The top 5 reasons teams choose Canto

Each team has their own requirements for a digital asset management (DAM) solution. There are a ton of different reasons that teams have chosen Canto to manage their media libraries, but here are the top five that we hear.

And don’t just take our word for it – read on to hear it straight from our customers!

1. Ease of use and simplicity

We hear a lot from customers that they love how easy it is to use Canto! Canto’s user-friendly interface, including its intuitive search bar, makes it approachable for all team members, no matter their technical background. And since everyone can quickly learn how to use Canto and access the assets they need, customers can happily say bye to bottlenecks.

At Cathay Pacific, ease of use was top of mind because the company needed to get employees with varying levels of technical background on board quickly.

“Many of the other DAM solutions we looked at had a million and one functions, but beyond having tools at our disposal, we wanted a platform that is intuitive to use and easy to manage. Regardless of whether the end user is working in marketing or engineering, the solution needed to be something we could roll out without extensive training,” says Daniel at Cathay Pacific.

Danner creative team needed an intuitive DAM solution that both internal team members and retail partners could use.

“Canto’s simplicity and ease of use were important factors in our decision,” says Jeff, creative producer at Danner. “Canto has become the go-to place to get the content we need. It’s easier and faster than the previous alternative.”

2. Visual interface

Hand-in-hand with ease of use, Canto is built with visual assets in mind. Creative and marketing professionals will feel right at home in Canto’s gallery view, which displays a grid of thumbnail previews of each asset.

The creative team at Yard House love Canto’s visual interface, because it was so similar to the physical lookbooks they used previously.

“Canto is the perfect tool for what we need. The visual gallery of viewing assets came so close to those books that I was building, which we needed to let our team see everything we have quickly. We didn’t just want a place to hold files; we wanted a lookbook,” says Sean, senior graphic designer at Yard House.

At Visit Seattle, the marketing team was confused and intimidated by their previous solution, which was too technical and nonvisual. Canto provided a friendlier alternative that everyone could use.

“Our previous solution had a lot of functionality, but it was very nonvisual – like seeing a wall of text without paragraph breaks or punctuation. That’s just not how people work,” says David, creative director at Visit Seattle.

3. “It checked all the boxes”

Small and large teams alike end up choosing Canto because it checks off all their boxes, with plenty of deep functionality to explore but without being overly complicated.

“Canto’s feature set was comprehensive of what we were looking for: a contemporary interface and a robust organization system utilizing a tree structure, along with strong search functionality and the ability to easily share content with outside users,” says Joe, digital asset manager at Inspirato.

“Canto was the solution that checked all our boxes without being too complex,” says Nicolai, photo editor at Favor. “We especially liked the folder structure and how easy it is to use.”

4. Value

Many organizations find that Canto is a sweet spot between what they need and what they’re willing to spend.

At Dia&Co, the creative team felt that Canto was a better value than their other options, checking off all their requirements while being affordable for the startup.

“Canto was a happy medium between pricing and functionality. The creative team was really satisfied with the service that Canto provided and we didn’t feel like we had to sacrifice what we wanted for the price. Canto had everything we needed, even though it was significantly cheaper than the other options we were exploring,” says Grace, creative producer at Dia&Co.

And for nonprofits, Canto provides robust functionality without going over budget.

“Canto was the best solution to help us meet our goals while using our limited resources efficiently,” says Susanna, communications director at Seattle Housing Authority.

5. Organization and metadata management

Teams that are evaluating DAM solutions often want to be able to organize and track their assets more efficiently – which they can’t do with a piecemeal system of servers, hard drives and cloud storage.

Canto offers a flexible, customizable folder and album structure, keywords and tagging, metadata management and digital rights management.

Seattle Aquarium decided it was time to invest in a DAM after the nonprofit ran into trouble with digital rights.

“We’re producing more and more content, so being able to properly organize it and assess the content created without wasting money was something that we really needed in place. The file system on our servers just wasn’t working anymore,” says Pam, digital marketing manager at Seattle Aquarium.