We integrated Pimcore DAM for a large furniture manufacturer to reduce the cost of digital assets

Client

A major Russian manufacturer and retailer of healthy sleep products (the brand accounts for 48% of the market), furniture and household goods.

The company's production facilities are located in the Vladimir Region and Novosibirsk. The client's product range includes more than 500 million items.

Problem: The customer had to pay more to re-produce content, and it could take up to two business days to find the right media files

Dozens and sometimes hundreds of digital assets of various types are associated with each of the more than 500 million items in the client's assortment. These can be product photos, videos, promotional materials, and some types of documents. In the absence of a unified system for storing and managing digital assets, these resources were stored in different places: on employees' desktops, on employees' Google Drive, or in other cloud storages.

This approach to storing digital information has created several problems for businesses.

1. Lack of shared scalable storage for large amounts of files.
   ‍The client processes, creates and stores up to 80 TB of various media per year — millions of images, videos, and other pieces of content. In the absence of a centralized repository for such a volume of digital assets, it is difficult to take into account doses of possible media storage locations within a company. The ability to scale storage also plays an important role: in 2022 alone, more than 580 new product items were launched, which means that the number of media files is also growing.
2. A long search for the right content.
   ‍Despite the fact that some of the company's digital assets were centrally stored in the corporate cloud, its search capabilities were limited. For example, to find a product photo, you had to know exactly what name it was saved under in the cloud, as there are no search criteria or filters.
3. Content reproduction costs.
   ‍Since the media files were distributed in different repositories, no one in the company knew the exact number and content of all digital assets. Therefore, representatives of different departments (for example, retail and marketing), unable to find the files they needed, sometimes re-ordered the same filming — complex and expensive.
4. Penalties for improper use of photos and videos.
   ‍Sometimes content has restrictions on use, for example, photos with an artist cannot be used in some regions or the contract for using videos with a “star” is limited in time. However, the rules for using such files were kept separately from the files themselves. Therefore, the client's departments could unknowingly use such materials after the contract expired or in regions not listed in the agreement. According to the client, the fines for using such materials in advertising amount to about 3.5 million rubles per year.

Objective: to integrate into the company's outline a single repository for all media with the ability to quickly search

As part of the pre-project phase, the KT.team, together with the client, formulated a list of requirements for the future digital asset storage system:

• digital assets in storage should be available to internal and external users;
• it is necessary to keep all assets in one place in a structured manner;
• employees should be able to find the right content on their own and quickly (using search and filters);
• assets that are out of date or require any restrictions on use should have a description of the restrictions attached to them;
• The company's IT department should be able to independently configure and maintain the system;
• the speed of uploading, downloading, archiving files should be high.

Project architecture

Taking into account the initial requirements for integration, an open-source solution for managing digital assets, Pimcore DAM, was chosen. It can be used to store, search and organize the company's digital assets. In addition, the open-source nature of the solution allows you to quickly configure or develop the missing system tools from scratch.

The solution architecture was developed taking into account the customer's initial tasks. The KT.team used Pimcore for the project. The architecture includes a server that houses the Kubernetes orchestra for managing applications. Kubernetes manages Pimcore, RabbitMQ, Redis, and Filebeat. A separate element of the architecture is file storage (abbreviated as “data storage system”). This type of storage was used in the project, since server disks, as the most secure solution, were purchased by the client before the project started. The Elasticsearch search engine is used to collect logs.

After adjusting the customer's requirements for the system, it became clear that some elements of the originally agreed architecture were not quite suitable for the new inputs. In order not only to store and search for media, but to quickly upload, download and archive files, it is more expedient to use the S3 cloud storage system as storage instead of server-side storage. The implementation of these updates will be the next phase of the project.

It took about seven months from the development of the MVP to the release of the product into commercial operation. At the same time, the refinement of the system in agreement with the customer continues, and the team plans to adjust the product architecture to improve performance.

Result 1: Scalable media storage with easy navigation has been implemented

Previously, thousands of media files were stored in different sources, but now most digital assets are located in a single repository — DAM.

Each file is linked to a specific article from the customer's product range. The files are tagged to help you narrow down your search results.

In the DAM system, it is convenient for the client company's employees to search for files by custom attributes. It can be easily scaled to a larger amount of content by connecting additional resources.

Result 2: The search time for media files in the system was reduced from 16 hours to several minutes

Before implementing Pimcore DAM, it could take several business days to find the files you were looking for. First, we needed to find out which employees could potentially be responsible for creating the content, then understand exactly where the content was saved and whether it could be accessed again. If the employee who saved the content was on vacation or quit at the time, it was almost impossible to get to the right files. For example, marketers often had to spend a lot of time searching for images at the expense of direct promotion and sales.

Now files are stored centrally in one system — DAM. You can find them in a few minutes using individually configured filters using your personal account. Even if content is stored in different folders, users can view search results in one window.

To make the client's work with contractors faster and more convenient, the KT.team has developed a function to transfer materials to external users via a link.

Result 3: It is easy to determine whether there is ready-made content for the item

Due to the distributed storage of media files, it used to be difficult to find out what content was available for each item. Because of this, sometimes there were situations when shooting the same product with the same stories was ordered several times. For example, first, the content manager of the division, then the marketing department, which did not have access to previous files. The cost of re-production is the development of scripts, the work of a photographer, models, designers, renting a studio...

With the introduction of Pimcore DAM, employees of any department can find all media files linked to a product line or a specific item in a few minutes, view and find out if the ready-to-made files include those that meet their goals. This allows you to make a decision to produce media files only when you really need it and reduces the cost of re-production.

Result 4: by restricting the use of media files, the client saves about 3.5 million rubles per year

The client regularly attracts models and celebrities for filming. In both cases, the company enters into a contract that specifies the time and territorial limits for using photos and videos, as well as acceptable media. For example, the “star” agreed to use photos for online advertising, but did not agree to leaflets or booklets.

The contracts with the terms of use were kept separate from the materials themselves. Therefore, sometimes the client's employees, who were not aware of the restrictions on a particular shoot, used photo and video materials after the contract period, in regions not specified in the contracts, or on unspecified media. Prior to the introduction of Pimcore DAM, the client spent about 3.5 million rubles per year on fines for using such media files in their advertising campaigns or social networks.

To avoid the use of irrelevant media, KT.team has developed a status system: “can be used”, “limited use”, “use is prohibited”. The status of each digital asset appears in search results. The limited-use asset card indicates the type of restriction: by time, method of use, and territory. If a resource is not allowed to be used, it is automatically watermarked and cannot be uploaded.

After the new storage facility was put into commercial operation in November 2022, the company did not receive a single such fine.