Catalina Marketing integrates NetXposure’s Digital Asset Management solution into its existing creative workflow to support and expand its business
For more than 20 years, Catalina Marketing Corporation has been the world leader in behavior-based marketing solutions, helping consumer products companies target consumers based on their purchase
behavior by printing communications at the point-of-sale. Combining unparalleled insight into consumer behavior with dynamic consumer access, Catalina provides marketers at major retail outlets and consumer products manufacturers with the ability to execute cost-effective behavior-based loyalty programs, incentives, advertising and customer analysis. Personally identifiable data that may be collected from the company’s targeted marketing programs, as well as its research programs, are never sold or provided to any outside party.
This innovative approach allows marketers to ensure that the right consumer receives the right message at exactly the right time, and generate a significantly higher response rate. For example, using historical purchase information from Catalina’s decision-support database, Catalina can deliver printed communications in the form of coupons, messages and advertisements to shoppers directly at the checkout. Each print is uniquely targeted to the individual’s shopping behavior.
Catalina’s Challenge – Need for ‘More than Just an Image Repository’
In July 2006, Catalina began the transformation from printing on black and white thermal printers to full-color, full-graphics ink jet printers. Since the initial printer rollout, more than 140,000 color printers have been installed in the Catalina network, and the number continues to grow.
The new state-of-the-art technology allows both retailers and consumer goods manufacturers to deliver dynamic, colorful messages with appealing product images to distinct targeted consumer segments, improving the efficiency of in-store promotions and brand-building efforts.
With thousands of product images from consumer goods manufacturers to store, track and repurpose for its marketing service offerings, Catalina recognized the need to standardize on an enterprise-class digital asset management (DAM) system. However, as Dave Larson, Catalina’s senior director of Creative Services, began scoping asset management needs, he quickly realized the company needed more than a repository for files and digital graphics.
“We needed more than just a container for files,” said Larson. “We needed an asset management system that we could integrate with our workflow processes.”
The ideal DAM system needed to interface with Catalina’s existing order entry system and data warehouse to link product images with Catalina’s proprietary consumer behavior data. For the North American market alone, Catalina retrieves about 250 million transactions per week, across more than 22,000 major grocery retailers. It manages one of the largest databases in the world, containing purchase histories of over 100 million household IDs.
Further, the system needed to be used by many different creative services employees across multiple departments, and within globally dispersed locations. The system also had to be cost effective, and easy install, use and maintain.
After careful evaluation of multiple digital asset management solutions, Catalina chose NetXposure Image Portal, a web-based digital asset management system.
NetXposure – Taking Creative Workflow to New Levels
“In choosing NetXposure, we knew we could customize the system to fit our needs,” said Larson. Catalina’s Creative Services team, including 11 graphic designers, four account executives and seven production liaisons, use NetXposure daily to store, create, repurpose and share assets internally and externally. The department leverages NetXposure’s robust asset management functionality out of the box including advanced search capabilities, flexible metadata capture, auto-tasking, check in/check out and version control.
NetXposure’s open architecture enables Catalina to integrate the DAM system with its existing infrastructure and processes to deliver powerful workgroup collaboration. Web Services components and built-in integration with leading third-party imaging technology ensures that Image Portal can tie directly into virtually any applications, from proprietary legacy applications to databases, to the most popular creative design tools from leading vendors. Catalina is also working to extend the DAM to clients, allowing them to upload and select graphics through a business-to-business portal to improve the efficiency of the order entry process.
For example, Catalina’s creative designers can access more than 36,000 digital assets stored in the NetXposure Image Portal repository directly from any of the Adobe Creative Suite applications. They can then edit, repurpose and assign metadata, which is linked to Catalina’s data warehouse. Creative workflow is never interrupted; only made more powerful by connecting Catalina’s creative teams directly to the assets from within their editing tools. Additionally, NetXposure’s flexible and sophisticated metadata capabilities enable Catalina to categorize and tag the images with custom specification data including product descriptions, brands and coupon numbers. This allows Catalina to ensure the proper assets are used with the right campaigns, as well as track how consumers react to particular pictures, colors and graphic, ultimately contributing to more effective consumer communication at the point-of-sale.
“It was a pleasant surprise to find NetXposure code well-designed and easy to work with,” said Jim Clack, an architect of Application Development at Catalina. “The company’s adherence to standards, consistent APIs, and use of design patterns was a great help. We found no land mines; everything worked as well as one could hope.”
Benefits – Extending Creative Workflow to Support Business
Working with NetXposure’s services team, Catalina has customized NetXposure to not only manage its digital assets but integrate the solution with its existing infrastructure and workflow. Benefits include:
Increased efficiency and productivity across the company.
Web-based collaboration and workflow automation enables departments to create, store, search, repurpose, share and deliver images more efficiently and effectively.
Improved ability to repurpose assets resulting in cost reduction.
Integration with existing software such as Adobe Graphics Server and proprietary custom applications enables Catalina to automate and accelerate the creation and repurposing of images.
Expanded business opportunities and improved service to customers.
NetXposure plays an important role in supporting Catalina’s delivery of targeted, full-color communications to consumers at the point-of-sale, which is having a significant impact on Catalina’s bottom line. Catalina estimates that the delivery of in-store color promotion coupons increases redemption rates by more than 30 percent.
“We’re integrating NetXposure into our daily business, accessing the power of the system through other systems,” said Larson. “It has the ability to be more than a standalone digital asset manager. It’s helped us think outside the box to help support and expand the way Catalina does business.”