What Is Simple Brand Manager? A Complete Platform Guide

Most organisations manage their brand identity through a combination of PDF guidelines, shared drives, email attachments and tribal knowledge. For a small, co-located team working with a single agency, this is manageable. For organisations managing multiple brands, regional variants, large internal teams and numerous external partners, it breaks down quickly. 

The result is predictable: agencies use old logo files because nobody told them there was a new version. Franchisees apply the wrong colour codes. New employees use off-brand templates because the correct ones were buried in a folder structure only the designer who built it understood. The brand guidelines exist — the problem is that they are not accessible, not maintained and not enforced. 

Simple Brand Manager was built to solve that specific problem. This guide covers how it works, what it contains, who it is built for, and how it fits alongside other tools in the Simple suite. 

The gap between a brand guidelines document and brand consistency in practice 

Brand guidelines are typically created at a significant investment — a brand strategy project, a visual identity design process, a formal guidelines document produced by an agency. That document is then distributed to stakeholders, stored somewhere on a shared drive, and gradually forgotten as daily work takes over. 

 

1. PDFs go out of dateimmediately

A brand guidelines PDF is accurate on the day it is published. From that day forward, it becomes progressively less accurate as the brand evolves — new logo variations are approved, colour palettes are refined, typography choices are updated, image libraries grow. Each change requires a new PDF, redistribution to all stakeholders, and the manual obsolescence of every previous version. In practice, this does not happen — teams continue using the version they already have. 

Simple Brand Manager eliminates this problem by making guidelines a live system rather than a document. A change made in the platform is reflected immediately for every user, without a redistribution process. 

 

2. Approved assets are hard to find

Shared drives and email archives are not structured for brand asset management. Finding the correct logo — the right variant, the right file format, the right version — requires knowing where it was saved, who saved it and when. For team members who are not regular users of the brand assets, and for external partners who lack context entirely, this is an obstacle that produces off-brand outcomes. 

A structured brand hub with a clear taxonomy, direct downloads and searchable asset libraries changes this. The correct file is findable in seconds. The wrong file is not surfaced. 

 

3. External access is ungoverned

Creative agencies and external partners need access to brand assets. The default approach — emailing zip files, sharing Dropbox folders, providing cloud storage access — provides no control over which files are accessed, no record of what was downloaded, and no mechanism to withdraw access to outdated materials when a brand update is published. 

For organisations working with multiple agencies across multiple markets, ungoverned asset distribution is a direct brand risk. The version of the logo an agency is using may have been superseded two updates ago, and no one knows. 

 

4. Compliance cannot be demonstrated

In regulated industries — financial services, insurance, health — brand compliance is not just a quality concern. Organisations must be able to demonstrate that approved, current brand materials were used in regulated marketing communications. A shared drive provides no audit trail. Simple Brand Manager records every asset download and access event, creating a complete compliance record without additional process. 

 

A structured, live hub for everything that defines how a brand looks 

Simple Brand Manager replaces the static guidelines document with a structured digital hub. Where a PDF has sections, Brand Manager has organised libraries. Where a PDF has descriptions, Brand Manager has the actual assets — downloadable directly, always current, with usage guidelines embedded alongside them. 

 

The customisable brand home page 

Each organisation’s Brand Manager has a customisable home page — a branded landing page that serves as the entry point to the full brand identity. The home page is structured to reflect the organisation’s brand architecture: primary and product logos, typography hierarchy, colour palette, icon libraries, illustration sets and photography guidelines are all accessible from a single, navigable hub. 

For organisations managing multiple brands or regional variants, separate brand home pages can be maintained within the same platform, each with their own asset libraries and access controls. 

 

Permission-controlled access 

Not every stakeholder needs access to every brand asset. Simple Brand Manager provides role-based permissions that control exactly what each user can view, download and share. Internal teams may have full access to source files and guidelines; external agency partners may be scoped to the specific assets relevant to their brief; vendors and contractors may see only what they need to complete their work, without access to sensitive or in-progress brand materials. 

Permissions are configured by brand managers and administrators and can be updated in real time — access can be granted or revoked without changing file-sharing credentials or regenerating shared links. For the complete picture on brand management as a strategic discipline, the brand management solution page covers the broader context. 

 

Always current, always accessible 

When a brand asset is updated in Simple Brand Manager — a new logo variation approved, a colour palette revised, an imagery library refreshed — every user immediately has access to the updated version. No redistribution. No version confusion. No outdated files remaining in circulation because someone forgot to update their local copy. 

 

What lives inside Simple Brand Manager 

The platform is organised around the core elements of a brand’s visual identity. Each element type has its own structured library, with usage guidelines, download capabilities and version control built in. 

 

Logo management 

Every logo variation — primary, secondary, monochrome, product-specific, reversed — is stored with its correct file formats (PNG, EPS, SVG, PDF) and accompanied by clear usage guidelines: when to use each variant, minimum clear space requirements, what constitutes incorrect usage. Users download directly from the hub in the format they need, rather than requesting files from a designer or hunting for a zip archive. The correct logo is always one click away. The wrong version is never the default. 

Simple Brand Manager product page 

 

Typography and fonts 

The typography section documents the brand’s approved typefaces — primary and online alternatives — with font hierarchy detail covering how each weight and style is applied across headlines, sub-headings, body copy and captions. Where a brand uses custom fonts, the files are accessible directly from the platform rather than requiring IT to distribute them. Font hierarchy information is the most commonly requested brand guidance by new creative partners and new employees. Having it in a structured, searchable hub eliminates the back-and-forth that typically accompanies onboarding a new agency relationship. 

Brand management solution 

 

Colour palette 

The colour library presents the complete brand palette — primary, secondary and accent colours — with specifications in HEX, RGB, PMS and CMYK for consistent application across digital and print. Real-time updates mean colour specifications are always current; teams cannot inadvertently use a colour code from a superseded version of the palette. Colour inconsistency is one of the most visible brand governance failures. Providing exact specifications in all formats across a single, always-updated reference eliminates ambiguity. 

Brand management solution 

 

Iconography 

Brand icon libraries are stored with variant options — light, dark, monochrome, coloured — and usage guidelines covering when each variant is appropriate. Icon collections can be shared with specific stakeholders for direct download, scoped to the relevant collection without exposing the full icon library. Icon consistency is a detail that accumulates into a significant brand quality signal. Structured icon management ensures design teams, agencies and production vendors all work from the same set. 

Simple Brand Manager product page 

 

Illustration and imagery library 

Approved brand illustrations and photography are stored, categorised and made accessible with usage guidelines. Teams always use the latest approved visual assets — there is no ambiguity about whether a photograph is approved for use in a particular market, or whether a commissioned illustration set has been superseded. Imagery libraries are often the most disorganised part of a brand asset collection. A structured, searchable library that is directly accessible to agencies and design teams replaces the email chain: ‘Can you send me the latest campaign photos?’ 

Brand management solution 

 

All asset types share the same governance: every download is recorded, every update is immediate, and every access is subject to the permission settings configured by the brand manager. The consistency of governance across asset types is what makes the platform a compliance tool, not just a storage tool. 

 

Brand governance as a system, not a manual process 

The distinction between a brand asset library and a brand management platform is governance. Storage organises files. Management controls how those files are accessed, approved, distributed and audited. For organisations in financial services, insurance, health and other regulated sectors, this distinction is not incidental — it is a compliance requirement. 

 

Approval workflows for brand content 

Before a new brand asset or a change to an existing one is made available to the broader user base, it can be routed through a structured approval workflow. Brand managers configure the review pathway — who must approve a new logo variation, who must sign off on a revised colour specification, which legal and compliance reviewers must clear marketing photography before it enters the approved library. 

Approval templates standardise this process across different asset types and different markets. Automated reminders prevent approvals from stalling. The result is a consistent, recordable governance process for brand asset management rather than informal email sign-off. For the broader approval workflow capability that underpins this, see marketing approval workflow. 

 

Role-based permissions and access controls 

Access controls in Simple Brand Manager are precise. Administrators assign user roles that define exactly what each stakeholder can do: view only, download in specified formats, upload new assets, modify asset metadata, approve and publish. External partner access is scoped to specific asset collections without providing visibility into internal projects, in-development brand work or materials outside the partner’s brief. 

For organisations managing multiple brands under one enterprise account, access can be scoped to individual brand spaces — a partner working on Brand A has no visibility into Brand B’s assets. 

 

Asset audit trail 

Every access, download and modification event in Simple Brand Manager is recorded in a tamper-proof audit trail: who accessed which asset, in what format, at what time. For compliance reporting — particularly relevant for organisations using brand assets in regulated financial services or health marketing communications — this audit trail provides the documentation chain that demonstrates brand governance was applied. 

The audit trail is also operationally useful: brand managers can see which assets are being used most actively, identify if outdated assets are still being accessed (and by whom), and generate download history reports for governance reviews. For the compliance and governance context relevant to regulated industries, see marketing compliance. 

 

Preventing outdated asset distribution 

When a brand asset is superseded — a new logo approved, an old campaign image retired — it is removed from the accessible library and replaced with the current version. Users who attempt to access the old version are directed to the current one. There is no mechanism to download a superseded asset unless an administrator explicitly enables it. 

This enforcement is the core governance value of the platform. The most common source of brand inconsistency is not malicious — it is teams and partners continuing to use files they already have, unaware that a new version exists. Removing the old version from circulation, automatically and immediately, closes that gap. 

 

How Simple Brand Manager connects to the rest of the marketing workflow 

Integration with Simple Admation 

Simple Admation is Simple’s marketing approval and project management platform, used by marketing teams to manage campaigns, creative briefs, approval workflows and project timelines. For existing Admation customers, Simple Brand Manager integrates as a connected module within the same workflow environment. 

This integration allows teams working in Admation to access brand assets from Brand Manager directly within their project workspace — without switching platforms to retrieve an approved logo or the current brand photography. Asset governance applies consistently across both systems: assets accessible in Admation are the same approved, current assets managed in Brand Manager. 

For organisations already using Admation for marketing workflow management, Brand Manager extends that platform into the brand identity and asset governance layer — making the combination a more complete marketing operations system. 

 

Secure Single Sign-On (SSO) 

Simple Brand Manager supports Single Sign-On (SSO) for enterprise authentication. Users within an organisation access the platform using their existing credentials — no separate password, no separate account management. SSO simplifies authentication, reduces IT overhead and ensures that access is governed by the organisation’s existing identity management system. 

When a team member leaves an organisation and their access is revoked in the identity system, their Brand Manager access is revoked simultaneously — without requiring a separate offboarding step for the platform. 

 

Controlled external agency access 

Creative agencies, media partners and external vendors need access to brand assets. The challenge is providing that access without exposing materials that should remain internal — in-development brand work, unreleased campaigns, competitor intelligence, sensitive commercial assets. 

Simple Brand Manager’s external access controls address this at a granular level. Agency partners are given access to specific asset collections relevant to their work — the campaign photography for the project they are working on, the logo variations approved for their market — without access to the broader brand library. Download tracking records what each external user has accessed. Access can be revoked at the end of an engagement without any action required from the agency. 

The teams and organisations that rely on Simple Brand Manager 

Simple Brand Manager is used across a range of team types and industries. The common thread is organisations where brand consistency across multiple teams, markets and external partners is a strategic and operational priority, and where the absence of a structured system has produced visible brand governance problems. 

 

Brand managers and marketing leads 

Challenge: Maintaining brand consistency across internal teams, regional offices, agencies and vendors — all of whom have different levels of brand knowledge, different legacy files and different interpretations of brand guidelines. 

How Brand Manager helps: A single, authoritative source for every brand element, with version control that ensures only current assets are in circulation. Usage guidelines are embedded alongside every asset, reducing the need to manually brief teams and partners on brand application. Updates are reflected immediately across the entire user base. 

Outcome: Brand managers reduce the time spent policing inconsistent brand applications and responding to asset requests. Agencies and partners apply the brand correctly the first time, reducing revision cycles and off-brand incidents. HESTA, nib, Great Southern Bank and Bendigo Bank are among the regulated-industry organisations using Brand Manager to maintain brand governance across complex stakeholder networks. 

 

Marketing teams in regulated industries 

Challenge: Demonstrating brand compliance in regulated marketing communications — financial services, insurance, health — where the approval and governance of marketing materials is a regulatory requirement, not just a quality standard. 

How Brand Manager helps: Approval workflows ensure brand assets used in regulated communications are reviewed and signed off before distribution. Audit trails record every access and download event, providing the documentation chain compliance teams need for regulatory review. Permission controls prevent unapproved or superseded assets from being used in market. 

Outcome: Compliance reporting becomes a retrieval process rather than a reconstruction exercise. The same governance framework that protects brand consistency also provides the audit trail that satisfies regulatory requirements. The customer base in financial services — Bupa, HESTA, nib, Bendigo Bank, AIA, CBHS, Latitude, Hollard — reflects this use case directly. See the banking and financial services use case for how this applies in practice. 

 

Creative agencies and design studios 

Challenge: Receiving brand briefs from multiple clients, each with their own guidelines in different formats and at different stages of currency — spending significant time at the start of each project sourcing the correct brand assets before creative work can begin. 

How Brand Manager helps: With client access to Simple Brand Manager, agencies receive access to a structured hub rather than a zip file. The correct logo variant, the current colour codes, the approved typography and the active imagery library are all accessible immediately. Usage guidelines are visible alongside assets. There is no ambiguity about which version is current or which variant to use in which context. 

Outcome: Agency onboarding for new client brand engagements is faster. Revision cycles driven by off-brand creative execution are reduced. Agencies with multiple concurrent client relationships benefit from consistent, structured access across all of them when clients use Brand Manager. 

 

New employees and distributed teams 

Challenge: Getting up to speed with a complex brand identity — understanding which logo variant to use and when, what the correct colour codes are, what photography is approved — when guidelines are scattered across PDFs, shared drives and institutional memory held by senior team members. 

How Brand Manager helps: Instant, structured access to all brand identity information from day one. New team members access the same hub that senior brand managers use — there is no separate onboarding material for brand guidelines, and no risk of receiving an outdated version. Distributed teams across multiple locations have access to the same current materials without relying on a central team to distribute files. 

Outcome: New employees are brand-confident faster. Distributed and remote teams maintain brand consistency without a central coordination overhead. The brand guidelines are not something that exists — they are something that is actively used. 

Two products that are frequently confused — and why the distinction matters 

Simple Brand Manager and Simple Asset Manager are separate products within the Simple suite. Both involve brand assets, which creates a natural confusion point when evaluating which product addresses a particular need. Understanding the distinction is the most useful step in that evaluation. 

 

Simple Brand Manager — the brand identity hub 

Simple Brand Manager is specifically for brand identity management. Its scope is the elements that define how a brand looks: logos, typography, colour palettes, iconography, illustration style, photography guidelines. It is the authoritative reference for how the brand should be applied, and the controlled source of the assets that apply it. The governance layer — approvals, audit trails, access controls — is focused on ensuring brand identity elements are used correctly and consistently. 

It is the right product for organisations whose primary challenge is brand consistency across teams, agencies and markets — where the problem is that different stakeholders apply the brand differently because they are not working from the same, current, structured reference. → Simple Brand Manager product page. 

 

Simple Asset Manager — the operational DAM 

Simple Asset Manager is a full digital asset management (DAM) platform for the complete range of marketing and campaign assets an organisation produces and uses — images, video, audio, documents, creative source files and templates. Its scope goes well beyond brand identity elements: it manages the operational library of assets that marketing teams use to produce and distribute campaigns. AI-assisted search, usage rights management, approval workflows for asset distribution and secure sharing are core capabilities. 

It is the right product for organisations whose primary challenge is the operational management of a large, active asset library — where the problem is that assets are hard to find, version control is inconsistent, or the approval and distribution process for campaign materials lacks governance. → Simple Asset Manager product page.  

For teams evaluating DAM options more broadly, the Buyer’s Guide to Digital Asset Management is a useful reference.  

For the DAM category overview, see digital asset management. 

 

How the two work together 

For many organisations, both are needed: Brand Manager governs the brand identity reference — the definitive source for logos, guidelines and approved brand elements — while Asset Manager governs the working asset library for campaigns and distribution. Brand Manager defines the brand standards; Asset Manager manages the operational execution of those standards at scale. 

The two products can be used independently or in combination. The question is whether the challenge is brand identity governance (Brand Manager’s domain), operational asset management (Asset Manager’s domain), or both. 

What is Simple Brand Manager used for? 

Simple Brand Manager is used to centralise, manage and distribute brand identity assets — logos, typography, colour palettes, iconography, illustrations and photography — in a live, permission-controlled hub. Core use cases include replacing static PDF brand guidelines with an always-current interactive reference, providing agencies and external partners with controlled access to approved brand assets, managing brand governance and compliance in regulated industries, and maintaining consistent brand application across multiple teams, markets and partners. It is used by organisations across financial services, insurance, health, retail and other sectors where brand consistency is a commercial and compliance priority. 

 

What is the difference between Simple Brand Manager and a brand guidelines PDF? 

A brand guidelines PDF is accurate on the day it is published and progressively less accurate from that day forward, as the brand evolves and the document is not updated. Distributing a new version requires a separate process, and there is no mechanism to ensure old versions are no longer used. 

Simple Brand Manager is a live platform. Changes made to brand assets or guidelines are reflected immediately for every user — no redistribution, no version confusion. Assets are downloadable directly in the correct format. Usage guidelines are embedded alongside the assets they describe. Access is permission-controlled, with an audit trail of every download and access event. The brand hub is actively used by teams in their daily work, rather than a document that exists but is rarely consulted. 

 

What types of brand assets are stored in Simple Brand Manager? 

Simple Brand Manager stores all core brand identity elements: logo variations (primary, secondary, monochrome, product-specific) with usage guidelines and multi-format downloads (PNG, EPS, SVG); typography documentation with font hierarchy details and font file access; colour palettes with HEX, RGB, PMS and CMYK specifications; iconography libraries with variant options and usage guidelines; illustration and imagery libraries with usage guidelines and direct download. 

All asset types share the same governance framework — every asset is permission-controlled, every download is recorded, and every update is reflected immediately across all users. 

 

Does Simple Brand Manager work for teams with external agencies and partners? 

Yes. External agency access is a core use case. Agencies and partners are given permission-controlled access to the specific asset collections relevant to their work — without exposure to materials outside their brief. Access is scoped at the collection level, so an agency working on a specific campaign can access the assets for that campaign without visibility into other brand libraries or internal projects. Download tracking records what external users access. Access can be revoked at the end of an engagement without requiring any action from the agency. SSO integration means access is tied to the organisation’s identity system and is automatically governed through normal HR and offboarding processes. 

 

How does Simple Brand Manager integrate with Simple Admation? 

Simple Brand Manager integrates with Simple Admation as a connected module within the same workflow environment. Teams working in Admation on marketing campaigns, briefs and approvals can access brand assets from Brand Manager directly within their project workspace — without switching platforms to retrieve a logo or approved imagery. Asset governance is consistent across both systems: the approved, current assets managed in Brand Manager are the same assets accessible in Admation. For organisations already using Admation for marketing workflow management, Brand Manager extends the platform into brand identity and asset governance, making the combination more complete as a marketing operations system. 

 

How does Simple Brand Manager relate to the other Simple products? 

Simple Brand Manager is the brand identity hub in the Simple suite — it governs how the brand looks and ensures those brand standards are accessible and applied consistently. 

• Simple Asset Manager: manages the full operational library of marketing and campaign assets beyond brand identity elements. Where Brand Manager governs the brand standards, Asset Manager governs the operational asset management at scale. Many organisations use both. → Simple Asset Manager. 

• Simple Admation: is the marketing approval and project management platform. It integrates directly with Brand Manager for organisations that need campaign workflow, resource management and approval governance alongside their brand identity hub. → Simple Admation. 

• Simple Retailpath: is the retail PIM and promotion management platform — primarily for retailers managing product data and retail promotion production rather than brand identity governance. Most relevant for retail organisations managing product catalogues across multiple channels. 

Each product can be used standalone or in combination. Simple Brand Manager is most commonly used alongside Admation for organisations that need both brand identity governance and marketing workflow management.