the situation

New Balance likes to joke that they act like a 118 year old startup because they’re always willing to try something new and value the entrepreneurial spirit.

Today, the brand relies on its photo studio, the “Content Factory,” to photograph thousands of SKUs in a year, with many images per SKU. A few years ago, production was outsourced overseas, internal processes were run through disconnected apps and hard drives, and no formal sample management or asset management system was in place (think post-its). The team lacked visibility and was constantly working through rigid external processes and delayed shipments—leading to long approval rounds, limited creative control, and slow responses to consumer demand.

In keeping with the brand’s spirit, Content Factory Studio Manager Tori Arnold set out with her team of 3 to bring New Balance’s e-comm production in-house. They decided to make Globaledit the center of their post-production process, using the platform as the foundation, and expanding efficiency by integrating with other process-specific tools. Ultimately the team created a process that allowed them to be agile and produce content at the scale and quality that New Balance represents.

the solution

To get started, the New Balance team outlined key requirements for their updated workflow:

• Automated metadata tagging via an integration with their sample management system
• Easily searchable assets
• An accurate rating system
• Gallery view of assets
• Granular comments/retouching notes
• Smooth integration with their Digital Asset Management system

With this in mind, the Globaledit team designed an end-to-end workflow to meet all of the Content Factory’s needs and integrate with their essential systems. Globaledit syncs with New Balance’s external photography service and sample management system for seamless asset ingestion and automatic metadata tagging. Globaledit also integrates with New Balance’s external retouching support, with all retouching rounds being synced to Globaledit for the New Balance team to review and approve directly in-platform. The current setup automatically pushes assets from Globaledit to New Balance’s DAM as soon as they are approved, helping Tori and her team maintain control over approvals while ensuring other teams can immediately access final content.

This integrated workflow has also empowered other teams across digital and marketing to work more efficiently. Marketing teams can now review assets and make selects for their own productions, and easily share approval galleries to athletes and ambassadors for immediate feedback. Allowing other departments to self-serve has given the Content Factory team more bandwidth to focus on their work and additional time to take on more marketing productions.

“The integrations and customization that we’ve built into Globaledit has saved us so much time. We’ve probably saved 1,000 hours in the last year on metadata alone.”

Tori Arnold, Content Factory Manager

looking ahead

Today, Globaledit has become a cornerstone of New Balance’s content production process. With dozens of users across multiple teams, they upload thousands of assets per month and maintain an extensive library of assets in the platform.

“Globaledit really is our source of truth. We can see if something’s been shot, if there are any retouching notes, reference previous versions, and give feedback all in one place.”