Widen Announces OYO Sports as New Customer of Widen Media Collective

MADISON, WI--(Marketwired - January 27, 2015) - OYO Sports, a leading fan engagement company targeting the youth fan and collector markets has selected the Widen Media Collective for its digital asset management (DAM) needs. OYO sells buildable mini figures that are designed as replicas of professional and college sports athletes. They will use Widen's DAM solution to store, manage and distribute marketing collateral, product images and video files to internal and external design, sales, marketing and executive teams. With retail and e-commerce being their two main revenue streams, product imagery and marketing collateral are critical tools that need to be easily and instantly accessible. 

Since its inception in 2011, OYO Sports has increased the digital asset library to now exceed 100,000 assets. It has become difficult to manage the magnitude of assets for internal and external stakeholders.

"We had to take the necessary action to reduce the time searching for files in multiple areas. It also made it difficult for our external partners to find assets as well," stated Jeremy Shea, SVP Interactive & Technology Innovation for OYO Sports.

OYO created a list of features required in a new management system. The ability to scale quickly and efficiently were their top priorities in a DAM system as well as a list of standard features like uploading, tagging metadata, search, easy to use interface, distribution and security.

"We looked at over 20 solutions, ranging from open source where we could manage it ourselves, to full SaaS solutions," noted Shea. 

Ultimately, OYO chose the Widen Media Collective based on three criteria. First was reputation. Widen's positive footprint within the digital world went a long way with OYO's team. Second was Widen's readily available API and FTP solution. OYO uses innovative automation in their production process, so it was absolutely necessary to be able to ingest and extract assets and data programmatically. Finally, Widen's pricing flexibility gave OYO Sports a solution that would grow with them as the company scaled.

OYO Sports plans for the DAM to provide transparency of all of their assets to all of their stakeholders. The DAM will give their sales teams the tools to sell their product and deliver a consistent experience across all of their channels. They also want to empower internal and external teams to get at the assets they need without having to go through a multitude of laborious tasks. OYO will also be using Widen's API to bulk upload assets from their automation system. 

"OYO Sports may be a new brand, but they brought forth issues that the world's largest organizations have around digital asset management," said Craig Bollig, senior digital asset management advisor. "OYO quickly confirmed the Media Collective was a fit and could be deployed immediately. They also looked at how it could scale and grow with their brand. It's that cohesion of immediate availability and scalability the makes Widen the proven leader in DAM."

About Widen Enterprises, Inc.
Widen is a marketing technology company that powers the content that builds your brand. Leveraging cloud-based resources, Widen delivers configurable, scalable, and cost-effective digital asset management solutions to help you easily store, search and share your digital content. Organizations of all sizes use Widen's SaaS DAM solution, the Media Collective, to streamline their marketing and creative workflows and make their content work harder. Widen is trusted by hundreds of thousands of users around the world at organizations like LG, Roche, Trek, Cornell University, New Orleans Tourism Marketing, The Atlanta Falcons, Red Gold Tomatoes, Electrolux, and Yankee Candle. To learn more about Widen, go to http://www.widen.com.

About OYO Sports
OYO Sports is a leading fan engagement company in the sports consumer marketplace, targeting the youth, fan and collector markets with both physical and digital toy products. OYO creates buildable mini-figures that are designed as the replica of athletes, with facial and uniform representation of their real life counterparts of major professional sports teams such as Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Hockey League, major colleges and universities and more. Each OYO comes with his own stand and unique DNA number, as well as rotating arms, bending knees, and the ability to hold a bat, stick, glove and ball. OYO Sports investors include Mandalay Sports Media, Atlas Venture and Boston Seed Capital. The company is located in Acton, Massachusetts and all products are designed in Massachusetts and built with pride in America from U.S.A. and globally sourced parts. For more information, visit www.OYOsports.com.