Vaude produces On Model Imagery In Hours

Summary

VAUDE, a sustainable outdoor brand, needed a scalable, cost-effective solution to manage tight production schedules and budgets. By partnering with Graswald AI, VAUDE was able to generate hyper-realistic, on-model mock-ups from flat-lays or even imagery provided by their factories, significantly reducing the typical costs and timeline of regular productions. As well as the commercial benefits, Graswald AI allows VAUDE to side-step the limitations of working with physical samples for PDP imagery, enabling them to showcase more body-types in a scalable way.

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Problems and Context

VAUDE produces several collections across two seasons annually, which would traditionally involve studio time of up to three weeks per collection. The primary challenges were:

• Time and Availability:
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  There is a very tight window between samples being finished and the start of the wholesale sell-in phase, creating a difficult schedule for VAUDE’s content production.
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• Cost Reduction:


  
  As cost-cutting became an industry-wide imperative, VAUDE prioritized finding an efficient, cost-effective addition to traditional photography.
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• Workflow Inefficiency:


  
  Previous attempts to use external AI photo studios and stand alone AI image models were challenging when it came to scaling the workflow and integrating effectively with VAUDE's internal teams.
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• Limitations on Inclusivity:


  
  Physical product samples typically only arrive in limited sizes, restricting the model diversity and body-shapes they could showcase.
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Solution

VAUDE worked with Graswald AI to generate two on-brand avatars, and replicate their studio scene and lighting digitally. Their existing internal team can now manage the majority of eCommerce content creation entirely in-house, which successfully reduces both time and costs while completely sidestepping the constraints imposed by physical samples.

• Creating B2B sell-in content without physical samples:


  
  Working with pictures of samples sent directly from their factories, VAUDE are able to generate realistic and high-quality on-model imagery before they’ve even received the final samples in-person, significantly reducing timelines for wholesale content creation.
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• Scalable, Internal Workflow:


  
  Working with other AI tools, the VAUDE team had struggled to generate high-quality imagery at the scale required. With Graswald AI their existing internal team is able to manage the  majority of eCommerce content creation in-house, using the batch production workflow to generate thousands of images with just a CSV upload.
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• Enhanced Creativity and Inclusion:


  
  VAUDE can now generate outdoor shots and display products on different body-types and forms, overcoming the limitations of using only the physical sample sizes.

Results

VAUDE's partnership of Graswald AI demonstrated immediate success and continued improvement:

• Content Volume and Value for Money:


  
  Imagery can be generated on different avatars and in a range of poses, substantially increasing the content available for B2B sales and eCommerce PDP without increasing budget or resource requirements.
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• Image Quality: 


  
  Initial tests using factory images yielded "amazing" results with "almost no difference" from traditional photography. Model accuracy was strong from the start, and with recent advancements in AI the quality of details (stitching, logos, color consistency) has "improved significantly.” The VAUDE team usually finds a perfect result for each SKU on the first generation, saving time and costs on revisions or lengthy feedback loops with external studios.
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• Speed as a Strategic Advantage:


  
  With Graswald AI, VAUDE were able to work with images directly from the factory to generate on-model mock-ups for internal B2B sales meetings, providing necessary visuals before final samples were physically available.This drove time savings for the internal team and the results are so effective that their manufacturing factories have expressed interest in using the solution to provide improved garment visuals to their own customers.