Cartier improves brand integrity and operations efficiency

Cartier deploys a range of digital experiences on multiple platforms. For example, boutique sales associates use an integrated catalog, stock and payment capability, delivered via an iPhone. However, Cartier’s most substantial digital properties are the global, regional and issues-based websites that connect the brand to its stakeholders and customers. Some of these sites sit outside Cartier control as they are owned and maintained by reseller partners.

This plethora of websites presented a challenge for Cartier as updates and new content meant considerable demands on time and resources to reconfigure code. Occasionally, Cartier faced redeveloping entire sites. This led to poor brand alignment and required timeintensive, laborious processes to update content. The inconsistent technology created a lack of confidence that these sites were performing correctly and delivering an experience fitting to the Cartier brand.

As part of a strategic drive to ensure a consistent brand identity, improve the quality of its digital experience, maximize the use of content and reduce technical support, Cartier reviewed its technology capabilities, including content management.

Cartier decided on a headless strategy to exploit the possibilities of reusing content to create a consistent, premium brand experience while remaining flexible to embrace innovative omnichannel technologies. Following a thorough review of the market, Cartier selected Contentstack’s headless content management system as part of a composable digital experience platform.

Cartier chose Contentstack based on the interface that allows creative staff to make changes and publish content quickly, without interfering with technical users working with the underlying scripts. The flexibility of Contentstack led to unexpected benefits as Cartier teams have made use of extensions and content tags.

Contentstack is deployed throughout Cartier’s digital estate. It powers Cartier Watchmaking Encounters, the online destination for Cartier at the prestigious Watches & Wonders event. The concept is to digitally replicate the consumer experience of being part of the Cartier presence at the event.

This site was the proof of concept for implementing Contentstack throughout a range of sites, replacing a legacy CMS that demanded time-intensive annual updates. The site showed how Cartier could reuse content across partners’ websites to develop digital properties that could support events and remain consistent with the Cartier brand.

Following this success, Contentstack now powers the Cartier Women’s Initiative website, as well as supporting the digital experience of new collections such as Cartier Flora and Fauna. As a headless solution, Contentstack enables these sites to detect the viewing device and optimize the content as needed. Reusing content has saved substantial amounts of time by allowing Cartier to rely less on external partners.

Contentstack has also been a key part of the development of a template-based “website-factory” within Cartier that creates localized sites to support discrete initiatives. This has reduced the time needed for site development from months to days. The site for Flora and Fauna was developed with this approach, spanning multiple countries and supporting staff in Cartier boutiques.

The “factory” creates mini-site concepts that resellers embed on their sites to have product and campaign content updated, in real-time, by the Cartier team. This ensures the integrity of the Cartier brand identity by retaining control over how products are portrayed on reseller and partner sites.

“Previously, we have relied on external partners for the various iterations of our online presence,” said Anastasia Goglova, international digital lead at Cartier. “In earlier stages of business, this was fine, but as the customer experiences of a brand — be it via a website, app, in-store, or any other part of the omnichannel experience — became more understood, it became clear that we needed to reassert control over the digital Cartier brand.

“Our choice of a MACH* strategy and the Contentstack headless CMS has enabled us to combine this control with a host of operational improvements and efficiencies. We have collapsed the time it takes for new sites to be developed from months to days, with early iterations of a new site submitted into our brand identity teams within hours. This has given our teams greater autonomy and means we combine agility and speed with a premium, high-end digital experience.

“This combination of efficiency, agility, consistency and best practice combine to deliver the most important element of this project: The websites that are such a critical part of our digital portfolio are now more aligned and more performant. As a result, the customer digital experience of Cartier improves, reflecting our commitment to becoming a reference for luxury in all aspects.”

* Microservices-based, API-first, cloud-native, headless