Founded in 1924, Rijk Zwaan is a family-owned vegetable breeding and seed production company. Combining market expertise, modern technology, and the rich diversity offered by nature, Rijk Zwaan develops new plant varieties and sells their seeds to vegetable growers worldwide.
With a global market share of 9%, Rijk Zwaan is the fourth biggest vegetable breeding company in the world. From cabbage to cucumbers, the Dutch company sells its industry-leading vegetable seeds through 31 local subsidiaries spread across the globe.
The need for DAM
Researching and developing new vegetable varieties is the primary focus at Rijk Zwaan—40% of their 3,600+ employees are dedicated to R&D. New seed strains are produced and distributed regularly to be sold by local subsidiaries, requiring high volumes of high-quality, brand-consistent imagery and videos to promote new products in local markets.
With ambitious growth plans in an increasingly global (and digital) market, Rijk Zwaan needed a way to not only centralize their huge numbers of visual assets, but also to improve how the marketing department collaborated with R&D-focused crop specialists and local subsidiaries.
We weren’t just looking for a solution to archive and share stuff. We wanted a central space to also create and collaborate - an ‘asset creation workshop’ - to ensure we were supporting local markets with the assets and tools to operate independently.Tjipke Meijer
Photography & Video Creator at Rijk Zwaan
Rijk Zwaan is truly a global entity with 3600+ employees worldwide, selling its products primarily through the 31 subsidiaries in their respective markets.
The main challenge? Building a global brand while centralizing marketing operations—and enabling subsidiaries to create marketing content tailored to specific regions.
The transformation with Bynder
Initially using Bynder to centralize photos, Rijk Zwaan wanted to expand the use case to cover not only storage, but also the content approval process with Asset Workflow—as well as the creation of branded (yet localized) images and videos with Studio respectively.
The image and video templates created in Bynder are really welcomed by our subsidiaries in the Asian and South American regions, as they can be more independent in quickly creating branded images and videos in their own languages.Joeri van Tongeren
Digital Commerce Specialist at Rijk Zwaan
Working with a Bynder expert to create a custom-built solution, Bynder now operates as the go-to platform for Rijk Zwaan’s marketing communications.
65,000+ digital assets, one solution
From product photos and campaign materials to internal slide decks and webinar recordings, Rijk Zwaan’s globally-distributed team knows exactly where to find both old and new digital assets, intuitively organized with filters to ensure everyone can find what they need in seconds.
Centralized creative collaboration
No longer having to rely on back-and-forth emails to review and approve images and videos, both the marketing team and crop specialists leverage Asset Workflow to get everyone on the same page to give feedback on works-in-progress.
Webshop integration
With regional differences in how a crop grows from one country to the next, product shots need to be accurate in each respective market. By integrating Bynder with the back-end of their e-commerce platform, local marketers have the autonomy to create and upload regionally-accurate imagery direct from Bynder.
Hands-on training
When you’re a large company with multiple local markets, internal adoption can be an uphill battle. With a dedicated customer success manager and training programs including webinars and personal demos, Rijk Zwaan has less weight on its shoulders to keep user adoption high.
I definitely think communication between our teams around the world is better because of Bynder. Assets aren’t being sent by email or stored on several computers—everything is centralized.Joeri van Tongeren
Digital Commerce Specialist at Rijk Zwaan
Read the full Rijk Zwaan x Bynder story here
Over 3700 organizations worldwide use Bynder as their brand’s digital home. From centralized file storage and secure asset sharing to better brand consistency and project collaboration, we have a tailored solution to fit the needs of each and every customer. Why not see what Bynder can do for you with a free demo?
