With a global network of 80 offices in 40 countries, Sotheby’s is a leading broker of art, jewelry, real estate, and collectibles. Known for its fine art auctions and private sales, the company has been uniting collectors with world-class works of art for over 250 years.

A B R I G H T S P O T C A S E S T U D Y

CHALLENGE

In 2017, the team at Sotheby’s realized its content management system, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), was inhibiting the organization’s digital innovation. The site was out-of-date, and the editorial team was restricted by the types of content it could publish. The CMS code base had become difficult to maintain, especially without significant development support, and there were SEO concerns.

For Sotheby’s, providing a better digital experience called for a site-wide design refresh and the ability to create and publish a wider array of multimedia content. The organization also needed a flexible solution that would decrease IT dependency and make it easier to deliver innovative online experiences more quickly. Additional requirements included robust localization and translation requirements as well as business intelligence capabilities. Given the large library of digital assets, restructuring the organization’s internal taxonomy to increase discoverability was critical, as was creating a consolidated digital asset management solution. Finally, Sotheby’s needed to drive a personalized customer experience across systems, while integrating e-commerce and auction listings into the solution.

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perfectsensedigital.com | brightspot.com | 1-877-795-1203

CAPTIVATING ART COLLECTORS WITH AN INNOVATIVE DIGITAL SHOWCASE

“We were under time pressure to get something live that represented a high-quality user experience, which is often a recipe for trouble. That’s one of the reasons why it was very important to have a flexible technical partner and platform to work with.”

JONATHAN PYTELLSOTHEBY’S VICE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL PRODUCT

SOLUTION

The project kicked off with Sotheby’s Museum Network—a rich online showcase of the world’s best exhibitions, collections, videos, and stories from hundreds of museums across the globe–and now includes Sothebys.com.

After successfully migrating the Museum Network site in less than 90 days, Sotheby’s kicked off the migration of its flagship corporate site from AEM to Brightspot. Brightspot now empowers Sotheby’s to:

• Create and publish engaging digital experiences faster and with fewer obstacles, thanks to additional content types, customizable workflows, and multichannel distribution capabilities.

• Provide an improved user experience with smoother navigation and enhanced personalization capabilities.

• Easily produce and present content in multiple languages, with corresponding URLs and metadata.

• Efficiently manage thousands of digital assets using the built-in digital asset manager, which provides access to a broad set of content types and organizes items by type, group or gallery, or tags.

• Search and find content quickly based on associated metadata, descriptions, and related images with Brightspot’s powerful search functionality.

• Provide real-time synchronization with commercial product databases.

• Link related content with tags such as the artists who created the item, the museum where it is located, and exhibitions where it is featured.

• Use Amazon Web Services and the Gyro cloud automation tool to deliver high availability, low latency, rapid infrastructure change, and safe installation of Brightspot updates.

KE Y SITE FE ATURES

Digital Asset Management

Over-the-Top Video

Flexible Taxonomy

Content Personalization

Robust Localization

Multichannel Publishing

A B R I G H T S P O T C A S E S T U D Y

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perfectsensedigital.com | brightspot.com | 1-877-795-1203

INTEGR ATIONSThe Sotheby’s project includes a wide array of integrations to support the company’s priorities. Key integrations include:

A U T H 0User authentication and

management

VIKINGSotheby’s in-house auction

product database

S L AT WA L LE-commerce integration

that powers products and transactions

B R I G H T C O V EVideo OVP integration for

assets and player

S E G M E N TAnalytics and tracking

A L G O L I ASite search and filtering

131% 67% 4.8M 95%I N C R E A S E I N U S E R S I N C R E A S E I N PA G E V I E W S P R O D U CT V I E W S I N C R E A S E I N S E S S I O N S

IMPACTWith Brightspot, Sotheby’s delivers a highly engaging user experience with vivid images, integrated e-commerce

and auctions, powerful search, compelling stories, and engaging video content. The results are: