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.”
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
