Adobe Systems Inc. released the new version of Adobe Experience Manger (EM) yesterday, calling the update to its multi-platform digital content management system (CMS) the most significant release to date.
The release combines four main capabilities into one cloud software item that is folded under the Adobe Marketing Cloud banner. It allows marketers to manage content for web and mobile sites, manage and distribute digital assets, manage social and user-generated content, build and manage web or mobile forms, and update content on mobile apps.
Also, a new feature called Projects allows marketing and IT departments to keep their efforts on digital campaigns in sync, says Loni Stark, director of product and industry marketing at Adobe in a blog post.
“Projects is a bold new capability to help you overcome the challenges of delivering united digital experiences across devices and challenges of delivering united digital experience across devices and channels so your brand can ultimately connect with customers,” she writes.
Adobe says they’ve tailored the new EM to have workflows that allow for launching a micro-site just as easily as a complicated multi-page CMS. That’s what it has been used for in the past by clients like Montreal-based aerospace firm Bombardier Inc. It employed local agency w.illi.am to help it find a CMS back in 2010, shortly after Adobe acquired EM with Swiss software firm Day Software Holding AG.
Bombardier had shortlisted five other CMS tools before adding EM as a sixth option to its list and ultimately selected it because of its ability to handle a multi-site rollout in different regions with different languages, according to Jose Alberto Vazquez, business analyst with w.illi.am. Bombardier was interested in centralizing control over its regional web sites to eliminate content redundancy, improve archiving, and make certain static sites more dynamic – because some of the content was getting stale.
“In one case there was a CEO of a company that had passed away and he as still listed there because it was a Flash site and no one knew how to update it,” Vazquez says, speaking at Adobe’s Marketing Summit event in March.
Bombardier used its main Bombardier.com site as the master site that pushes out content to independent regional sites. It makes use of the assets manager to deploy an asset – like a home page graphic – once and have it displayed across its multi-site regional network.
EM gives the marketing department the capability to do things they may have needed the IT department to implement in the past. For that reason, a roll-out of the software works best at a company that has strong IT competency embedded in the marketing department, advises Damien Lefebvre, co-president at w.illi.am.
“At Bombardier its chief web officer was strong and marketing and also knows how to talk to IT people,” he says.
Adobe also announced a new partner certification program for EM at Summit. Its Marketing Cloud customers typically pair Adobe Social with EM, allowing marketers to customize content presented to audience inbound from social media platforms.
