Empowering creativity through collaboration.
SIROK connects marketers and creators through collaborative creation with Adobe Express.
1.5x
increase in content production data
Cross-department
collaboration and seamless editing of design
Effectively
managed extensive asset data
“Using Adobe Express for collaborative workflows significantly enhanced our production speed and efficiency.”
Hirotoshi Tsukuda
Creative Director, SIROK Inc.
Streaming creative workflows.
To streamline its creative workflow, SIROK Inc. introduced Adobe Express as the core collaboration tool for teams responsible for planning, designing, and reviewing product advertisements. Using the flexible, collaborative editing capabilities in Adobe Express, SIROK significantly increased its production speed and established a unique "co-creation workflow." The company further enhanced data management by simultaneously implementing Adobe Experience Manager Assets.
SIROK Inc. operates the Japanese organic cosmetics brand N organic, which has gained great popularity among women in their 20s to 40s. The brand's sophisticated designs integrate both designers' and marketers' input. However, planning, design, and review departments used to each use different software tools, complicating collaboration and slowing down the creative process. Hirotoshi Tsukuda, the Creative Director responsible for CRM at SIROK, explains the issue: "While effective teamwork allowed us to complete projects despite each team using different tools, departmental silos inevitably emerged. This often led to uneven distribution of human resources, causing delays when key personnel were unavailable to handle essential revisions."
In addition, whenever the review team needed to verify whether advertisements complied with pharmaceutical and medical regulations, they had to repeatedly export images and videos. The absence of a unified internal system for managing brand materials compounded issues, making it challenging at times to identify the latest versions of data. Amid these challenges, Takahiro Ishiyama, Executive Officer at SIROK, found a path forward during a conversation with Adobe executives from the United States.
"They explained how it would be possible to merge our processes for marketers and creators, which resonated deeply with our vision. We realized that consolidating content planning and workflows within a single application — Adobe Express — could significantly accelerate our marketing activities. After evaluating its capabilities and technical performance, we decided to move forward with implementation," says Ishiyama.
After thorough comparisons, the company ultimately selected Adobe Express based on the superiority of its file management functionality.
Real-time collaboration for efficient project management.
Tsukuda highlights two main reasons for adopting Adobe Express: the ability to create diverse content using a single unified tool, and its real-time collaborative editing features.
"Previously, we used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator for image creation, and tools like Premiere Pro and After Effects for videos. Adobe Express now allows us to consolidate image and video production with a single application, streamlining both design instructions and final assets into one organized folder,” says Tsukuda. “Additionally, by sharing content with the review department, urgent changes can be immediately implemented by reviewers themselves, allowing us to publish content quickly without waiting for designers. That was something our staff were particularly happy about."
Among the various types of content produced, video in particular requires frequent revisions and detailed adjustments. Even minor edits — such as cutting or extending scenes by half a second — are simplified with Adobe Express. Editing can be done directly in the browser, eliminating tool startup time and accelerating the revision process. Additionally, reviewers can now make edits directly within the original files before export — a key feature when a product has notes or disclaimers that need to be thoroughly checked. This flexible collaborative editing capability across planning, production, and review teams effectively resolved the company's longstanding workflow challenges.
"Using Adobe Express for collaborative workflows significantly enhanced our production speed and efficiency,” says Tsukuda.
Accelerating and streamlining production through an end-to-end workflow.
By centralizing all content creation, from initial planning to design and final review, onto Adobe Express, the company substantially improved its production speed and efficiency. "With Adobe Express, we produce 1.5 times more content within the same timeframe. The ability to seamlessly integrate every process up to review significantly reduced our overall workload," says Ishiyama. To ensure a smooth transition after adopting Adobe Express, the company held an internal program for one month, with dedicated training sessions where staff could ask questions and receive direct guidance.
"I thought that staff might find it difficult to ask questions in large training sessions, so I personally spent time working alongside planning and production teams after the initial rollout, demonstrating practical usage and explaining things like, 'Here’s how you can create this asset using Adobe Express.' If I noticed that the planning document folder still had files that were saved using other software, I reached out to the team member responsible," says Tsukuda.
Internal training materials created for these sessions not only emphasized the changes brought by Adobe Express but also clearly identified tasks that would continue to be better handled by other Adobe tools.
"When making significant organizational change, if you only emphasize the positives, internal pressure inevitably arises when teams encounter difficulties. To manage expectations, we highlighted in our training materials the tasks that Adobe Express may not handle effectively. By outlining tool usage guidelines, such as clearly stating, 'This task should be handled in Adobe Photoshop,' we were able to significantly alleviate the concerns our team members had about the new workflows," says Tsukuda.
Tsukuda mentioned that introducing new tools often meets resistance. But, thanks to their efforts, the company successfully transitioned to a production workflow centered around Adobe Express by August 2024. Some of their current projects involve coordinated efforts from more than 50 team members, including both internal and external staff.
Centralized asset management through Adobe Experience Manager Assets.
Challenges related to the increasingly complex management of creative assets were addressed by adopting Adobe Experience Manager Assets. Immediately after product photos are taken, they can now be saved directly to Creative Cloud Libraries that are integrated with Experience Manager Assets, enabling swift incorporation into branding activities. The company also established a system for managing metadata for creative assets, facilitating precise control during content distribution.
"We continue to upload designs created in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator directly into Experience Manager Assets, allowing for smooth review workflows. Additionally, we utilize the asset-tagging features in Experience Manager Assets, further enhancing our data management processes," notes Tsukuda.
Ishiyama also praised the comprehensive support from Adobe and industry standing as key factors influencing the adoption decision: "Adobe provided us with many valuable case studies of successful implementations globally, as well as robust support through user communities. These resources gave us great confidence to move forward with the implementation. Adobe's proven track record with leading cosmetic brands and its extensive industry expertise were also major reasons for choosing their tools," adds Ishiyama.
Using new Adobe Express features for customized advertising in Japan.
Beyond Adobe Express, the company is particularly interested in harnessing the power of generative AI technologies.
"We always consider how generative AI can enhance creativity in our workflows. Adobe tools remain central to our strategic approach, and we look forward to proactively adopting future advancements in their software," says Ishiyama.
"What impresses me most about Adobe Express is the speed of innovation, with new features arriving almost weekly. Since advertising formats and requirements differ significantly between international and Japanese markets, we intend to further customize our Adobe Express to effectively meet local demands," notes Tsukuda.
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