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Advertising Agency Managing Creative Editing and Design
Company Situation
This company operates within the advertising industry, featuring a creative team composed of editors, creative directors, and designers. Their team is distributed across multiple offices, with a significant portion of their workforce collaborating remotely. Their workflows require flexible access to large media files and assets, supporting both in-office and remote editing and review.
Existing Workflow
The company currently relies on a combination of on-premises local servers and cloud storage solutions such as Dropbox, supplemented with physical external drives (e.g., 8TB drives) to facilitate editing. Remote workers access files primarily through VPN connections to the local servers. For review and approval, the team utilizes Vimeo to share finished or in-progress edits with companies via links. Search and asset organization depend mainly on job numbers and file naming conventions, with no formal MAM or DAM system in place.
Issues with the Existing Workflow
Working over VPN to access on-prem servers introduces latency and speed issues, causing delays and inefficiencies.
Use of multiple storage types (local servers, Dropbox, external drives) creates fragmented workflows, requiring tool hopping and manual file management.
Reliance on file naming conventions and job numbers limits the ability to quickly search and retrieve assets, impacting productivity.
Review and approval via Vimeo links lacks integration with the core asset storage, creating a disconnected feedback loop.
Physical drives are used to mitigate server lag but add complexity to version control and collaboration.
How Shade Would Change Their Workflow
Shade offers a unified platform that consolidates storage, review, and AI-powered search into one seamless environment. It presents cloud storage that appears as a local Thunderbolt drive to any operating system, enabling editors to stream media files directly without full downloads, significantly improving speed and accessibility. The platform supports multiple drives and workspaces, allowing for organized project and company-based asset management. Shade also integrates review and approval workflows directly into the system, enhancing collaboration and reducing dependency on external tools like Vimeo. The AI search functionality simplifies asset discovery beyond basic file names or job numbers, streamlining creative workflows.
Benefits
- Eliminates VPN-related latency by providing fast, cloud-based streaming access to large media files.
- Reduces tool hopping with a single platform for storage, search, and review/approval.
- Improves asset organization and retrieval through AI-driven search capabilities.
- Enables remote and in-office teams to collaborate effortlessly with consistent, accessible storage.
- Simplifies version control and reduces reliance on physical external drives.
- Supports cross-platform usage (Mac, Windows, Linux) for diverse creative environments.