85% reduction in turn-around with Picdar’s Media Mogul®
Hasbro is the number one toy and games company in the UK and on the Continent. Its market leading products – from old favourites such as Action Man and Monopoly through to new arrivals like the Tweenies – are designed to be instantly recognisable around the world.
Visual images are key components in the company's promotional activities, so having a fast, efficient means of storing and supplying those brand assets is very important.
Diverse requirements across multiple regions
On any one day, for example, a request could come in from South Africa for a photo of Action Man dressed in jungle gear, while someone in Hungary could be looking for an illustration or photo of the game Connect 4. The Design centre Image Coordinator supplies images to twenty countries and on average receive anywhere between four and 40 orders a day.
From very labour intensive, manual processes …
In the past, this was a very manual process that was very labour intensive. Marketing companies would fax or email a form to request the image they wanted, without full knowledge about what was on offer. Staff at head office would have to spend time tracking down the particular required asset – a lot of which were in transparency form.
This could result in a lot of time wasted looking for the wrong image, since the person making the request had only a trade catalogue or the product packaging to go by.
Not any more. Now, Hasbro has uploaded all its digital product images onto CDs that enhance their digital workflow. However, in doing so the problems of visibility and access increased. Also, requests were frequently not from final asset users but on behalf of a PR or advertising agency. This would lead to failure to specify which format was appropriate.
… to an automated, highly streamlined digital solution
The company looked for an expandable solution that could make the process much more efficient and reduce the time spent searching, locating, and delivering assets.
At the outset, Hasbro loaded 5,000 images short and medium term product lines onto the new database. With Picdar Media Mogul’s® bulk edit facility the company could vacuum up lots of brand images and edit and annotate them as needed.
Picdar Media Mogul® allows users to view the whole collection of product images via the global corporate intranet so they can select the most appropriate asset for their requirement. Every brand image currently has a multitude of annotated fields associated to it and this enables straightforward and accurate searching and identification.
After a quick search, if users require a low-resolution image, perhaps as part of a marketing presentation, they can simply download it immediately from the intranet for local use. Larger orders for 50 - 100 high-resolution images that had previously taken a week to fulfil are now turned around within a day.
When someone requests brand images, they can be automatically collated and a design centre Image Co-ordinator then burns images to a CD to send, or sends via ISDN line, courier or post as requested.
The system also holds details of products to be launched in the longer term and it allows design staff to tag these items as confidential, so that only selected users can view them.
From hours to minutes: more immediate, better quality service
An order of, say, 10 images now takes 15 minutes to fulfil, compared with two hours previously. A larger order of 40 images, which would previously have required one to two days of effort, is ready in an hour and a half.
This way, Hasbro can give a much more immediate and better quality service, giving users what they want. Users can save previous searches for quick retrieval, review images at various sizes and request the image in jpeg or native file format such as Photoshop or Illustrator.
Reducing costs and concentrating on value-added activities
Picdar Media Mogul® has reduced the costs of supplying images and removed much of the mundane work involved and dramatically reduced administration, leaving design centre staff free to concentrate on more value-added activities.
"This system has transformed this area of service with an almost negligible learning curve for the co-ordinator and our thousands of users. Everyone has gained significantly from adopting this effective and elegant solution. …"
