Over more than a century, Cottar’s has amassed a substantial library of images, and they add more every year. “It’s a huge stash, and we realized that we really need to organize those images better,” says Karen. She needed an easier way to find photos – and to open the library up to partners in other countries.
“We work with a lot of travel agents,” Karen explains. “They always want our most up-to-date images, or they need different sizes and resolutions.”
Travel agents rely on Cottar’s luxurious and vibrant photos to paint a vivid picture of the safari experience, so keeping them supplied with up-to-date images and videos is essential. The team initially used Dropbox to share this content with external partners, but as the requests became more frequent, that became unsustainable. “We were sending out a lot of different images to a lot of different people,” says Karen. “So keeping them organized and easy to find became much more important.”
When a marketing rep introduced her to Canto, Karen knew she’d found the perfect solution. “It’s just a lot more streamlined,” she notes. “If someone wants an image of a bush bath, I don’t have to remember what folder I put it in, scroll through everything, find different options and put them in a Dropbox folder. I just type in ‘bush bath’ and they’re all there.”
In addition to helping Karen manage image requests more quickly, Canto also cuts down on the number of requests she receives to begin with. Thanks to a public image portal, travel agents and marketing reps now have constant access to an up-to-date collection of Cottar’s most compelling photos and videos.
“It’s basically taken me out as a middleman,” says Karen. “If a marketing rep or a travel agent needs an image to show a customer, they can just send it to them straight away without having to go through me or double-check that it’s right.” With travel agents self-serving from the library, customers don’t have to wait. Photos and videos draw them into Cottar’s award-winning safari experience right away.
The portal also includes brand guidelines, so travel agents and marketing reps know how to use the assets they’re accessing. And if they need the Cottar’s logo, font or colors, they’re right there too.
