How Cumulus Delivers Content for the Wisconsin
Milk Marketing Board
by Geoffrey E. Bock, Principal
Bock & Company 2006
Campaigning
for the Dairyland State
Stimulating demand for Wisconsin' s Dairy
products The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board
(WMMB) is the statewide dairy marketing organization, established
in 1983 by Wisconsin milk producers, that promotes Wisconsin's
standing as America's Dairyland.
The WMMB targets the retail, foodservice, and food processing
industries across the United States, media and publishing firms,
and the American public at large. Since most of the state's
raw milk is used to make cheese, the WMMB focuses much of its
efforts on marketing Wisconsin cheeses.
The power of pictures The WMMB works with supermarket
chains, restaurants, national food distributors, Wisconsin school
districts, and other constituents on promotional events and
informational programs. For example, marketers at a supermarket
chain may need help with new signage promoting Wisconsin cheeses.
A nutritionist planning menus for a school district may be looking
for new recipes featuring dairy products. A publisher producing
a new cookbook may be seeking photos of cheddar cheese, wrapped
in red and black wax.
Photography and graphic design are essential tools for communicating
Wisconsin's milk marketing messages. The WMMB uses the power
of pictures to compete for the mindshare and market share of
American consumers. It now relies on Cumulus from Canto to manage
all of its digital assets.
Making
the Transition to Digital Media
An intergrated communications program
The WMMB maintains an integrated
corporate communications department, staffed with a graphic
design team, to develop the content for its marketing campaigns.
The design team manages and delivers hundreds of projects per
year.
The WMMB funds the photo shoots, creates the art work, and produces
the collateral for trade shows, county and state fairs, supermarket
promotions, gourmet food tastings, educational campaigns, and
other co-sponsored activities. It then archives the photos in
an image library, and seeks to reuse them as needed.
Transparencies, stored in physical file
cabinets, are a bottleneck But the WMMB had a major problem
finding and distributing its photographs. Here's what was happening.
The WMMB maintains an extensive image collection of the Wisconsin
Dairyland, and adds upwards of 1,000 new photographs every year.
These include photos of Wisconsin farmers, farm families, farms,
cows, cheese factories, and foods made with different types
of cheeses. Over the years, the organization has assembled a
sizable photo archive, more than 50,000 images in total, the
majority of which are stored as transparencies in physical file
cabinets.
In the past, accessing and reusing photos was a time consuming
and labor intensive process.
When staff members or third parties requested photos,
they had to rely on an image librarian to find them within
the collection.
The image librarian, in turn, would have to browse through
contact sheets of photos, select the images that best met
the requestors' descriptions, identify the reference numbers,
retrieve the transparencies from the file cabinets, and
finally send them the physical assets.
Moreover, if the requestor was from a publisher, business,
or other external constituent, the image librarian first
needed to send a usage agreement to the requestor (specifying
royalty-free reuse provided that the WMMB receives the credits),
and then wait to receive the signed agreement before sending
the requested photos.
Often the WMMB was not able to respond rapidly to requests from
constituent groups. The WMMB needed to create a selfservice
environment, both for its own staff and for its external constituents.
The need for in-house capabilities
By the mid-1990s, the WMMB was feeling the pain of the transition
to digital media. The graphics design team was swamped with
unorganized sets of CD-ROMs. "We were receiving digital assets
from all of the advertising agencies who did work for us, and
needed to store the files online," reported Matt Wilhm, Director
of Creative Services at WMMB." Our color separator also offered
to maintain our digital archives, but we needed to maintain
control in-house."
Under Wilhm's urging, the WMMB began to develop the in-house
capabilities that would meet its needs for doing business in
the digital age. At first the WMMB decided to digitize its entire
archival photo collection. After an eighteen month project,
the WMMB realized that it had selected a proprietary solution,
suitable for a research library, but one which lacked the capabilities
to index or distribute images over the Web, or to manage the
continual updates of a marketing organization.
The business case for a digital asset management solution
By 2001, the WMMB had learned enough from practical experience
that it was able to define its business requirements for a digital
asset management solution. This included the ability to:
Manage many different types of digital assets within a
shared image library.
Store images for easy and rapid retrieval.
Search for images using keywords.
Maintain high quality images, including those color corrected
by a photo editor.
Catalog assets by many different criteria, based on business
needs.
Support multiple internal users who can access the shared
image library within an corporate Intranet, from either
PC or Macintosh desktops.
Provide public access to the image library over the Internet.
Simplify the digital rights management process.
Once the WMMB defined the kind of solution it required, it surveyed
several digital asset management solutions on the market, before
choosing Cumulus. "We chose Cumulus because it is cross-platform
and supports many different file formats," Wilhm stated. "We
looked at a number of competitive products but they were expensive.
Cumulus was affordable. Out-of-the-box, we knew we could customize
Cumulus to meet our needs."
From a technical perspective, "Once we looked at what we wanted
to do, there wasn't anything else out there in our price range
that could match the capabilities of Cumulus," Gracyalny remarked.
Implementing the
Cumulus Solution
Taking the time to 'do it right'
The WMMB proceeded to work with a systems integrator and a professional
librarian to implement a comprehensive solution using Cumulus.
This solution was designed to:
Substantially improve the organization's internal production
processes.
Ensure rapid access to photos by the general public over
the Web.
"We took the time to 'do it right' by developing the business
processes, the metadata, and the file naming conventions to
streamline our digital asset management system," said Mary Litviak,
Creative Services Coordinator and person responsible for the
day-to-day administration of the image collection. "There was
a bit of time invested in building the image collections and
defining the metadata. We now have some pretty unique capabilities
that made the financial and time investment well worth it."
The WMMB decided to exploit Cumulus' capabilities to maintain
multiple libraries, to tag assets within the libraries by a
comprehensive and consistent set of metadata, and to label files
using a well defined file naming convention.
Maintaining multiple libraries
The WMMB now maintains multiple image libraries, each defined
around separate business functions. The libraries include:
Collections of digital photographs for use only within
the organization.
Collections of digital photographs available to external
users.
Art files, including Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop,
and Quark files, produced by the graphic design team.
Archival collections of scanned transparencies and art
files.
Internal staff members, partners, and other approved users can
log into the library designed for their needs. They can then
search the library and download selected images on demand.
As shown in Illustration 1, all of the libraries are accessed
through Cumulus, running on a central server. The graphics design
team continues to use their Macintosh systems, while marketers
and managers can rely on their Windows systems. Cumulus supports
both native Macintosh and Windows desktop clients, as well as
Web access through Web Publisher Pro. The WMMB has customized
this browser-based access to the look and feel of its own Web
site.
Illustration 1. Cumulus
at the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board provides access to many
different image libraries, containing various photo collections
and artwork.
Behind the scenes and transparent to their interactive experiences,
all of the images are stored once on a central server. Cumulus
manages all of the storage, access controls, searching, and
retrieval for maximum efficiency.
A comprehensive and consistent
set of metadata
The WMMB carefully tags all of the photographs, art work, and
other assets within Cumulus by a comprehensive and consistent
set of metadata. The WMMB is using the same set of metadata
to tag assets across the multiple libraries. The metadata includes
predefined categories, keywords, and operational criteria.
Predefined categories
The WMMB maintains a formally defined taxonomy of terms, topics
and subtopics for categorizing assets. WMMB personnel, contractors,
and external users can then browse through the image libraries
by these predefined categories. For example, the topic "cows"
includes subtopics "calves," "close-up," "feeding," 'grazing,"
"in-barn feeding," and "milking parlor." An image can be tagged
by multiple terms. For example, a photo of a calf in a pasture
can be tagged as both "calf" and "grazing."
Keywords
In addition, the WMMB extensively tags images by descriptive
keywords terms that further define the contents of an image
and help when searching for assets. For instance, a photo of
a calf can be further tagged by breed (Jersey, Holstein), by
surrounding items (tree, fence), or people (boy, farmer, veterinarian).
A person searching for a photograph of a "Jersey cow " might
find an item also tagged as a "Jersey calf."
Operational criteria
Finally, the WMMB tags images by a set of operational criteria—attributes essential to maintaining assets within the image
library. Some of these metadata attributes are descriptive.
For example, every image has a title. Some of these metadata
refer to related indexing criteria, such as the record name,
the original publication, the cross reference number to a CD-ROM,
or whether a physical copy of an asset is available.
An image librarian completes a cataloging form to define all
of the metadata terms when adding an image to Cumulus, as shown
in Illustration 2. The tagged images can easily be found by
multiple different criteria.
Illustration 2 :An image
librarian indexes photos by defining an image title, and specifying
categories from a predefined list. The librarian adds descriptive
keywords in the notes field. Finally the librarian includes
relevant operational level metadata, such as the original CD-Rom
and the image library location.
A well defined file naming convention
The WMMB expects all of the images stored within Cumulus are
likely to be downloaded and used by graphic designers, publishers,
or other third parties. Consequently, the images need to have
unique file names that can identify the files outside the shared
library.
The WMMB has developed a set of alphanumeric codes for defining
the operating groups within the organization, and the types
of publications they produce. The WMMB can then create a unique
file name for any image stored within Cumulus by concatenating
the operational group, the type of publication, and the date.
An image librarian creates the file name for each asset stored
within Cumulus by selecting the appropriate codes and entering
them into the record name field of the cataloging form.
The
Consequences of Systematic Cataloging
Speed and efficiency
Assets are systematically catalogued when added to the image
library. The end result is improved speed and efficiency. "The search capabilities with Cumulus are extensive and very
fast," Litviak says. "Images that were once difficult to use
because of their location and condition are now accessible and
usable. Staff time once used to track down images and process
image requests has decreased dramatically. The new photographs
and artwork are processed and made available for use much faster
than they were previously."
Illustration 3. Industry
partners can browse through an extensive and growing collection
of photos about the Wisconsin dairy industry on the Web. They
can search for photos based on predefined categories or related
index terms. When they find a photo they want to use, they can
download it once they agree to the copyright terms.
The WMMB now relies on Cumulus to manage approximately 5,000
high-resolution photographs and other art work for use within
the organization. Approximately 2,500 photographs are available
for user-approved distribution, downloaded over the Web from
the WMMB's external photo library.
The graphics design team relies on Cumulus to support its internal
production operations. Photographs are now organized in a consistent
fashion and little time is wasted rummaging through stacks of
CD-ROMs to find particular images. "I can pull down photographs
quickly to do my work," Matt Wilhm concludes from his perspective
as Director of Creative Services. "We're saving time and money.
Cumulus is giving us new opportunities to promote Wisconsin
and the dairy industry."
Ensuring access by industry partners
Finally, with its external photo library now available over
the Web, WMMB can fulfill a long, sought-after objective: providing
photographs directly to magazine writers, publishers, foodservice,
retail and media industries on demand, and with virtually no
fulfillment costs.
WMMB provides easy access to its photo library: all that is
required is a login and password, obtained through an authorization
process, available to industry partners.
Partners with approved access who want professional photographs
of the Wisconsin dairy industry can browse through the photo
library on the Web, as shown in Illustration 3. They can click
through pages of thumbnails or search by categories and keywords.
Once they identify photos they want, they can add the images
to a shopping cart and download them to their desktop systems,
provided that they agree to credit the WMMB for its copyright
of the asset. Cumulus includes a basic digital rights management
capability.
In sum, delivering photographs of the Wisconsin dairy industry
over the Web—the cows and calves, the people, the farms, the
cheese plants, and the cheeses themselves—is an excellent way
to campaign for America's Dairyland.
Cumulus provides the core infrastructure—the image library,
the metadata management capabilities, the Web-based access,
and the image download mechanisms—that enables the WMMB to
compete for market share through photos on the Web.
Lessons Learned
Implementing
a digital asset management solution takes time. Learn from one
project as you build another solution.
Create a comprehensive
plan for your digital asset management solution, focusing on
how you organize, store, and deliver images to your target market
groups.
Be sure to tag
your photographs and art work by the meaningful categories that
make sense to your target market groups.
Determine the
formally defined categories, the ad hoc keywords, and the operational
criteria you need to track, retrieve, and manage assets throughout
their lifecycle.
"For
a number of years, we tried to build something on our own, only
to find that it was too expensive and too time consuming," explained
LuAnn Gracyalny, Manager, Interactive Communications. "Finally
we decided that we needed to sit down and take a close look
at the whole project. We also knew we wanted to put our photos
on the Web."
"We
chose Cumulus because it is cross platform and supports many
different file formats. We looked at a number of competitive
products but they were expensive. Cumulus was affordable. Outof-the-box,
we knew we could customize Cumulus to meet our needs."
Matt
Wilhm
Director of Creative Services
"We
took the time to do it right by developing the business processes,
the
metadata, and the file naming conventions to streamline
our digital asset management
system. We now have some pretty unique capabilities that made
the financial and time investment well worth it."
Mary
Litviak
Creative Services
Coordinator
About Canto
About Canto
Founded in 1990, Canto remains the leading supplier of Digital Asset Management
products and services, with more than 13,000 server systems sold worldwide,
and more than 1,000,000 user licenses. Canto products are built
upon the multi-platform Cumulus Core metadata management engine and software
framework, which enables customers to archive and manage the digital
assets used in workflows of any size, from office work groups, to multinational
enterprises.
About Bock & Company
About Bock & Company
Geoffrey Bock, Principal of Bock & Company, focuses on business strategies for content
management and collaboration. An analyst and author with over
twenty-five years industry experience, he tracks how organizations
create, organize, and manage business information to sustain
profitable relationships.
As a consultant and thought-leader, he advises software companies,
end-user organizations, and government agencies in areas of
business planning, technology innovation, and operational excellence.
Contact us:
Phone: US +1.415.495.6545 | EU +49 (0) 30 390 485-0 | Email: info@canto.com
