Finally! A chance to see some of XUG's members at work!

The session title:

Collaborating Across Organization, Language and International Boundaries

Presenters:

Steve Gleason, VP of Studio Services, Young & Rubicam Brands

Kathy Dzielak, Director of Digital Asset and Project Management, Young & Rubicam Brands

XUG members and others who have approved XUG logins may download the presentation. Click on Read More below for more on this session.-->

Steve and Kathy are both based in Chicago. Kathy has been working for the past five years on managing the implementation and ongoing needs for the agency's biggest client, Burger King.

Some of the agency's other clients are Sears, Miller Brewing, Hilton, Applebee's, Chevron, Goodyear, and Microsoft--all companies with an acute need for top-notch brand management.

Kathy described a lot of the work they do for Burger King, including POP displays (featuring some pretty interesting stand-up displays), packaging, print, and game promos. 

Y&R started using Xinet for Burger King in 2004, and they've undergone a couple of improvement phases since then. They quickly implemented WebNative Portal for the client, which reduced shipping costs right away.

Possibly the biggest service of value to Burger King is the brand management that Y&R provides. Because Burger King essentially is a franchiser, with independent franchisees taking responsibility for local and regional marketing and public relations, the brand can easily be diluted. By setting up a system that manages and enforces the proper use of valuable assets, it makes it many times easier to shore up the corporate branding efforts.

Y&R worked with its integrator, XUG Sponsor IO Integration, to customize the Portal interface and establish a taxonomy that forces end users to find assets by their proper brand names (largely through the use of pulldowns rather than open text entry fields).

They've also set up a hierarchy of user access roles that seems in large part to regulate the use of system resources through restricted/permitted access to hi-res files and limiting time on the system for each user on the site.

They estimate they're now managing about 91 gigabytes of hi-res downloads per month on the Burger King account.

Further management tools implemented include a live dashboard for system utilization reports; automatic data aging; and system audit.

I have to say, it was refreshing to see a low-key, technically competent presentation like this one. There was no hype about anything. It just seemed like a sincere desire to share a successful experience with fellow industry professionals. There were actually quite a few questions from the audience, which Steve handled in a relaxed, informed way. In fact, there was so much interest that the moderator had to cut off questions due to time constraints.

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