The Aspen Group's marketing department faced a critical challenge: managing production assets and campaigns across five different healthcare brands with no centralized system. What started as "a stack of 30-40 hard drives" and fragmented workflows has transformed into a sophisticated media operation powered by Iconik's media asset management platform, implemented by systems integrator IMT, and supported with Wasabi storage.
Since launching its media management system in summer 2024, the Aspen Group has consolidated 45 terabytes of video, photo, and production files into a single searchable system that serves their entire marketing organization.
When Kyle Probst joined the Aspen Group as Studio Director, he discovered a media management crisis. The marketing department, which produces content for campaigns, training videos, social media, and communications across five brands, had no systematic way to track or access their assets.
"There wasn't any process in place," Kyle explained. "There wouldn't really be any say as to who would upload that or where, when it would be uploaded or if it got uploaded at all."
The previous system—a digital asset management (DAM) tool—was being misused as a repository for raw production files. Teams uploaded low-resolution JPEGs for review, but the platform wasn't designed for production workflows. Without on-premise or cloud storage, editors and creatives had nowhere appropriate to store working files.
"The process, or lack of process, was a stack of 30, 40 hard drives in and around my desk," Kyle recalled. Everyone from the organization dropped off drives with him. “And then they would ask, ‘Where's this footage from this campaign?’ And I wouldn't have historical knowledge."
The organization needed more than just storage—they needed a complete rethinking of their media operations.
Kyle identified that the organization needed both cloud storage and a proper media asset management system. The solution came together when he discovered how Iconik’s hybrid-cloud storage solution.
"We needed some kind of storage, whether on prem or in the cloud, and Iconik’s work with storage solutions like Suite just made perfect sense because it married those two," Kyle said.
The Aspen Group brought in Mike Miserendino as Senior Manager of Creative Operations in June 2024, and together with IMT as their implementation partner, they designed a system that would serve both production workflows and marketing asset sharing.
The Aspen Group's current setup includes:
IMT and Wasabi played a crucial role in getting the system production-ready. The implementation wasn't just a handoff—it was a collaborative process of bench testing, troubleshooting, and continuous refinement.
"We worked in close collaboration with IMT to get it into a ready state. They worked hand in glove with us to make it happen," Mike explained.
When the team encountered RAM issues that were causing system crashes during content processing, IMT went beyond standard support. They engaged directly with Suite, the cloud storage provider, to develop a patch that resolved the performance problems.
"IMT was incredible in helping us diagnose that and reaching out to our other vendors to get the most appropriate response in place," Mike said.
Kyle emphasized that the relationship feels like a genuine collaboration: "As we continue to use the system more, we have pointed out features that might not be available. They’ve been responsive to that, putting in feature requests...You don't always get that."
The implementation process would not be as smooth without Wasabi’s reliable storage and flexible egress flow. Of the Wasabi engine, Mike said,
“Assets need to be highly available at a moments notice, and Wasabi’s egress is responsive and rapid which allows us to better serve our immediate teams and the needs of the business and business partners alike.”
The Aspen Group leveraged Iconik's automation engine to create a system that requires minimal manual intervention. Mike built multiple automations that:
"We created collections for videos and photos that the majority of users can use, scrub through, and leverage filters to find what they're looking for," Mike explained.
Iconik serves as the single platform for both internal collaboration and external vendor interactions. The team uses it for:
"It's just been nice to keep everything in one ecosystem, whereas previously we were using another platform for review. There was a lot of back and forth," Kyle said. "Now, this is where the files live, and this is where review links live. It's all in one place. That makes it really convenient and easily trackable."
With editors both in their Chicago office and working remotely in other states, the Aspen Group utilizes Iconik's proxy workflow integrated with Premiere Pro. This enables editors to work efficiently regardless of their location or internet connection speed.
"That enables us to work remotely, easier, faster, depending on what connection you're on," Kyle explained. "We also have some remote editors not on site here in Chicago who we can readily share assets between."
Integrating Wasabi from the start helped the Aspen team save costs while scaling production across all their brands.
“The ability to have unlimited API calls and lack of egress fees allows us to integrate with our existing tools and create a more holistic media workflow. In our editing workflow, we often need to share and deliver the original file. No egress fees makes us more nimble and efficient in our mechanism of delivery,” Mike said.
While the Aspen Group is still in what they consider their "V1 stage," they're already planning for more sophisticated use cases.
The team transcribes all interviews by default, making spoken content fully searchable. Marketing teams can now find specific interview footage with simple searches rather than scrubbing through hours of content.
With thousands of doctors in their network, the ability to quickly locate all footage of a specific physician is transformative. The team is in the early stages of implementing facial recognition, which will enable searches like "all video or photo of Dr. X" to pull results "within a keystroke."
This capability also serves critical compliance needs. If a physician leaves the organization, the team can quickly identify and remove them from marketing materials.
"Previously we didn't have quick and easy functionality to fulfill those compliance needs," Kyle noted. "But, in Iconik, if we have everything tagged the way we'd like, that's something we can quickly look up."
The organization is working to centralize usage rights and talent information that was previously "fragmented and siloed across the organization." By tracking talent aspirations and usage limitations in Iconik, they can make informed decisions about reusing campaign footage and ensure compliance.
"The existence of the software in and of itself is sort of a silo breaker where we're all in the same place," Mike said.
The Aspen Group currently has approximately 25 users, with plans to expand access across the marketing department. The strategy focuses on empowering "power users" within each brand to manage metadata and train their colleagues.
"We're turning kind of turning a lot of that functionality over to the marketing department and the folks that would use it closely to empower them to find what they need," Kyle explained. "Because as I mentioned earlier, it can't all fall on us and it did always fall on myself. That's just not sustainable as we grow."
The team is taking a measured approach to rollout, ensuring the system works smoothly before expanding access.
"We kind of only get one shot at it coming out and this is the tool, this is it," Mike said. "And if, you know, if it's working right off the bat and it's—they see the benefit, then that's great. But if something's off or it doesn't look right or it's not working the way they want, then, you know, there's possibility that they will abandon it."
The Aspen Group's media operations are poised for significant growth. Future plans include:
"We see Iconik as the media management tool that will allow us to have insight into the ‘what’ as we move forward into the why and how," Mike said. "And we plan on producing a lot more content rapidly and we're going to need eyes on it."
When asked about their favorite aspect of Iconik, Mike shared that Iconik’s intuitive interface and sleek design made it a better choice than previous MAM systems they tried out. An outdated user interface runs the risk of intimidating less technical employees, and even the most subtle design decisions make all the difference in onboarding.
“Iconik is a much sleeker user interface than other solutions, which is easier for users to adopt,” Mike said.
For an organization managing media across five brands with diverse stakeholders, it also saves time to conduct media review directly from their MAM. As Kyle stated earlier, one ecosystem means everything is findable and trackable, from raw files to proxy review links to comment threads.
The Aspen Group's transformation from hard drives stacked on desks to a cloud-based media operation demonstrates the power of choosing the right technology partners. By combining Iconik's flexible MAM platform with IMT's implementation expertise and a hybrid cloud storage approach, they've built a foundation that will scale with their growing production needs.
"IMT has been fantastic partners in helping us get the system from sort of like a minimal viable product to something that's lovable within the organization," Mike concluded.
For 1:1 implementation support for tailor-made tech stacks, reach out to IMT.
To talk directly to an Iconik sales specialist, contact us here.
