Challenges
The Houston Texans generate a tremendous amount of images, videos, and creative content. In a single game day alone, their photographers easily capture over 10,000 photos of fans, cheerleaders, players, game-time action, and more. And although they cut these photos down to around 1,500 to 2,000 “winners,” the volume and content demands were still too much for their digital asset management (DAM) solution to handle.
“The previous DAM solution was almost non-existent. People couldn’t find what they needed. The interface was painfully slow. If you did find what you need, it was hard to get it. It was hard to send it to people. It was hard to download it yourself,” recalled Zach Tarrant, Team Photographer at the Houston Texans. “The tool just wasn’t a good fit for the team.”
As a result, the Texans struggled to easily get all of the people inside and outside their organization the digital assets they needed. This meant that everyone from their marketing and PR teams to coaches, players, media contacts, and other collaborators had a harder time telling the Texan’s brand story.
Objectives
Access
Easily extend assets to a wide variety of internal and external collaborators.
Storytelling
Help people quickly discover the perfect images for their needs.
Speed
Make game day photography available as fast as possible.
Branding
Ensure that brand standards and consistency are upheld.
Solution
A proven partner
The DAM challenges facing the Texans are not uncommon. In fact, Zach himself had dealt with many of the same content struggles during his time with another NFL team, the Minnesota Vikings. Having helped the Vikings overcome their DAM issues, Zach knew just the solution — the Widen Collective.
In 2018, the Texans swapped their old DAM platform for the solution that Zach knew and loved during his time with the Vikings. The Collective now stores all of the Texan’s recent digital assets in a reliable, single source of truth for anyone to quickly access.
A storytelling solution
Users can easily search the Collective to find or discover digital assets based on very specific needs and search parameters, such as jersey color, player, and more. “People don’t always know exactly what they’re looking for,” says Zach. “They know what kind of story they want to tell. They know what they want the images to accomplish. Having this good tool empowers me to use the knowledge that I already have about our library to help them accomplish their goals with imagery.”
“Honestly, the relationships with the people that work for Widen have been some of my favorite.”
Zach Tarrant,
Manager of Photography and Team Photographer at Houston Texans
Benefits
Speed to market
The Texans no longer stress about getting critical, time-sensitive images out to the world. Within minutes, Zach and his fellow photographers can snap a photo, upload it to the Collective, tag it, and ensure that it’s accessible for colleagues and partners to use anywhere and everywhere. “If there’s a touchdown catch from a certain player on Sunday, by the end of the day on Monday that touchdown catch picture will pop up,” shares Zach.
Widespread access
Whether it’s a player needing a photo to post on Instagram, a coach looking for inspirational imagery, or anyone else needing content, the Collective delivers. Zach explains, “as Widen has made it easier for people to find and leverage imagery, the more it’s become an increasingly important part of how they do their job.”
A winning investment
“I’ve got a lot of really good, positive feedback,” says Zach about the Collective. “You can just see it happening. You can see the total number of downloads going up. People are downloading things immediately. They know where it’s at. They’re used to the system. Adoption was quick and easy.”
Brand consistency
The Collective ensures that people only use approved, up-to-date videos, images, marketing collateral, creative content, and other digital assets. “It allows our stakeholders to quickly and easily adhere to internal brand standards,” states Zach. “And I think that’s something that anybody can relate to no matter what kind of company they work for.”
Assets
Insights
Portals
