Unleashing the power of the Frontify ecosystem to streamline brand building
At Frontify, we believe every brand has its own story, and the journey to shaping that story should be just as unique. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work in life — or branding. That’s why we’ve developed powerful product enhancements to streamline and personalize your brand-building operations. And the partner network to implement it.
Our ecosystem enhances digital asset management (DAM), brand guidelines, templates, and analytics and maximizes your branding workflows. Apps (in beta), integrations, content blocks, and an expert partner network complement the framework. We empower marketing leaders to break down team silos, consolidate tools, and construct their brand-building platform around their needs.
Challenges in brand building
Two of the most significant challenges in the brand-building process are the disconnect caused by siloed teams using different tools and the lack of customization on many brand platforms. These obstacles hinder efficiency, disrupt consistency, and make sharing a unified and cohesive story difficult.
Siloed teams with tool proliferation
Creating a brand is a complicated and complex endeavor: Numerous stakeholders collaborate to create guidelines, produce content, and share assets. Geographic barriers and intricate internal processes can convolute workflows. As a result, many teams end up working in silos, each producing pieces of the puzzle that don’t align with the others.
As the demand for high-quality and personalized content grows, these inefficiencies become even more pronounced, affecting productivity and the ability to meet market expectations swiftly and, more importantly, on brand. According to Canva’s 2023 Visual Economy Report, 65% of employees believe siloed teams contribute to a lack of creativity.
Moreover, tool proliferation — teams using too many software programs and causing inefficiencies — adds another layer of challenges. For example, creatives might use one project management solution while the content creators store copy in a shared cloud space. This setup forces the writers to comment on the designers' platform while viewing visuals elsewhere. According to the Canva report above, more than two-thirds (68%) of leaders say there are too many tools in their workplaces. This complicates workflows and increases the chances of miscommunication and errors.
Lack of customization
Many platforms lack customization — either the customization element is too expensive, or the provider doesn’t offer it at all. These shortcomings often lead to significant frustrations among users who can’t set up the processes they need to efficiently involve all the stakeholders to build their brands.
Two types of platforms often have these limitations: custom solutions and DAM-only providers.
Custom platforms offer personalization but at a high cost. Users often find themselves stuck in a cycle of high maintenance costs and limited flexibility. Even though individualized solutions sound tempting, they often require significant maintenance, meaning you rely on external agencies to manage updates and changes. This dependency can lead to delays and even more costs, creating a bottleneck in your branding process.
DAM-only providers manage digital assets well, but they can usually not be tailored to represent specific needs. This rigidity restricts productivity: Teams struggle to create additional guidelines pages and custom automation to optimize the content creation process.
Introducing the Frontify ecosystem
The Frontify product ecosystem provides a versatile, customizable, and extendable platform that empowers brands to achieve their full potential. With content blocks, apps, themes (in beta), and integrations, you can tailor workflows, integrate third-party tools, and boost creativity. Designed to scale with businesses, Frontify offers an extensive Marketplace to discover new extensions and integrations, ensuring relevance and effectiveness as needs evolve.
Frontify encompasses the product ecosystem and the partner ecosystem.
The product ecosystem
The Frontify product ecosystem provides a versatile, customizable, and extendable platform that empowers brands to achieve their full potential. With content blocks, apps, themes, and integrations, you can tailor workflows, integrate third-party tools, and boost creativity. Designed to scale with businesses, Frontify offers an extensive Marketplace to discover new extensions and integrations, ensuring relevance and effectiveness as needs evolve.
Our certified partners also play a crucial role by providing support to scale and customize the platform, translating innovative ideas into practical realities.
The partner ecosystem
Frontify's partner ecosystem comprises certified experts who specialize in scaling and customizing the platform to meet your brand's needs. With their support, you and your developers can unlock the true potential of the Brand SDK (software development kit) to create tailored apps, themes, and custom content blocks. Leveraging the GraphQL API allows you to build integrations that drive innovation and efficiency.
How the Frontify ecosystem solves your brand-building challenges
Frontify simplifies brand building: Seamless integrations, enhanced collaboration, and customizable tools for creativity and scalability ensure your output stays consistent and efficient.
Integrations and apps streamline workflows and boost collaboration
Whether you’re a marketer or a brand manager, Frontify makes it easy to connect with the tools you already use through our 40+ native integrations with solutions like Wrike and Getty Images. An integration platform as a service (iPaaS) lets non-technical users create automated workflows that connect different applications with minimal coding, like Tray.io or Zapier. You can also customize integrations from scratch with your developer using our GraphQL API, allowing teams to work without the friction of disconnected systems.
While integrations allow users to connect Frontify with external environments like design software (e.g., Canva or Figma) or content management systems (e.g., Contentful or Webflow), apps run directly within Frontify. This boosts productivity by eliminating the need to switch between tools.
With the Brand SDK, you can develop custom apps that are tailored to your operations and complement the out-of-the-box offerings. Apps are fully embedded within Frontify and let you automate processes and break down internal silos (to get more real-life example, take a look at this blog post).
Here’s how apps optimize processes and boost productivity:
- Connecting solutions like OpenAI directly in Frontify so that users can access AI services within the platform.
- Creating and editing content — from editing images to generating new visuals — within one shared workspace.
- Automating tasks, such as auto-tagging assets or generating descriptions, to reduce repetitive work and free up time for teams to focus on creative and strategic collaboration.
This unified APProach keeps workflows smooth and efficient and promotes cross-team collaboration without juggling multiple tools.
Content blocks and themes foster creativity
With custom blocks and themes, you can express your brand’s personality when designing brand portals and guidelines:
To date, Frontify has more than 40 preinstalled content blocks that enable you to arrange and display logos, typography, or color palettes to best represent your guidelines. If you can't find the block you're looking for, use the Brand SDK to create new personalized blocks.
Themes set your portal's overall look and feel. Choose from a variety of themes or create your own using the Brand SDK and tailoring the visual experience to match your aesthetic. The Audi Brand Portal was developed with our themes — take a look below.
The Marketplace adds convenience and inspiration
The Frontify Marketplace — with all the integrations, content blocks, apps, and themes — serves as a valuable resource for inspiration. Discover new ideas and enhance your brand’s visual identity while staying true to its core principles. This combination of creative freedom and structured guidance helps you stand out while maintaining a cohesive and professional image.
The partner network helps you scale your brand
Our partners can help you get the most out of Frontify: Their personalized guidance and technical expertise help you to fully leverage Frontify’s capabilities. Beyond technical support, partners work closely with your team to bring your brand-building vision to life. By harnessing the power of the Brand SDK, these certified experts deliver custom solutions that streamline operations, automate workflows, and increase productivity.
See how the Frontify ecosystem can solve your brand-building challenges
Frontify allows your brand to thrive by streamlining brand building with seamless integrations, improved collaboration, and customizable tools that foster creativity and scalability. With everything centralized in one place and supported by expert partners, your Frontify-powered brand remains consistent and efficient.
Request a demo today to learn more about how the Frontify ecosystem helps you overcome your brand-building challenges.