Agency Case Study
How one major advertising agency delivered faster response to clients.
With more certainty, less stress and less cost.
The client
is a worldwide, full service agency with some of Australia’s most iconic brands on their roster. Their in-house production department produce several terabytes of content each month.
The challenge came with the transition from magnetic tape to capturing content digitally.
At first it seemed easier – instead of cataloguing and archiving tapes, content could just be kept on hard drives, instantly available. But over time issues emerged.
The sheer volume of assets – camera rushes, masters, submasters, artwork and related files – became overwhelming. Storage was an ongoing headache. As the number of hard drives grew, most were disconnected and stored on shelves or in cupboards. Exactly the kind of environment which leads to increased hard drive failure.
Just as frustrating was the time it took to locate a file when they needed it – for example, to re-format or re-title a submaster for a different market.
Recognising the need to secure and manage their valuable content from shoot to final master, the agency reached out to Preferred Media for assistance.
They chose Preferred Media because
we were their long time physical archive partner. They trusted us with their data, as they had trusted us with their film and tape for many years. Plus, using Preferred Media meant all assets, digital and physical, would be looked after by one partner.
The solution
was a Production Archive Management Plan, designed and tailored to their needs.
The Plan: All media content is sent to Preferred Media on Hard Drives as soon as the shoot is complete, with masters and other content following when available.
Hard Drives are stored for 6 months in PM’s climate-controlled vault – providing quick access while the project is still active. During this time, the content is ingested into Preferred Media’s digital asset management systems, so the hard drives can be returned to the client and re-used.
The legacy content is fully annotated with project metadata including the agency key and job numbers. It’s fully searchable online and accessible by restore if needed.
The benefits
for the agency include:
- • Find media files in minutes not hours using online search facility
- • Know formats instantly, so they can respond better to clients about the need for digitization or restore activity
- • Easier and simpler to re-use footage for food shots, pack shots etc.
- • End-to-end solution includes digitisation where required
- • Reduced requirement for hard drives and storage space
- • Unified solution for all media formats
- • Ensures content is available upon client request
- • Established process reduces confusion and ensures all their client content is backed up and available when required