While COVID has affected most businesses, it has been particularly hard on those that sell products for the physical ‘brick and mortar’ world. One company that literally fits that bill is our Australian customer James Hardie, the largest global manufacturer of fibre cement products used in both domestic and commercial construction. These are materials that its buyers ideally want to see up close, in detail. When customers have questions, they expect personal service.
The COVID lockdowns mean that James Hardie’s customers – hardware stores, builders, property developers, architects, and consumers – increasingly rely on the company’s online channels for product information and advice. Therefore it is crucial that its online experiences are constantly kept up to date with all the latest interior and exterior home design trends and product offerings.
To address these challenges, James Hardie Australia needed a user-friendly Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution that its nontechnical team could implement quickly and start creating, managing and sharing complex image folders at scale. Cloudinary’s DAM fit the bill perfectly, allowing James Hardie to quickly and easily create a new asset lifecycle, where all new images are immediately saved, filed and tagged according to a clear framework and shared with all stakeholders.
Today James Hardie uses Cloudinary as a streamlined digital repository for all of its image assets, easily accessible to multiple teams across Australia, including its network of customers and end users.
“With Cloudinary, the lifespan of an asset, from photoshoot through to publication, has halved; even better, the marketing team has shaved significant administrative hours from its to-do lists, ensuring they stay focused on what really matters,” said Monica Ikladios, Head of Digital, James Hardie Building Products Australia. “Having the ability to control what imagery and assets we’re allowed to share, and where, is crucial for us. In the old system, there was no clear understanding of what you could and couldn’t use, particularly with regards to legal permissions. With Cloudinary, that problem has been completely solved.”
A copy of an in-depth case study of James Hardie Australia’s work with Cloudinary is available for download here.
