Challenges
The creative team at this large, specialized staffing company produces a range of brand and marketing materials that are often customized for use by different teams and regions.
Before they implemented Widen’s DAM solution, they had a centralized repository to store this content — but its limited metadata and search capabilities made it difficult to find specific files. In addition, the system could only be accessed by the creative team, resulting in frequent and time-consuming file requests.
By investing in Widen’s DAM software, and integrating it with other essential marketing technology (martech) tools, they have optimized their content operations across teams and regions.
Objectives
Search-based storage
Intuitive tools to find or discover the assets needed
Empowered users
Self-serve access to the right content, in minutes
Agility
Eliminate bottlenecks to allow more time for creative work
Solution
Robust metadata with support from Clarifai
Thanks to the flexible metadata capabilities in the Widen DAM system, the marketing team created a custom structure to organize their content. They then tagged assets with metadata values to power the system’s search tools and make files findable with just a few clicks.
However, ongoing metadata creation can be a time-consuming, manual task. To expedite this process they use Clarifai software — an AI technology that auto tags visual assets with recognizable values, such as colors or people, upon upload to the DAM system.
Clarifai not only reduces the time spent manually entering metadata, but also advances their diversity, ethnicity, and inclusion (DE&I) efforts. Teams across the organization need images that include a diverse range of models and subjects, and descriptive metadata on every asset ensures they can find them quickly. With the right metadata strategy — and a little help from AI technology — DAM users can easily find assets that reflect their brand and business priorities.
Curated portals
Widen gives teams across the organization secure, self-serve access to the content they need, whenever they need it. And to make finding the right content even easier, they use Portals to share curated collections of assets.
For example, they have a brand portal to house all of their essential assets, along with guidelines for using their colors, messaging, tone and voice, and more. They made this portal easy to find by including it on their DAM dashboard and embedding it on their company intranet. And they created an external-facing version of the portal to share with partners and agencies.
With their ease of use and attractive design, portals have become a very popular way for both internal and external stakeholders to access content — accounting for over 70% of their asset downloads!
Integration with the Adobe Creative Cloud
Integrating Widen with other core marketing technologies helps the creative team create unity within their global campaigns. Regional teams often make iterations of a master design file to localize the copy or imagery, which entails locating all of the creative assets used in the master layout so that specific elements can be updated. Integrating the Collective with Adobe Create Cloud — using the CI HUB Connector — streamlines this workflow by providing quick and easy access to every creative asset used in a master file.
CI HUB software uses an asset panel plugin to connect content living in asset repositories to native creative apps. With the CI HUB Connector for Adobe Creative Cloud, files made in InDesign, Illustrator, or other Adobe applications are populated with links to related creative assets in Widen. These links eliminate the need for designers to find and download these assets and then upload them to a modified design layout. Depending on the size or frequency of these projects, this process can consume hours or even days of a designer’s time. But with CI HUB, it’s done automatically.
Say, for example, a regional team would like to update the main header image in an existing flier. With CI HUB, the designers don't have to search for and find all of the related files in the flier layout. They only need to find the master InDesign or Illustrator file — and then CI HUB finds everything else. The designer can then immediately get to work knowing all of the correct files have been linked.
In addition, connecting the Widen with Adobe Creative Cloud via CI HUB allows designers to search for assets in the DAM system without leaving their Adobe application.
These valuable efficiencies make this integration an essential part of their creative workflow.
Benefits
Optimized workflows
With strong metadata, search tools, and Portals, teams and partners can now find the brand and marketing assets they need without asking the creative team. These process improvements — in tandem with the CI HUB Connector for Adobe Creative Cloud — have reduced the number of manual steps in their workflow, creating time-saving efficiencies that allow the designers to focus on more strategic work.
Greater content reuse and repurposing
Empowering teams across the company to search for and download creative assets on their own has extended the use — and value — of this customer’s creative assets. And with the CI HUB Connector, regional teams are now able to repurpose materials for their market with ease. This customer is currently exploring the possibility of using the connector with other Adobe platforms, like Premiere Pro and After Effects, to support their video workflows. They are also considering the CI HUB Connector for Microsoft Office 365, to streamline the creation of PowerPoint templates.
Stronger brand consistency
Expedited access to brand content has also enhanced consistency across their marketing channels and customer touchpoints. With Widen as the central source of truth for all brand content, teams throughout the organization are using approved and up-to-date assets to create a more cohesive and unified brand experience.
Assets
Insights
Portals
Integrations
