Modern marketing is no longer limited by creativity. It is limited by how quickly approved campaigns reach the market. Every delay between approval and activation quietly erodes revenue, relevance, and competitive advantage.
Dealer networks and franchise systems face a structural challenge. National strategy is carefully developed, yet execution across local markets often becomes inconsistent. Layouts are modified, offers are rewritten, disclaimers are missed, and brand equity is diluted at scale. In this interview, Sesimi outlines how systemised marketing infrastructure connects central strategy with controlled frontline execution.
Brand guidelines are not ignored because dealerships do not care about the brand. They are ignored because they sit outside the reality of dealership marketing. In automotive adjacent and franchise models, guidelines are often treated as reference material rather than operational infrastructure. A PDF. A portal. A slide deck. Useful in theory, distant in practice. When pressure hits, speed wins, and guidelines fade.
Across the city (your city), dealer content changes all day.
Early morning sees commuter friendly finance offers.At midday the focus shifts to used inventory that has just landed.The sun sets. The lights go on.And by evening, service reminders and local events take over. It all adapts to the moment, the buyer, the region, and the reality of inventory.
It changes all day, every day. This is not a thought experiment. It is not a hypothetical. This is the way the world turns and it is happening right now.
And it signals a larger shift in automotive marketing automation.
Content is becoming fully integrated across digital channels, with national and local working as one and if your internal team cannot keep up, you are already behind.
CES 2026. You can feel it: innovation isn’t just speeding up, it’s in overdrive. Kubota is rolling out autonomous tractors with computer vision. Siemens is dropping Industrial AI for the factory floor. NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang? He’s calling AI’s progress “incredible.”Here’s the issue: The faster you innovate, the harder it gets for your dealer and partner network to keep up, and actually sell what you’re building. This problem isn’t new. What’s different now is the speed, and that’s causing real issues for multi-location marketing.
This statement gets reactions. That is the point.
Toyota Australia and Sesimi are marking ten years of partnership. Over that time, Toyota’s retail marketing environment has become more complex. Channels have multiplied, Local Area Marketing has grown in importance, and national teams face increasing pressure to maintain consistency across a large dealer network.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. . .
Which is exactly how your DAM should feel on a calm December night. Or any other evening.
Silent, orderly, and reliable, even when teams rely on cloud based digital asset management to deliver faster campaigns at market first speeds.
In the spirit of the season, this guide walks through the twelve essential elements every digital asset management system needs to support consistent brand governance, a reliable content production workflow, and confident creative operations across every team.
Franchise marketers know the pressure. Endless artwork requests, constant resizing, brand compliance, and the weekly struggle to keep hundreds of locations on brand while still enabling local content. In this interview, Sesimi founder Andy Baker explains how creative automation is helping multilocation brands reclaim time, reduce production costs, and deliver consistent digital brand management at scale.
This quarter, we focused on delivering more clarity and control across your brand systems. Whether you’re managing campaign assets or tracking spend in Funds, these new features were built to help your teams stay organised, compliant, and confident.
You can now upload or select a thumbnail image to visually represent each Collection. It’s a small change that makes navigation faster and gives teams more control over how assets are presented.
We’ve added an admin-level table view that makes managing Collections faster. Filter, sort, and bulk edit at scale.
Admins can now drag and drop Collections, within the table view, to change the order they appear. Highlight priority campaigns or shift content seasonally, no workarounds required.
You can now leave a short message explaining why a claim or pre-approval is cancelled. It appears in the record for others to see, reducing confusion and improving accountability.
Completed submissions now show full approval and claim history. You’ll see what was approved, when, and how it changed, all in one place.
