SmoothSkin's Global Expansion with Canto's DAM Solution

SmoothSkin is a brand under CyDen, the world’s largest intense pulsed light (IPL) manufacturer, based in Swansea, Wales. The company was established in 2002 by Mark Clement, the inventor of the hair removal technology. SmoothSkin now has over 450 employees and sells into over 50 markets globally, including APAC, North America, Europe, and the Middle East. In 2019, they received the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade. The brand focuses on developing resources and creative to support their launches and campaigns across the globe. They conduct 90% of their business through distributors.

SmoothSkin, a brand under CyDen, the world’s largest intense pulsed light (IPL) manufacturer, was facing a significant challenge in managing and distributing their digital assets to their growing global distributor network. The company conducts 90% of its business through distributors, making it crucial to provide them with the right product videos, images, and other content at the right time. However, the company's growth had outpaced the growth of its marketing department, leading to difficulties in managing and distributing these assets. Initially, SmoothSkin used Google Drive and then SharePoint for asset distribution, but these platforms proved to be inadequate. The cloud storage approach was messy, unprofessional, and lacked visibility of who was accessing the files. Distributors had access to all files and folders, including those that SmoothSkin did not want them to see. The lack of thumbnails made it hard to identify the content, and the overall process was not supporting SmoothSkin’s ambitions for distributor growth.

SmoothSkin turned to Canto, a Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, to overcome their challenges. They chose Canto over other DAM vendors due to its professional approach to channel communication, ease of use for distributors, large image thumbnails for easy identification of media, and competitive pricing. Canto's Portals feature offered a solution to SmoothSkin’s channel marketing challenges. With Canto’s SharePoint integration, SmoothSkin migrated their library and folder structure into Canto and then bulk tagged the videos and images. Canto's reporting features also helped SmoothSkin track who was logging in and accessing files. With unlimited Canto Portals, SmoothSkin could provide a controlled release of videos, images, and documents to distributors in different regions. Each distributor was given a separate Portal, allowing SmoothSkin to manage which assets were available on a case-by-case basis and cater to international variations. The Portals also helped protect the integrity of contracts and negotiations with distributors for each product range.

• With Canto, SmoothSkin has been able to streamline their asset distribution process, enabling them to roll out product campaigns quickly and smoothly in any territory. The use of Canto Portals has allowed them to manage the release of assets to different distributors effectively, catering to their individual requirements and international variations. This has also helped protect the integrity of contracts and negotiations with distributors for each product range. Distributors have found Canto much easier to use and appreciate the personalization of each Portal. The ability to customize and brand the look and feel of Canto and Canto Portals has been crucial in building brand and channel relationships. Overall, Canto has provided a scalable solution that supports professional and personalized channel communications for SmoothSkin's expanding network of global distributors.