A B2B Platform for Brand Content

Brandkit is renowned for its focus on enhancing brand storytelling through its Brand Management platform. It focuses on Place Branding, Destination Marketing, Economic Development, Government and larger Tourism and hospitality organisations, that are interested in supporting employees and partners with free official and approved content.

Brandkit positions itself as a comprehensive B2B Brand Toolkit solution, aiming to help brands engage external users, partners, stakeholders, and journalists, as well as employees.

It customises a self-serve Brand Portal that organisations can promote as their own and invite users to engage with a shared brand narrative, and access a pool of digital content all for free.

(Customized UI for Brand Tasmania powered by Brandkit)

Brandkit’s emphasis on public facing self-serve brand portals or toolkits plus it’s support for meaningful and honest communication shines through its platform, offering features that facilitate not just the management of digital assets but also, the wider distribution of brand resources, that permit and encourage external users to tell a coherent brand story.

Brandkit is good choice for content distribution - particularly for large collections photography and video.

Key Features:

• Publicly accessible and discoverable: Easily setup public (or private) brand portals and toolkits to serve users outside the organization
• Story-centric toolkit: Tailored for brands that prioritize storytelling through shared content, allowing for a narrative-driven approach to asset organization.
• Intuitive User Interface: Designed for ease of use, ensuring that all users (inside and outside the organization) can efficiently find and utilize assets, in a brand safe way.
• Fully customizable: Designed so that every customer can have a unique Brand Portal UI, a custom domain, and plenty of flexible configurations.
• Built in CMS: Brandkit is a hybrid system combining DAM and CMS software. The CMS is tightly integrated with the DAM allowing intelligent and personalised on-page content.
• Brand Identity Guidelines: Ensures brand consistency by providing easy access to brand guidelines, logos, and templates. Brandkit has a unique auto-attachment feature for PDF based Brand Guidelines, and also support digital brand guidelines.
• Advanced Search Capabilities: Facilitates quick access to relevant assets through a powerful multi-faceted searchbox, configurable search navigation, search filters and tags. With configurable taxonomy and AI aided auto-tagging.
• Collaboration Tools: Streamlines workflows by enabling teams to collaborate effectively within the platform, with self-serve, self-register, remote access, configurable users roles, access permissions, automatic licencing and terms of use acceptance, a contribution work flow, content syndication and integration, file transfers and more.
• Integration: Brandkit has a private API that allow integration with hundreds of 3rd party app via middle-ware like Zapier. It also has direct integration with a number of third party services for SSO logins, file ingestion, CRM integration and AI.
• Analytics and Reporting: Brandkit include web analytics integration with Plausible and Google Analytics. Provide it’s own content analytics and various reports. Delivers insights into asset usage and performance, aiding in strategic decision-making.

My quick take:

Brandkit has a built-in CMS that enables the customisation and editing of the Brand Portal or Brand Toolkit’s UI. Technically you could configure your Brandkit to serve consumers.

However Brandkit is primarily a B2B toolkit is aimed at sharing content and digital assets with employees, partners, stakeholders, journalists and other authorised users. Brandkit toolkit’s are designed to be independent websites specifically for content management and distribution. Brandkit toolkits are not designed to replace your primary website nor is aimed at a consumer audience.

This means that Brandkit is better suited to larger Place, Destination, Economic Development, Tourism, Travel and Government organisations who have larger pools of content such as photography, video, and other assets that they wish to share widely.

Simpleview: A Comprehensive B2C Solution for Tourism and Travel brands

Simpleview stands out as a comprehensive solution for destination marketing organizations, providing not only DAM capabilities but also CRM, CMS, and marketing services tailored to the tourism industry.

(Eau Claire website powered by Simpleview)

It aims to empower destinations with the tools they need to attract visitors, manage relationships, and analyze performance.

Key Features:

• Integrated Marketing Toolkit: Simpleview offers a suite of tools including CRM, CMS, and lightweight DAM designed specifically for the needs of destination marketing.
• Tourism-Specific Functionality: Features are tailored to the tourism sector, including event management, itinerary planning, and visitor tracking.
• Data Analysis and Insights: Robust analytics tools help organizations measure the impact of their marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions.
• Industry-Specific Resources: Access to a wealth of knowledge and best practices in destination marketing.

My quick take:

Simpleview’s emphasis is to provide the primary consumer website for the brand, that is integrated with their CMS, CRM and a DAM. It’s more B2C than B2B. It attempts to be the whole marketing solution for a tourism or travel brand, replacing the primary website for the organisation. Technically I suspect you could set up a Simpleview site for B2B service only - but it’s focus appears to be primarily B2C.

This means that Simpleview is more of a retail solution aimed at consumers/travellers/visitors that a B2B solution.

Choosing Between Brandkit and Simpleview

When deciding between Brandkit and Simpleview, consider the specific needs of your organization and the primary goals of your digital asset management efforts.

Choose Brandkit if:

• Your want to support employees, stakeholders, partners, the media and others with official and approved content.
• You want an advanced industrial strength DAM
• You want to share a coherent brand story and messaging within the framework of a shared brand narrative and content assets.
• Your more B2B than B2C.

Opt for Simpleview if:

• Your organization is heavily involved in B2C tourism and travel sector, and you need a broad set of tools to build a web presence and market your retail tourism or travel brand.
• You require industry-specific functionality tailored to tourism, including event management and visitor tracking.
• Consumer data-driven insights and analytics are crucial to your marketing strategy.
• You’re more B2C than B2B.

Conclusion

Both Brandkit and Simpleview offer compelling features for organizations looking to manage their digital assets effectively.

The choice between them should be guided by your organization’s focus, whether it’s on crafting compelling brand stories to be shared by employees and partners (Brandkit) or on leveraging a comprehensive toolkit for deploying a B2C oriented tourism and travel site (Simpleview).

By aligning your selection with your strategic objectives, you can ensure that your chosen solution not only manages digital assets efficiently but also supports your overall marketing and branding efforts.