PhotoShelter for Brands is one of the simplest and fastest digital asset management platforms built for visual media. They empower effortless visual storytelling by providing seamless, customizable access to a powerful media library, centralizing your team’s assets and radically optimizing the way you communicate your brand story. At Stacks, we help people and organizations who are passionate about their photos, videos, and other creative assets do more with them. With 15 years in the cloud and more than 500 million assets managed, PhotoShelter’s cutting-edge software helps over 1,300 top universities, pro sports teams, travel brands and organizations of all sizes easily organize, collaborate and share impactful content with the world.
These days, when it comes to digital marketing, consumers and online audiences are attracted to honorable brand values and a commitment to action. It’s a brand’s mission and the people behind it that keep consumers coming back for more. Therefore, telling stories of the people who make your brand what it is is the best way to resonate consistently with other humans that you want to build a connection with.
Over the past two years, the people behind the brands you know and love were the people who worked through fear, adversity, and the unknown to keep the lights on, shelves stocked, and their customers happy at home. In a time when so many couldn’t leave their homes, see loved ones, travel, or be social, it’s important to honor and recognize those who had to clock in every day and push through to help their communities.
Our friends at PhotoShelter for Brands, a leading digital asset management platform provider, asked four passionate, dedicated clients how they worked with their customers and communities to share powerful human-centered stories over the course of 2020 and early 2021 and they all clearly agreed: supporting and listening to one another this past year and a half was invaluable.
Authentic storytelling is a must as we have continued to live through this unimaginable, shared global experience.
Read the entire article directly from PhotoShelter here: Why Authentic Storytelling Matters Most on PhotoShelter for Brand Stories
FreshDirect
The following is a direct quote from John J. Kelly III, the Senior Managing Photographer at FreshDirect:
A significant portion of my efforts last year went to documenting donation events across the city, showing the scale of need as well as the effort and dedication of the volunteers risking their own health to help others. We shared these images and stories with our customers, allowing them to see the results of the charitable work that was made possible by their patronage. This experience helped enrich the relationship between FreshDirect and its customers. It also laid the foundation for a stronger relationship between FreshDirect, its customers, and the broader community of New York City, our home turf.
As the pandemic changed us from an ofttimes mundane necessity of everyday life to an “essential service,” we were challenged to differentiate our primarily virtual service by introducing and acknowledging the people responsible for providing that service to our customers. These employees were asked to put themselves at unknown personal risk to serve our customers. Many of the employees honored publicly are accustomed to working out of public view and are very humble. However, they were grateful for the acknowledgement of their exceptional effort, most of which preceded the pandemic and will continue after it has ended.
Keep reading the FreshDirect story here: FreshDirect’s Streamlined Photo Workflow: All Your Questions Answered
The Bowery Mission
Over the course of this last year, the team at The Bowery Mission launched a special campaign celebrating their frontline workers, who have faithfully cared for New Yorkers without a home through the entire pandemic.
Through it all, a reliable digital asset management system has been an important element for organizing the visual storytelling aspect of this campaign, such as photos, video interviews and more, which they collected throughout the pandemic. Documenting the process is one step toward being prepared for the future.
Keep reading the Bowery Mission’s story here: How The Bowery Mission Brings Its Impact to Life Through Meaningful Content
James Beard Foundation
The following is a direct quote from Maggie Schoenfarber, Director of Content Strategy & Development at The James Beard Foundation:
More than ever, our messaging in 2020 was about the people behind the food and beverage industry. We had several campaigns that were grounded in the stories of individuals and organizations that were facing incredible challenges while still supporting their communities.
The first ones that come to mind are our Food and Beverage Investment Fund for Black and Indigenous Americans, where 37 Black and Indigenous majority-owned businesses (from breweries to food trucks to caterers and all that’s in between) received $15,000 grants each. It’s an ongoing fund that we’re continuing to raise money for in the hopes of disbursing more grants soon.
Back in April, we highlighted all 37 businesses through the photos and videos the grantees shared with us, putting faces to names and showing how integral these businesses are to their local communities.
Keep reading the James Beard Foundation’s story here: How The James Beard Foundation Achieves Its Mission with Visual Content
Hungry Harry’s
The following is a direct quote from Andy Meholick, Copywriter and Storyteller at Hungry Harry’s:
Shining a spotlight on the lives of the food allergy community has always been essential for us in our mission to make allergy-friendly easy. At the beginning of 2021, we partnered with FARE to give back to our community members experiencing food insecurity. We donated over 400 packages of our allergy-friendly baking mixes to FARE TAG (Teen Advisory Group) Members to distribute to their local food shelters across the U.S.
We asked all of the FARE TAG members to photograph both the delivery and distribution of the FARE Care Packs. Hungry Harry’s made each of the TAG members contributors so that they could easily upload their photos using PhotoShelter’s mobile uploader directly into our account. This allowed us to organize, edit and and re-share these photos in a timely manner directly from our PhotoShelter account.
Keep reading Hungry Harry’s story here: The Strategy Behind Hungry Harry’s Eye-Catching Brand
Conclusion
It goes without saying that caring for your community and lending a helping hand is more important now than ever before. For brands and creative teams, actions speak louder than words. It’s authentic storytelling that creates lasting connections in this digital age and remote work environment. At a time like this, these are the stories that matter most.
If your brand wants help building or improving your digital asset management (DAM) program to enable this kind of authentic, human-first storytelling, contact Stacks!
