A Practical Guide to Using CI HUB with Bynder for Marketing Teams

Marketing teams face a common frustration: approved brand assets sit in a digital asset management system, but most of the actual work happens somewhere else. Designers build campaigns in Adobe Creative Cloud. Social media managers schedule posts in Hootsuite or Sprout Social. Sales teams create presentations in PowerPoint. Content creators draft emails in marketing automation platforms.

The result? Constant tab-switching, version confusion, and wasted time searching for the right logo or product image. Teams know their assets are managed and approved in Bynder, but accessing them during the flow of work creates friction that slows everything down.

This is where CI HUB comes in. It's not a replacement for Bynder; it's a bridge that brings Bynder's organized, approved assets directly into the tools marketing teams already use every day.

Why Marketing Teams Rely on Bynder

Bynder has become a trusted digital asset management platform for organizations that need centralized control over their brand assets. It provides a single source of truth where teams can store, organize, and manage everything from logos and brand guidelines to product photography and video content.

Bynder solves several critical challenges:

• Brand consistency across multiple markets, regions, and channels

• Version control that prevents outdated assets from being used

• Rights management to track usage permissions and expiration dates

• Collaboration between internal teams and external agencies

• Governance that maintains brand standards at scale

Marketing teams, creative departments, and agencies appreciate Bynder's ability to keep brand assets organized and accessible. But accessibility within Bynder itself is only part of the equation.

The Workflow Challenge

Here's what typically happens in a US marketing team's daily workflow:

A designer needs to create a social media campaign. They open their design tool, start building the creative, and then realize they need the updated product images. So they stop, open a browser, log into Bynder, search for the assets, download them to their computer, then return to their design tool and import the files.

A few weeks later, a social media manager wants to reuse those same assets. They're not sure if the files saved on their desktop are still current, so they repeat the same process: stop work, open Bynder, search, download, import.

Multiply this friction across dozens of team members, creating hundreds of assets each month, and the productivity loss becomes significant. The problem isn't that Bynder doesn't work—it's that the workflow requires people to leave their creative environment to access what they need.

Common friction points include:

• Breaking creative flow to search for assets in a separate system

• Downloading multiple versions of files that clutter local drives

• Uncertainty about whether locally saved assets are still current

• Time wasted re-finding assets that colleagues already located

• Risk of using outdated versions stored outside Bynder
  
  

What CI HUB Is (Brief Overview)

CI HUB is an in-app DAM connector that integrates digital asset management systems like Bynder directly into the applications where marketing work actually happens. Think of it as a plugin or extension that brings Bynder's library into Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office, Google Workspace, social media management tools, and other platforms.

The core concept is simple: instead of making people go to Bynder, bring Bynder to where people are already working.

CI HUB doesn't replace Bynder or duplicate its functionality. Bynder remains the central repository and management system. CI HUB simply creates access points within other applications, allowing teams to search, preview, and insert approved assets without leaving their current tool.

How CI HUB Integrates with Bynder

The CI HUB integration works through lightweight connectors that sit inside the applications your team uses daily. Once configured, team members can access Bynder's entire asset library directly from within their working environment.

Here's what the experience looks like in practice:

In Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator

A designer opens a panel within their Adobe application that displays their Bynder library. They can search by keyword, filter by asset type or collection, preview thumbnails, and drag approved assets directly onto their canvas. No downloading, no file management, no context switching.

In Microsoft PowerPoint

A sales enablement team member building a presentation opens the CI HUB panel in PowerPoint. They search for product images, customer logos, or branded templates stored in Bynder, preview them, and insert them directly into their slides. The assets come in at the right resolution and format automatically.

In Social Media Management Tools

A social media manager scheduling posts can access Bynder assets without leaving their scheduling platform. They search for campaign imagery, preview different options, and attach the approved files directly to scheduled posts.

The technical setup happens in the background. IT or marketing operations teams configure the connection between CI HUB and Bynder once, set permissions, and then individual users simply start accessing assets through the new panels or extensions in their familiar tools.

Everyday Marketing Use Cases

The following use cases highlight how teams access approved assets directly within their tools during routine marketing tasks.

Campaign Creation

Marketing campaigns typically involve multiple team members working across different platforms. The campaign manager builds the strategy in a project management tool. Designers create visuals in Adobe Creative Cloud. Copywriters draft messaging in Google Docs. Email marketers build sends in their automation platform.

With CI HUB and Bynder working together, everyone accesses the same approved campaign assets from within their respective tools. The designer finds the campaign hero image in Photoshop. The email marketer inserts the same image into the email template. The social team uses it in their scheduled posts. Everyone's working from the current, approved version without coordination overhead.

Social Media Management

Social teams move fast and need quick access to assets. They're often scheduling multiple posts across different platforms, responding to real-time opportunities, and adjusting content based on performance.

Having Bynder assets accessible directly in tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or even native platform publishing tools means social managers can maintain brand consistency while moving at the speed their channels demand. They're not bottlenecked by having to request assets from other teams or dig through local file folders.

Sales Enablement

Sales teams need updated product sheets, case studies, customer logos, and presentation templates. They're often on the road, in meetings, or working with prospects on tight timelines.

When sales reps can access Bynder assets directly in PowerPoint or Google Slides, they can customize presentations for specific prospects without waiting for marketing to send files. They know they're using approved, current assets because they're pulling directly from the source system.

Brand Updates and Refreshes

When brands update their logo, change their color palette, or refresh their visual identity, the rollout can be chaotic. Teams need to stop using old assets immediately and start using new ones consistently.

With CI HUB integrated with Bynder, marketing operations can update brand assets in Bynder once, and everyone accessing those assets through CI HUB automatically sees the updated versions. There's no mass email with ZIP files attached, no confusion about which version is current, and no risk of someone using an old logo they downloaded months ago.

Benefits for Marketing Teams

Marketing teams often work across multiple tools, time zones, and stakeholders, which makes fast and reliable access to approved assets especially important.

Speed and Productivity

The most immediate benefit is time savings. Teams spend less time searching for assets, downloading files, and managing local storage. Creative work flows more smoothly when people can stay in their tools and maintain focus.

Adoption and Ease of Use

One reason digital asset management systems sometimes fail to deliver value is adoption. If using the system feels like extra work, people find workarounds. They save files locally, share assets through email, or recreate things that already exist in the DAM.

CI HUB increases adoption by reducing friction. When accessing Bynder assets becomes as easy as inserting a stock photo, people naturally use the system more consistently.

Brand Consistency

Organizations with multiple divisions, regional offices, or franchise locations struggle with brand consistency. Different teams might use slightly different logos, outdated color codes, or unapproved imagery.

When all teams access assets through the same Bynder library via CI HUB, consistency improves dramatically. Everyone's working from the same source, using the same approved assets, maintaining the same brand standards.

Reduced Rework

How often do teams create something, share it for review, and then discover they used an outdated asset or an incorrect version? The creative work was solid, but now everything needs to be redone because the source file was wrong.

This rework disappears when teams pull assets directly from Bynder through CI HUB. They're always using the current, approved version because they're not working from downloaded files that might be outdated.

Governance and Permissions

A common concern with making assets more accessible is losing control. Will people use assets inappropriately? Will sensitive materials end up in the wrong hands? Will brand standards slip?

CI HUB maintains Bynder's governance and permission structure. Users only see and access the assets they have permission to use within Bynder. If someone doesn't have rights to access a particular collection or asset type in Bynder, they won't see it through CI HUB either.

This means marketing operations and brand teams can:

• Control which teams access which asset collections

• Restrict sensitive materials like upcoming campaign assets or regional-specific content

• Set usage rights and expiration dates that travel with the assets

• Track who's using which assets and where they're being deployed

• Maintain approval workflows for new assets before they become available

The convenience of in-app access doesn't compromise the control that made organizations invest in Bynder in the first place.

Scaling Across Teams and Regions

As teams grow and spread across locations, keeping everyone aligned on assets and brand standards becomes more challenging.

Agency Partnerships

Marketing teams often work with external agencies for campaign development, creative production, or specialized work. Giving agencies access to brand assets while maintaining control can be tricky.

With CI HUB and Bynder, agencies can access approved assets directly within their creative tools, without learning a new system or constantly requesting files. Marketing teams control exactly which assets the agency can access, and agencies work more efficiently because they have what they need when they need it.

Distributed Teams

Whether it's regional offices across different cities or remote team members working from home, distributed teams face coordination challenges. File sharing through email or shared drives creates version confusion and security risks.

CI HUB gives distributed teams a unified way to access assets regardless of location. Everyone's working from the same Bynder library, whether they're in the corporate office in Chicago or working remotely from Paris.

Growing Organizations

As companies grow, adding products, entering new markets, or expanding their team, the complexity of asset management increases exponentially. More assets, more users, more use cases, more opportunities for things to go wrong.

The CI HUB and Bynder combination scales naturally with growth. New team members get access to the assets they need through the tools they already use. New product launches add assets to Bynder that immediately become available through CI HUB. New markets or regions can be set up with appropriate permissions and collections.

Getting Started

Implementing CI HUB with Bynder doesn't require a major technical project or months of planning. The setup process is straightforward:

• Initial Configuration: Your IT or marketing operations team connects CI HUB to your Bynder instance. This establishes the secure link between systems and defines which applications will have CI HUB access.

• Permission Mapping: Teams map Bynder's existing permissions and collections to CI HUB. This ensures that access control carries through to the in-app experience.

• Application Deployment: CI HUB connectors are deployed to the relevant applications your team uses. This might be Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office, or other platforms.

• User Onboarding: Team members receive brief guidance on accessing Bynder assets via the new in-app panels or extensions. Since CI HUB integrates into familiar tools, the learning curve is minimal.

• Ongoing Management: Marketing operations maintains permissions and monitors usage, just as they would with Bynder directly.

Most organizations start with a pilot group, perhaps the creative team or a specific campaign team, before rolling out more broadly. This allows teams to refine the setup and build internal expertise before wider adoption.

Conclusion

For marketing teams already invested in Bynder, CI HUB solves a fundamental workflow problem: it eliminates the friction between where assets are managed and where work actually happens.

Teams move faster because they don't constantly context-switch between applications. Brand consistency improves because everyone's accessing the same approved assets. Productivity increases because creative flow isn't interrupted by file management tasks.

The combination of Bynder's robust DAM capabilities and CI HUB's in-app access creates a system where governance and convenience work together rather than in opposition. Marketing teams get the control they need to maintain brand standards and the accessibility they need to work efficiently.

This isn't about replacing existing systems or adding complexity. It's about making the systems you've already invested in work better together, creating workflows that support how modern marketing teams actually operate.