Herschel Supply Co.

Herschel Supply Co. manufactures and markets sustainable travel designs combining nostalgia with an up-to-the-minute vibe. An alchemy of style, quality, and purpose ensures its global customers are kitted out with knapsacks, luggage, and accessories that heighten the travel experience, even if it’s just a trip across town.

Carefully curated marketing includes an active YouTube channel stocked with in-house video, bookended by consumer-generated content from engaged creatives on the go, including clips from Tik Tok with a Herschel bag or two in the frame. Slate magazine calls the company, “a global phenomenon, glimpsed wherever hipsters dare to tread.”

From the beginning Herschel clearly was an ‘it’ company, winning over travelers, social Millennials, influencers, and fashionistas alike. Now add in modernized data storage that frees Herschel’s teams to focus on the fashion accessory business without worrying about hardware, network security, or disaster recovery. Because NetApp’s partnership with Herschel combines the best of on-premises productivity with redundancy in the cloud.

For all these reasons and more, NetApp has been one of Herschel’s biggest fans and most trusted partners for more than ten years.

Herschel’s savvy digital media strategy includes successful management of unwieldy volumes of data—specifically, hundreds of terabytes of video from countless marketing assets. From storyboard animatics to B-roll all these huge data sets need to be available to the marketing team and accessible anytime, on any device, easily, quickly, and securely.

Mark Cao, IT Manager for Herschel says, “Our design and marketing teams are responsible for our brand image. Everything they do is on top of the infrastructure my team built in partnership with NetApp.” Whether a video artist is planning on-location shoots, managing a growing library of footage, or running through the paces of post-production to deliver culture-building multi-media assets, Herschel’s IT team is a critical part of the brand’s algorithm for marketing success.

“Our products are shown in the real world being used by real people,” says Mark. “If you see video footage of someone snowboarding in Switzerland with a Herschel bag going down the mountain, our media team is actually shooting the video. You can trust Herschel to be authentic.” The in-house video crew is noted for capturing memorable footage with iconic settings like Lake Louise in Alberta’s Banff National Park as a backdrop.

CUSTOMER QUOTE:

“I love that when you open the change mat there are two compartments on the sides that I can store my diapers and my wipes. You can fold it up with one hand. Anyone that’s a parent knows you never have two hands.” 

—Britt, on YouTube
Mom, and Herschel fan

Mark continues, “Because our business relies on video content, we needed an infrastructure that could reliably handle massive amounts of data. By upgrading to a high-performance flash configuration and leveraging cloud replication capabilities, we’ve ensured the agility and security our data demands.”

Trust is central to Herschel’s data storage relationship with NetApp. A good deal of that trust comes from NetApp’s role in monitoring Herschel’s performance and consulting on ways to reduce costs while securely protecting data throughput. Mark and his team at Herschel’s HQ in Vancouver are responsible for the organization’s hardware, network, cyber resilience, and cloud computing—all components of Herchel’s journey to an intelligent data infrastructure.

Which is why in the past year or so NetApp advised Mark’s team to consolidate from multiple storage arrays to a single NetApp FAS array. The previous configuration used switches and clusters multiple arrays. But in looking at the performance requirements of the current workloads, NetApp recommended simplifying the environment and optimizing cost by reducing hardware and consolidating everything into just one box. Taking an active role that benefits Mark’s budget while protecting Herschel’s on-premises performance and cyber resilience shows that less can, in fact, be more.

Mark and his team have also received hard drive replacements from NetApp with hard drive replacements before they realized they even had an issue at HQ in Vancouver. Mark says, “NetApp surprised us by how closely they monitor their products. And by how they take care of their customer.” Not only is the re-architected solution cost-effective and well supported, it offers easy operations, scalability to handle future growth, and flexibly cloud integration. Now add in ransomware protection and security at the storage level for additional peace of mind that comes from having a trusted partner at your side.

The collaboration to right size Herschel’s storage footprint reflects values shared between the companies: It all begins and ends with the customer experience. Just as best-in-class customer care is critical to the Herschel brand, outstanding customer service and active participation in Herschel’s success is key for the NetApp team. Data storage and travel gear live in two different product universes, but a common belief in doing right by the customer is foundational to both.

Herschel’s media team is mostly an on-premises affair which means video editors can swap music tracks or re-order scenes quickly. And seconds count, so speedy access to hot data on local volumes makes the most sense for these mission critical workloads where seamless teamwork and spontaneous input sets Herschel’s creatives apart.

But a strategic use of the cloud is also in the mix. NetApp has helped put in place an instance of Amazon FSx for NetApp^® ONTAP^® to replicate files for backup and disaster recovery in the cloud with SnapMirror. This means streamlined operations, peace of mind that creative work is safe, and the ease of management that frontline user like Mark have come to expect from AWS.

Mark says, “Even though we have a network speed of 2GBs, if you’re downloading 4TBs from the cloud it’s going to take hours.” Aside from saving time by working on local systems, desktop hosting of content also means accurate color representation onscreen. Being able to trust your eyes before signing off on published brand assets is critical in the world of fashion and advertising.

For more than 15 years technology and social media have re-shaped consumer habits, but Herschel stays true to its roots of core design elements like faux leather straps and simple product silhouettes that were central to success at its founding in 2009. It’s no surprise then Travel+Leisure, after testing 185 backpacks, names Herschel their Top Pick.

With over 20 years’ worth of product data and SKUs on his NetApp storage, Mark’s workloads are AI ready and future proofed to showcase Herschel’s innovations for the next generation of fashion influencers and travel enthusiasts.

That’s the journey—equal parts passion, design, and technology. Succeeding in the global fashion business landscape takes stepping outside of comfort zones to blaze new trails, but it’s exactly those new paths that lead to the biggest opportunities. Seizing them—together—is what the Herschel + NetApp partnership is all about.

New horizons wait just ahead. Grab a Herschel bag and get out there!

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