Legoland, Thorpe Park, Madame Tussauds, Peppa Pig World - you name it - Merlin Entertainments owns some of the world’s best-loved brands. Keeping a handle on recruitment across this international enterprise is a huge task. This is where Asset Bank steps in.
About
Discover how Asset Bank enables Merlin Entertainment’s recruitment team to promote their Employer Brand and hire the best new talent from around the world.
Including Legoland, Thorpe Park, Madame Tussauds, Peppa Pig World of Play, the SEA LIFE Trust, Chessington World of Adventures Resort and many more.
International teams
27,000 employees worldwide
Hundreds of users
300 active Asset Bank users
INTRODUCTION
Merlin Entertainments is in the business of bringing magical and memorable experiences to families all across the globe.
From immersive worlds and adrenaline-fuelled attractions to animal sanctuaries and charity schemes - no doubt, you’ve spent a day at one of Merlin’s brand sites at some point in your life. But, of course, to make these incredible experiences happen, there has to be a whole team of people putting in the hard work. This is where employer branding plays a huge part.
The Challenge
Ensuring employer branding is consistent across the entire international enterprise
Managing the employer branding for such a huge and international group isn’t easy.
Whether hiring for animal keepers at Chessington World of Adventures Resort or ride operators at Alton Towers Resort, Natalie Mallory, the Recruitment Marketing Executive at Merlin Entertainments needs to ensure imagery, graphics and documents are all on brand.
That’s because it’s not just the commercial side of the business that needs to stay consistent - employer branding is vital in maintaining the reputation of the group, attracting new talent, and retaining existing employees.
What’s more, the marketing recruitment team is tiny, with just Natalie taking the helm of the company Asset Bank. With such a big role and so many brands to keep control of, you can already see why Digital Asset Management (DAM) is essential in keeping everything in place.
Here are just a few of the challenges that Merlin Entertainment faced before Asset Bank.
Too much time spent on email
The recruitment marketing team at Merlin has a pool of freelance photographers that they use on a regular basis. They’ll often go out on location and take shots of employees working at various sites around the world. Before Asset Bank, any photographs would be sent directly to Natalie via email. This method is far from ideal. Not only does it clog up your inbox with heavy attachments, but for such a small team, it becomes increasingly time-consuming
Getting the right images to the right people
Once the photographers have been saved on a shared drive, then comes the issue of actually sharing. As mentioned, Merlin Entertainments is an international enterprise, so it’s imperative they get images and brand documents sent out to different offices around the world.
“This was one of the key issues before we moved to Asset Bank. You could, for example, create a Facebook group and share photos with employees that way. However, certain countries may not have access and somebody may upload the wrong image by accident. It’s important that we are able to label images to show whether they can be used externally or internally.”
Natalie Mallory, Rectuirment Marketing Executive
Managing workload through One Drive
Natalie used to use One Drive to manage and access assets. Her process went like this; she’d have to download an image from One Drive onto her desktop, save it in a file, rename it and then upload it back into an email or use a transfer link.
This is fine if you rarely need to access your brand assets, but for Natalie, she was doing this multiple times a day. Understandably, this task becomes incredibly dull and repetitive and you may often find yourself cutting corners and saving images in the wrong places, renaming them something inappropriate or simply letting it linger in your downloads folder. As you can imagine, the next time you might want to access these images, it becomes more hassle than it’s worth.
THE SOLUTION
Using Asset Bank’s slick upload function to give freedom back to freelancers and agencies.
For Merlin Entertainments, the solution was simple. Ensuring the team could free up time, share images externally and make use of permissions was a vital next step in ensuring an efficient and consistent workflow.
Here are just a few of the ways that Asset Bank made Natalie and her team’s workdays that much easier.
Giving freedom to photographers and agencies
Using an Asset Bank means Natalie no longer has to spend her time trawling through emails and saving images across her network drives. It also means she can keep a handle on branding before sending photographs of employees and locations to other departments.
“Our photographers are fantastic at capturing the essence of Merlin Entertainments and what it means to work for us. However, with such a broad portfolio, I need to ensure that the images are on-brand every single time.”
Merlin Entertainments has strict criteria for its photography. Everything from the number of lanyards and pop badges that appear on employee uniforms to how their parks are looking in the backdrop (eg. goats running around and causing a blur is cute, but not ideal).
So now, instead of the photographers sending their work to Natalie’s email address, they get a link that allows them to upload directly into the Asset Bank. Natalie gets notified so she can go in and liaise with the branding team before accepting the images. Not only does this mean that Natalie frees up a load of time, but the photographers have the freedom to upload their images smoothly without needing to work around email attachment data limits.
THE RESULTS
The recruitment team at Merlin Entertainments now has more time to get on with the work they love
Before Asset Bank, the team at Merlin Entertainments was receiving photographs and media via email and uploading them to One Drive.
Aside from the daunting number of unopened emails in her inbox, Natalie was spending far too much time trawling through attachments and downloading files onto her computer.
Now, things couldn’t be easier. Merlin Entertainments Asset Bank has over 300 worldwide users with Natalie at the helm. Though she has such a small team, she now has the ability to:
Manage permissions and keep track of users - the option to add expiry dates on accounts means that Merlin Entertainments never goes over their user limit
Ensure branding is up to scratch before anything goes live.
Make use of the customisable homepage which serves up specific photographs to users who don’t have time to search the image library for inspiration
Natalie’s top tips for new Asset Bank admins
“One of the key things I would suggest is to do everything correctly. That means starting at the very beginning. Take the time to learn about the system, build an efficient folder structure with your Customer Success Manager and really think about the types of keywords you want to use. Once you’ve uploaded thousands of files, you may find it difficult to go back!”
“The Customer Support team is really responsive. We’ve never had any major issues, but whenever I have questions, Wes always gets back to me really quickly which is especially helpful when I’ve got a lot to juggle!”
Natalie Mallory, Recruitment Marketing Executive
Want to free up time and get on with the work you love?
.jpg?width=1400&name=Case%20Study%20Banner%20Template%20(15).jpg "Case Study Banner Template (15)")
.jpg?width=1400&name=Case%20Study%20Banner%20Template%20(19).jpg "Case Study Banner Template (19)")
.jpg?width=1400&name=Case%20Study%20Banner%20Template%20(17).jpg "Case Study Banner Template (17)")
.jpg?width=1400&name=Case%20Study%20Banner%20Template%20(18).jpg "Case Study Banner Template (18)")