Canto > Case Studies > Revamping Digital Asset Management: A Case Study on This Old House

Revamping Digital Asset Management: A Case Study on This Old House

Technology Category

Functional Applications - Enterprise Asset Management Systems (EAM)
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Storage Services

Applicable Industries

Buildings
Cement

Use Cases

Asset Health Management (AHM)
Facial Recognition

Services

System Integration

About The Customer

This Old House is a prominent brand in the home renovation industry with a wide range of media outlets. The brand has two TV shows, a print magazine, podcasts, and a significant amount of digital content. Their first TV show, This Old House, has aired for 42 seasons on PBS, featuring old houses that the team renovates alongside the homeowners. The brand also undertakes construction projects – Idea Houses and Project Houses. Idea Houses are built from the ground up and showcase the newest technology and trends, while Project Houses are old homes that the crew restores to their former glory. The brand uses photos from these projects for their website, print magazine, social media, partner websites, and streaming platforms.

The Challenge

This Old House, a renowned name in the home renovation industry, was facing a significant challenge with their outdated photography archive. The brand, which has a vast array of media outlets including two TV shows, a print magazine, podcasts, and a plethora of digital content, was struggling with an inefficient and outdated system of photo storage and organization. The photography archive, which was crucial for the brand's various platforms, was stored in file cabinets filled with disks. This made accessing specific photos a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. The Photography Director, Meg Reinhardt, who was responsible for producing every shoot and ensuring visuals stayed on-brand, found it increasingly difficult to fulfill internal and external asset requests. The system also led to a repetitive use of a small number of images instead of fresh content. The challenge was to bring this outdated system into the 21st century and make the vast digital archive easily accessible.

The Solution

The solution came in the form of Canto, a digital asset management system. Meg chose Canto for its robust features and appealing price point. Canto was used as a historical archive for their 42 seasons of This Old House, 19 seasons of Ask This Old House, and 140 issues of This Old House magazine. They stored 250,000 assets in Canto, a number that continues to grow as the brand expands. Meg used a folder tree to organize their media library and added metadata, like keywords and tags, to help users find exactly what they needed within seconds. Canto's global search function and facial recognition feature further streamlined the search process. Meg also created a Portal outside of their main library that included important brand assets and recent project photos. This Portal was shared with the marketing team, allowing various departments across the brand to access the Portal and self-serve any photos or logos they needed. External workflows were also made easier with Upload Links and Share Links, making external asset requests fulfilled in minutes.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Canto has significantly improved the operational efficiency of This Old House. The brand now has a centralized, organized, and easily accessible digital archive. This has not only streamlined the process of finding and using photos but also reduced the time spent on fulfilling internal and external asset requests. The use of Canto has also facilitated cross-departmental collaboration, with various departments being able to self-serve any photos or logos they need. This has reduced the workload on the Photography Director, allowing her to focus more on producing shoots and ensuring visuals stay on-brand. The brand has also seen an improvement in the freshness of content used, with a wider variety of images being used instead of a repetitive use of a small number of images. Overall, Canto has helped This Old House overhaul their photography archive and improve their brand identity.

Quantitative Benefit

250,000 assets stored in Canto, with the number continuously growing
42 seasons of This Old House, 19 seasons of Ask This Old House, and 140 issues of This Old House magazine archived
Significant reduction in time spent on searching for specific photos