Pictures paint a thousand words
Pictures paint a thousand words
November/December Edition, 2007: For a company that markets itself off an extensive image library, getting access and simplicity right is essential for customer communications. Tait Electronics worked with DataBasics to learn and effectively utilise the extensive features available on digital asset management system, Cumulus.
From a base in New Zealand, Tait Electronics provide advanced voice and data radio communication solutions to utilities, transport, public safety and government industries. It’s a distribution strategy that relies on catalogues both online and off to ensure clients in even the most remote parts of the world have access to Tait’s product range.
Capturing the spicks and specs
Images are a big part of the process. Especially given the company’s location and the organisations it services. It’s important that images are easily obtained in order to promote the products internationally.
“Images enhance our marketing materials and demonstrate that the radios perform well across different industries and in different scenarios,” says Janine McNeill, marketing communications manager, Tait Electronics.
The effects of images also have a long-lasting psychological effect on the buyer. They are often the first point of contact for a customer and will be the colourful source that captures a buyer.
Given Tait deal with specialised electronic equipment, the images are not your regular product shots. Different aspects are important for different angles and specifically, the accessory images (involving cables, wires and microphones) are taken in a permanently established studio onsite while professional photographers capture the more general product shots.
Meanwhile application shots are their own entity and from a Tait point of view, require a person to be included to demonstrate how the radio or accessory works in different scenarios.
For Tait, providing the images to customers, dealers and staff was becoming a time-consuming process. “I would usually hunt for the images on our directory in several different locations,” says McNeill. “This was dangerous as some images on the directory were out of date. If the image could not be found I may then have to contact other people in the company which then consumed their time.”
Once the images were sourced, Tait would send them to the appropriate receiver through email, or by uploading to an FTP server or if too large, via CD/DVD. This whole process delayed the request for an image and the time it took for eyes to sight the image, ultimately hindering the flow of the purchasing decision.
Portraits in the gallery
A little over a year ago, Tait started working with a digital asset management system called Cumulus in order to speed up the image to market time delay. More recently however, Tait realised they were not using the product to its full potential and requested some help from distributors DataBasics, over in Australia.
Tait have now has their image library integrated into their main Website and formed an alliance with DataBasics who have provided on-site training service and consulting. Ultimately the assistance from Databasics allowed Tail to customise the look and feel of their Web image library on the front-end of the Website.
McNeill admits the implementation process became a lot more complicated than expected and dragged the project out longer than anticipated. The technology required staff members to come on board from an IT perspective who could assist with the server setup, troubleshooting and web publishers. Training was the key, with McNeill gaining some assistance from DataBasics and reading up on the product to discover the true capacity of Cumulus and understand its functionality.
“A tick in the wrong box can cause a lot of problems,” says McNeill. “We had a lot of problems trying to setup the image library – many of which were technical, and some from being unfamiliar with the tools.”
Although the learning curve was extensive, the project was successfully communicated to staff and the overall reaction has been that Cumulus is a good tool for the company, “with many clear benefits about saving time and costs locating images,” says McNeill.
Tait incorporated the image library into their website known as ‘TaitWorld,’ by redirecting the URL and making it more like another aspect of the existing site. From here, Tait are gearing up to launch the Partner Resource programme to ultimately complement the image library through a specific area for partners and dealers who can access further information not generally available online.