situation

When Amy Ruffo joined renowned skincare brand Kiehl’s Since 1851 as VP of Global Creative Ops, she landed in the middle of a workflow gridlock. Without a centralized system to track communications, keep review rounds moving, and manage asset production with numerous agencies, her team was underwater trying to produce digital-first content while maintaining brand consistency. Amy had previously worked with Globaledit during her tenure at Victoria’s Secret and knew it was exactly what she needed to integrate, streamline, and modernize the photo production workflow at Kiehl’s.

“The product changed my relationship with photographers, retouchers, art directors, and producers by making it easy to share assets, select approvals, and communicate retouching notes.”

Amy Ruffo
VP, Global Creative Operations

solution

Amy had to secure buy-in from L’Oréal, and made a strong case by identifying key challenges, missed opportunities, and potential cost savings, and collaborating with stakeholders across creative, ops, finance, and senior leadership to map out a comprehensive workflow. Together, they identified the ways in which Globaledit would transform their production process. As a result, their new photo production process is built to support a high volume of assets, manage retouching from multiple external partners, and ensure consistency throughout the entire funnel.

“The team was craving a tool that gave everyone clarity, transparency, and speed. We needed a tool that could fully support us, not a band-aid.”

accelerating approvals & keeping everyone on the same page

Kiehl’s’ updated workflow aligns reviews and approvals at a senior level and then distributes final assets to the downstream users. The team also utilizes Globaledit’s tagging tools to speed up review cycles; each person @ mentions the next internal or external owner in Globaledit when their own process is complete, immediately prompting the next person in the workstream to be notified via email and in-app. Because Kiehl’s works with quick retouching turnarounds and constant content pushes while also producing evergreen brand imagery, Globaledit’s ability to support different formats and workflows is invaluable.

clear, productive collaboration

Globaledit’s collaborative features and edit history not only keep the Kiehl’s team organized; they also double as a teaching tool for new team members and agencies. By having the entire Kiehl’s library in a centralized space, users can view all edit history, notes, and versioning helps them to quickly understand the creative feedback shaping the Kiehl’s brand vision.

effectively managing external partners

Globaledit’s markup and timestamping tools give the Kiehl’s team the level of granularity they need to effectively direct retouching rounds. Instead of dealing with physical prints and markups or being forced to use project management tools that don’t offer the level of detail needed for photo production, the team can now store, compare, and track changes on all versions of an asset, making the retouching process faster and more efficient.

Globaledit addressed Kiehl’s’ challenges by providing a centralized, scalable platform for managing its photo production process. As they look toward the future, Ruffo and her team plan to lean further into Globaledit’s advanced markup, metadata tagging, and user management features to drive more efficiency and produce even more dynamic content.