“From our perspective, there’s a huge visual apocalypse that’s coming,” said PhotoShelter CEO Andrew Fingerman. As companies add more assets in response to the demand for digital storytelling, the challenge to organize, manage and quickly find assets becomes more difficult.

It appears many visual storytellers aren't prepared, something that was confirmed by a Libris-commissioned survey from the CMO Council.

The survey focused on the importance of visual assets in marketing. Of more than 177 U.S.-based senior marketing executives, a quarter of whom came from organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, 65% thought assets are core to communicating a brand story. Only 27% had a process to manage assets across teams.

Asset management is especially a problem with real-time events, when brands are on their toes. For instance, when the Academy Awards or Super Bowl is airing live, brands might set up a real-time response team to craft relevant social posts. Those teams, Fingerman said, need approved assets to act nimbly and engage in real-time.

“Whether you’re talking about programmatic or a content marketer pushing assets into social media, the accessibility of the assets is sort of a base need,” Fingerman said. “If agencies and brands themselves are investing in the production of content, but [assets] are no longer accessible, then it’s not usable in the long-term,” Fingerman said.

Libris offers centralized storage of videos and photos, searchable metadata, permission control and fast-loading pages, and Fingerman said Libris has about 200 clients currently, including universities, sports teams and travel and tourism brands.

PhotoShelter was founded in 2005, and now has more than 80,000 professional photographers in its community.