Success story

Equip Outdoor Technologies

Industry:

Retail

Headquarters:

Derbyshire, UK

Website:

equipuk.com

The team behind Rab and Lowe Alpine enhance retail partner experience with Canto

Equip Outdoor Technologies is the driving force behind brands Rab and Lowe Alpine. The company designs and manufactures quality clothing and equipment for outdoor enthusiasts. Their active customer base includes rock climbers, skiers, mountain bikers, hikers and alpinists.

Georgina Reed, Equip’s graphic designer, and Giles Polito, Equip’s commercial director, work together to make the Rab and Lowe Alpine brands market leaders. In addition to her graphic design work, Georgina oversees the product images, and Giles is responsible for all commercial projects, including direct-to-consumer marketing for both brands.

The goal

Improve the asset retrieval experience for external retail partners to encourage them to self-serve.

The result

Equip makes a positive impression on retailers by establishing an accessible space for them to easily find and download content.

Goal: Simplicity and centrality for external partners

As a clothing and equipment manufacturer, Equip relies heavily on digital content to market its products and strengthen their relationships with retail partners. It’s critical for the marketing team to ensure that their retail partners get the assets they need on time.

The team used to store digital assets on DVDs, which they would then send to their partners in the mail. This was too slow-moving for the fast-paced industry, so the team established a digital storage solution.

They began using a product content network and soon realized that it wasn’t as convenient as they expected. Georgina says, “It just wasn’t working for us. We were wasting a lot of time writing emails to people or talking to them on the phone explaining how to use it.”

Two persons hiking on a mountain.

Equip decided they needed a platform that enhanced their partners’ experiences with the Rab and Lowe Alpine brands. They began searching for an easy-to-use solution that worked for them, not against them. Giles says, “Whatever platforms we use, we don’t need them to be difficult to manage. They need to be an asset and make our lives easier.”

Enter Canto: A solution everyone feels confident using

Equip now uses Canto as a central library for all product imagery, including lifestyle and studio images, brand logos, training tools and product text.

After photographers get the product shots they need, two internal admins, one for Rab and one for Lowe Alpine, upload the content to Canto. Equip has retail partners in over 40 countries, so there are countless people who need to download this content. Equip’s partners search Canto for assets to populate their own websites, design print-based catalogues and create shop displays.

Screenshot of the Canto media library of Equip.

Content delivery via Portals

The team adds new content to portals each season. They currently use one portal for each brand, Rab and Lowe Alpine. Canto portals allow them to not just separate seasonal and brand assets, but also to separate their internal content from their external content.

Georgina says, “When we set up new users we only give them access to the portals, so that anything in the main library can only be seen by the people we specifically give library access to, usually just our own staff members.”

The next step for the team with Canto is to set up an additional portal so they can make pre-season content available to specific retail partners who require information early.

Empowering internal and external stakeholders to self-serve

Equip chose Canto to ensure internal and external stakeholders can find, access and download digital assets with ease. Giles says, “It’s just seamless. Everybody’s using it. It’s all happening in one place and everybody’s confident it’s the best place to find the images that they need.”

A man climbing a frozen mountainside.

What stands out the most for the team is the amount of time saved by utilizing a system that’s quick and easy for everyone to use.

“The difference is the lack of emails or phone calls from our partners or employees struggling to use the system,” Georgina says. “The previous system was not very user-friendly and most days we had people asking how to login, how to find images or just not finding an image that we knew was there. Canto seems to work for all our partners. Everyone is able to use it with ease. It’s saving a huge amount of time not having to answer all those emails and questions.”

Giles Polito, Commercial Director at Equip.

Our customers are finding it easier to use. And if it’s easier to use, it’s easy for us to do business with our customers.

Giles PolitoCommercial Director

Results: Strengthening relationships with retailers

Canto helps Equip effectively disperse their Rab and Lowe Alpine product content by providing a central space and smooth search and download process. Giles says, “Our customers are finding it easier to use. And if it’s easier to use, it’s easy for us to do business with our customers.”

Equip’s marketing teams have also saved time by eliminating technical questions from retail partners. Georgina says, “Canto is saving us so much time, which in the end is saving us money because we’re not doing something that isn’t really the job we should be doing.”

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