For 35 years, Ponant Explorations Group has developed a vision of exploration travel built on meaning, high standards and a more responsible approach to tourism.
With Bynder, Ponant unifies the management of its photo and video content within a DAM platform designed to structure practices, strengthen governance and support brand consistency.
“Our ambition with Ponant was to turn the DAM into a true point of reference for the brand: a structured, accessible and coherent space serving both content and user needs.”
Héloïse Verstraete, Project Manager Activo
At Ponant, the DAM project was not simply about replacing one tool with another. It was part of a broader reflection on how to better organize, distribute and bring brand content to life within a demanding environment where image plays a central role.
Initially, two platforms coexisted: one dedicated to photography, the other to video. This organization made it possible to manage assets, but quickly reached its limits. Content was spread across several environments, enrichment logic lacked consistency, and user practices remained partly fragmented.
In a context where the brand needs to express itself consistently across varied audiences and multiple channels, the need to progressively unify the system became clear.
Ponant then made the strategic choice of a single platform, capable of centralizing photo and video content within the same repository.
The challenge was not only technical. It was about building a qualified, sustainable, accessible and sufficiently structured media base to support the company’s growth, while strengthening control over its brand image.
“Build a qualified and centralized base, serving brand image and operational performance.”
But a DAM, on its own, does not create usage. It still needs to be designed as a useful, readable and living space.
This is precisely where the project gained its full dimension. Behind the implementation of Bynder, there was also a desire to transform governance, facilitate access to content, and make the platform a true place of convergence for teams, partners and service providers.
In other words, not simply to store assets, but to create a shared point of reference to produce, share and distribute with greater consistency.
The support provided by Activo began with a strategic framing phase. Definition of needs, formalization of expectations, selection of the solution: this first step helped lay the foundations of the project and guide the choice toward Bynder.
Business workshops then brought together the teams involved around the platform’s main pillars: user structure, metadata, taxonomy and derivatives logic. This upstream work played a key role in anchoring the platform in Ponant’s real-life uses, rather than in a purely theoretical vision of the tool.
Implementation then continued with platform configuration and the migration of content from the previous environments.
Here again, the project was not limited to a simple transfer. Dialogue had to be created between two historical repositories, harmonize data from different systems, and set the conditions for greater coherence over time.
The use of Activo Connect supported this migration with appropriate mapping, while in-depth documentation work helped secure the quality and continuity of enrichment.
This governance dimension remains at the heart of the system. Metadata harmonization, processing of incoming flows, evolution of the taxonomy and optimization of search filters all contribute to the same objective: making the DAM clearer, more fluid and more useful for its users.
This is also what enables the platform to become a true pillar of Ponant’s digital ecosystem, rather than just another isolated tool.
What the DAM changes
The story does not stop internally. By integrating Bynder’s DAT module with the Storyblok CMS, Ponant has also strengthened continuity between asset management and web distribution.
This connection helps streamline the publication of visuals, secure their usage and maintain brand consistency across its digital touchpoints.
What this project shows, at its core, is that a DAM can become far more than a content library. When designed as a structuring, alignment and activation tool, it enables teams to work from a shared foundation, with the right content, the right level of quality and more consistent brand expression.
At Ponant, the DAM is therefore established as a sustainable lever serving usage, governance and brand experience.
