Corporate marketing has shifted significantly online due to the coronavirus pandemic. Business meetings via Zoom and other platforms have become the norm, and more and more exhibitions are being held as a hybrid of online and offline events. This trend is unlikely to change much in the future.
Video is a powerful tool for retailers to drive their e-commerce strategies and boost sales. Specifically, there’s a fast-emerging trend of live streaming e-commerce that has transformed the online shopping experience with heightened interactivity. For the savvy retailer, there are several reasons to invest in this new era of livestream shopping.
Consumers are more receptive to video than to any other form of content. Per a Wyzowl survey, 86% of people would actively like to see more video from brands. Further, 72% of consumers prefer video to text for receiving branded marketing information, according to a HubSpot research study. Video does so much more than static product descriptions or great images do. It affords a level of audience interactivity that is simply not possible with other marketing tactics.
For example, with live video interactivity you can give your customers the power to make in-video purchases, communicate with other shoppers, access click-to-call features, and share their sentiments on specific products. This level of insight can provide unparalleled data-driven personalization. You can even allow customers to determine their own “adventure path” by giving them the option to choose how the video content they are engaging progresses.
But video interactivity doesn’t just allow brands to offer consumers a route to buy; it lets them create a community of shoppers. If you interact, and allow customers to interact with each other on your property, you stand a much better chance of making a sale and retaining that customer for future purchases.
A 2021 survey by Statista found that 46% of consumers trust analyst or expert reviews as a source for identifying the best brands; 39% cited online reviews and 37% said word-of-mouth. In addition, a recent Retail Customer Experience article discussed how e-commerce websites and mobile applications are not designed to provide the cohesive customer experience today’s consumers demand.
The interactive nature of video, however, permits ongoing dialogue and feedback that can help inform messaging, improve products and offers, and develop loyal customers who keep coming back for more. As the saying goes, people buy from people. More importantly, people buy from people they trust. And who do consumers trust more than their peers traveling along the same purchase journey?
FOMO, or “Fear Of Missing Out,” is one of the most obvious benefits afforded by live video e-commerce. You’re creating an experience. Audiences who have connections with brands want to participate in the experience they provide. Historically, this hasn’t been something that brands can facilitate online on a scalable basis. Livestreaming offers a mechanism to forge this connection universally. A point-in-time event creates the potential to engage other fans of the brand, engage the brand itself, and engage influencers. Since the pandemic, this has only become more normalized.
Live e-commerce increases a brand’s appeal and distinctiveness and pulls in additional web traffic. There is so much information available online that users can’t keep up with it all, and even great quality content can quickly become buried. A path to differentiate is critical. Providing consumers with an experience that captures their attention in that specific moment will help you stand out and show—not tell—exactly why they should be purchasing your products. Live shopping events shouldn’t just be an ad; they should be entertaining.
When people can’t go into a store–touch something, engage with it–where do they go? They go online and look for videos to get a “feel” for it. Live video provides that sensation of engaging with a product and incentivizes the shopper to transact. According to Wyzowl, 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video. Live shopping is the closest brands have come to replicating the in-store shopping experience. It displays products in real world settings and allows consumers to ask questions and learn more prior to making a purchase, just as they would in-store.
Live product launches, fashion shows, and trade events are great. We all love attending and seeing what’s on the floor, but for businesses, these events are costly. Given the unpredictable nature of today’s event space, it’s even more difficult to properly plan and deliver an event. Livestreaming, paired with proper promotion and marketing, can be a great substitute. When livestreamed experiences are done right, they can result in more sales, more leads and engagement, and more cost savings. There’s also the added bonus of being able to use the same content on multiple platforms.
Furthermore, customers who purchase through live shopping events are considerably less likely to return items. Thanks to the two-way nature of live shopping, consumers who buy through this channel are 40% less likely to return an item than other online shoppers, according to Coresight data.
Some may argue that livestreaming requires a professional studio and video team, but QVC isn’t the only act in town anymore. Today, all you need is a smartphone and a bright light. In some cases, overproduced livestreams can detract from that all-important element of authenticity.
Livestreaming feels more “human.” People subscribe to unboxing channels on YouTube. They follow influencers, shops, and products on social media. Why? They like the human connection of seeing how a product or service could impact their lives. Using people, not just images or text, helps make the experience real and authentic in a way that stands out. One of video’s strengths as a medium is storytelling. When you tell customers your brand story through video, they relate to your brand more, leading to stronger connections and loyalty to the brand.
No matter your level of sophistication or the resources at hand, there is likely an option for you. You can start with your phone, you can work with an events planner, or you can work with a vendor who can help you set up the technical aspects and then guide you in making the most of your content distribution.
While the fashion and beauty industries unsurprisingly thrive in these opportunities, livestreaming is versatile and can be an avenue for many different categories. For example, after apparel and fashion (35.6%), and beauty (7.6%), the top product hawked on live events is actually fresh food (7.4%), reports McKinsey. All you need to know is which platforms and apps your buyers are using.
Live e-commerce not only informs your video marketing efforts, it delivers insights that can be leveraged across the board. Using analytics tools to understand who watched your content can help you develop personas of potential customers and guide your choices on your target demographic. It can also help you track your most engaging products and content, which will keep you attuned to the demands of your consumers.
Livestreaming e-commerce is fast, convenient, and affordable, and it provides valuable insights while offering a level of interaction previously available only in-person. Most importantly, it’s not another pandemic stopgap. By integrating influencer strategies and creating buyer communities, livestreaming e-commerce has carved a niche that is only set to grow. And the video platforms offering live retail solutions like Brightcove are helping brands see heightened engagement and greater customer propensity to buy.
If you want to learn more about livestreaming e-commerce, Brightcove partnered with IMRG, the UK’s e-commerce association, on LinkedIn Live. You can watch the entire Q&A, Delivering E-Commerce Videos that Convert, while demoing our award-winning player.
The spread of 5G communications and changes in lifestyle have made video content much more accessible to many people. Video is an effective way to build deep engagement. There is a report that says __“only 10% of the messages read in text are remembered, but 95% of the messages received from video are remembered by the viewer”__, and there is also a survey that says __“websites with video have 60% longer site dwell time than pages with only text and images”__. They convey more information than print media or websites, and have a higher retention rate. Broadly speaking, the use of video in business can be divided into the following three categories. 1. Monetizing video content itself 2. Utilizing video for sales and marketing, such as creating points of contact with customers 3. Utilizing video within the company, such as communicating with employees Video is now being used in a wide range of business situations. In this article, we will introduce some of the latest examples of video use. — ### Video On Demand When we think of businesses that monetize video content itself, we probably think of large-scale distribution services such as Netflix, TVer, and Hulu. These services, known as “__VOD (Video On Demand)__”, include services like Netflix and U-NEXT, where users pay a fee, and services like TVer and GYAO, where users can watch for free but advertisements are inserted. The former is called SVOD (Subscription Video On Demand), and the latter is called AVOD (Advertising Video On Demand). Due in part to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the VOD market is growing rapidly. In addition to viewing on PCs, smartphones, and tablets, there has also been a sharp increase in viewing on TV terminals connected to the internet (connected TVs). __ It is not only mass media and other content that are monetizing video distribution.__
“__[American Football Live by rtv](https://amefootlive.jp/)__” is a service that distributes American football content. It continues to distribute content to core fans of niche sports in Japan. According to rtv CEO Mr. Suzawa, until now they had only been distributing live game content, but they changed their policy after receiving more requests from core American football fans for special content that could only be distributed online. They increased their number of members and sales by distributing content such as “cheering battles” and “practice matches” by cheer squads, which are popular with core fans such as university alumni, and “game archives” that were broadcast by TV stations in the past.
There is an image that it is difficult to monetize content distribution aimed at core fans only, but this is an example that proves that it is possible to monetize if there is a certain number of enthusiastic fans and content that they think is worth paying to watch is distributed. In the past, it was normal to go to the venue to watch sports or music concerts, but the number of people buying paid tickets to watch online is increasing. It is likely that VOD services will become more widespread in the future, rather than just being used for one-off events. — ### Education-related services The impact of the coronavirus pandemic has also led to an expansion in video distribution for education-related services. Online classes have become widespread as a replacement for face-to-face classes and training that used to be held in person. __ There has been a wide increase in educational video content, including for exam preparation, certification exams, and in-house training. __ Services are being provided that use video distribution to broadcast online classes, and then rebroadcast recordings of those classes. Business-oriented video distribution platforms are being used to create systems where only members who have paid a fee can watch. — ### Holding online events __ Video can also be used as a means of communication with customers and potential customers. __ One typical example is online events.
For small-scale online events, it is likely that you will use a video conferencing system such as Zoom. However, for large-scale events, there are cases where the number of simultaneous viewers exceeds 10,000. The choice of video distribution platform will vary depending on the scale of the event, the purpose of the measures, and the target audience. If you expect the number of concurrent connections to be high, or if you want to avoid things like server crashes, or if you want to distribute to members, you will need a high-quality service for business. Online events have a number of advantages over real-life events. There are no restrictions on the location of the audience, and you can reach people anywhere in the world. It is also possible to reuse content resources by publishing the lectures from the event as archived videos or rebroadcasting them. — ### Playing videos on owned media There are probably many cases where video players are installed on company websites. By acquiring video viewing data and combining it with web analytics tools, it is also possible to analyze users who visit the site in depth. There are also an increasing number of cases where videos are used to introduce products on e-commerce sites, making use of the persuasive power of video. There are many possibilities for using videos on e-commerce sites, such as introducing product features and designs, or explaining how to use them in an easy-to-understand way.
### Campaign Incentives One of the increasingly popular ways to use video is as a campaign incentive. This is a campaign strategy that uses live streaming tickets to music concerts, sports broadcasts, etc. as campaign prizes, and uses this as a hook to acquire leads.
Campaigns that use entertainment experiences as incentives have long been popular in the real world. Many people will probably be familiar with the idea of being given tickets to professional baseball games or sumo tournaments. __In the real world, there are physical constraints in terms of the number of seats available at venues, but with online video distribution, there are no capacity limits__. It is also possible to obtain data on how many people who applied for the campaign actually watched the videos. The viewing data obtained can be used as marketing data in conjunction with tools such as MA tools and CDP. — ### Corporate Communication Videos are also effective as a means of internal communication. In particular, for companies with many bases both in Japan and overseas, videos are effective for sharing information on employee portal sites, etc. The internal newsletter of a manufacturer with a global presence includes a number of videos that are only available to employees. It has also been shown that articles that use video are more likely to be viewed. Spotify also held a live event for 5,000 employees in 15 countries as part of its internal communication measures. As we have seen so far, the potential for using video is expanding in various places in business. Video accelerates business. Let’s aim for further business development by selecting a platform that suits each business.
“The rise of SVoD led some observers to draft the TV channel’s obituary. Yet linear content delivery is alive and well.” — Rowan de Pomerai, The DPP
Linear programming is making a comeback, and it’s all thanks to cloud playout. Brightcove teamed up with The DPP, who interviewed sports organizations, broadcasters, and publishers on how they’re using cloud playout to launch and manage linear channels.
Cloud playout, or broadcasting from the cloud, creates channels and schedules of programming in a very similar viewer experience to traditional television channels. The difference is that these channels access the growing online audience, enable workflows in the cloud, and – in contrast to livestreaming – can offer the ability to switch between live and on-demand content during the stream. The programming on these channels is broadcast like traditional media on web apps, mobile apps, livestreams, and social channels.
Though traditional linear channels have been losing audiences to the convenience of on-demand streaming, they’re capturing a share of the online audience and revenue through cloud playout. Within the media industry, there are three key changes that are driving this rise in online linear viewing.
Traditional broadcasting was the standard model for decades, and cloud playout is the tool that can bring that successful model to eager online audiences. In fact, cloud playout has the potential to expand the reach of traditional broadcasting farther than ever due to its accessibility.
In the past, broadcast-grade channels and programming needed lots of expensive hardware and a team of specialists. Channels only gained a return if they ran for long hours over several years, which meant only large companies could operate channels. Cloud playout can create and manage channels with all the benefits of broadcast programming but without the operating expense.
For example, cloud infrastructure can be scaled up as well as down. Channels and viewing experiences can be created for smaller audiences but also for time-bound events. Without the high startup costs, pop-up channels and event-based streams are viable.
Similarly, aside from the heavy investment of promotion and content, the lower cost of cloud-based channels combined with reduced operational and technical complexity means that smaller organizations can compete. It also allows larger companies to become more agile in trialing new services with new audiences and in new geographies.
The market for cloud-based channels is also increasing because the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital in many areas, including streaming experiences. More audiences across most demographics and interests are now interested in streaming services. Even niche audiences may now have reached the critical mass to support a linear experience.
There are many ways to build and operate cloud playout, from SaaS service providers to fully in-house solutions. Team skillsets and internal appetite for build and maintenance should be reviewed before deciding how much to handle in-house.
Though building, launching, and promoting a linear streaming event or channel has become much simpler in the cloud, there are a few things to consider.
Migrating content libraries to the cloud or from legacy systems can be difficult. Mapping out the content that will add value to a linear channel might help prioritize the migration and break up a monolithic challenge into milestones.
Legacies of past investments can also mean slow cloud deployments. Although a purely cloud deployment would give the most benefit, most organizations will operate with existing hardware. Deciding when to retire legacy systems and hardware has a direct cost but also an opportunity cost.
By employing digital development and design principles and skillsets, teams and operations can become more efficient and allow more releases to be shipped more often.
Cloud playout brings back much of what made the linear experience so successful. But with the linear experience comes higher expectations. For example, if a key piece of live content suffers from an outage, the experience is ruined. Cloud playout offers several advantages that mitigate these risks and ensure a seamless viewing experience.
SaaS and cloud-based services can have better reliability and redundancy, depending on the service architecture. In the worst-case scenario, automatic failover to another virtual server is faster disaster recovery than changing hardware.
Cloud playout also allows the editorial team to plan and schedule content in advance. This can reduce the headcount needed for managing the live operation and help companies focus on delivering the best viewing experience.
Remote work used to be impossible with a traditional studio and hardware setup. But cloud playout gives teams the flexibility to work remotely, providing companies an invaluable contingency plan.
Cloud playout offers incredible opportunity and flexibility to revitalize traditional linear programming in an on-demand digital age. But switching to the cloud is an investment that requires experienced partners. Several SaaS solutions are available, like Brightcove Cloud Playout, and the right one should take the complexity out of launching a linear viewing experience.
Using video content for business is now common practice. The first thing that many people think of when it comes to using video is probably uploading it to YouTube. YouTube has an overwhelming share of the market worldwide, but it may not be appropriate for use in business. In this article, we will explain the classification of video distribution platforms and how to use them.
Interactive video has always been a hot tech topic. Wondering what all the hype is about? When you boil it down, interactivity gives viewers the ultimate control over the content they’re watching—empowering you to transform how you connect with your audience. Here’s an overview of interactive video capabilities, and some best practices for incorporating this technology into your organization.
From interactive quizzes to shoppable videos, interactivity enables organizations to create increasingly engaging content for a variety of audiences and mediums. By leveraging polling, branching, and chaptering, you can let your audience choose their own adventure—providing a personalized journey that will keep them engaged from the start.
When it comes to corporate communications, you can create a more dynamic experience by adding slide syncs and quizzes to ensure team members are retaining the content. Within the ecommerce space, you can convert viewers at warp speed by incorporating add-to-cart functionality and powerful calls-to-action.
Interactive video can also be a powerful way to ask your prospects questions that contribute to lead scoring or help with persona identification. And, if your organization offers a full suite of products, you can create interactive product overview videos to help viewers find and select the product that best fits their specific needs.
If you’re running an ABM campaign“), you can also incorporate interactivity to add a level of dynamic personalization to your videos. For instance, you can use this technology to call out your target’s name, account name, or industry. Doing so can make it seem like your team created this content specifically for this target account.
When launching an interactive video campaign, be sure to focus on relevance. Tailoring your content to where your prospect or customer is in their buying journey is crucial to your success. After all, your audience has a wide array of content options available to them—and they’ll choose to consume the assets that best meet their specific interests and needs.
If your content doesn’t resonate well with your audience, they’ll abandon it instantly. Thankfully, interactive video empowers you to create hyper-relevant, personalized content that makes it even easier for you to follow up with more relevant material if, for example, a prospect answers a trigger question.
Another best practice is to consider the value exchange. All of the interactive videos you create should simultaneously benefit the viewer (by giving them with valuable insights) and your organization (through providing you with important viewer data). By leveraging this technology to its fullest, you should be able to convert more leads—and gather better data about your customers’ needs with every conversion. Doing so will empower you to provide more targeted nurture content and arm your sales team with specialized information that can guide their conversations with prospects.
Netflix killed Blockbuster, and it’s coming for business video next. Today’s always-on, hyper-personalized world has made on-demand content the gold standard for audiences of all types, including business professionals.
Thankfully, consumer-grade streaming isn’t restricted to binging the final season of Ozark. Companies can level-up their approach to video with Brightcove CorpTV, a solution that creates a dynamic, uniquely branded streaming experience that’s accessible at any time and on any screen.
Consumer-grade streaming is the shiny new vehicle everyone wants to drive. But every car needs gas, and high quality content is the fuel for your branded streaming service. Here are a dozen proven strategies for creating and programming compelling video content that connects with audiences.
In most cases, companies aren’t starting from scratch; in fact, many businesses have thousands of videos in the can. With Brightcove CorpTV, you can easily upload existing assets into a single library and then publish the best of the best to your streaming experience.
Launching with never before-seen videos makes sense if your audience or communications objectives are new. A big-budget effort isn’t necessary. You can produce professional looking videos with a smartphone and inexpensive video editing software.
It’s essential to think like a media company. Rather than producing lots of oneoff videos, create episodic series with new releases every week or month. Combine frequent updates with push notifications, so you’re constantly bringing people back to your app.
Build audience-specific channels with videos that speak to their primary objectives, interests, and concerns. Create channels for different market segments, functional groups, user communities, levels of expertise, and more.
Quickly scale your streaming service and grow your audience with videos from leading news and entertainment brands. Take advantage of sources like Video Elephant and Veritone Licensing to add more variety and value to your channel.
Events like a user conference or employee all-hands meeting are an excellent launching pad for a company streaming service. Use the excitement of the livestreamed event to capture audience attention and then extend reach and viewership with on-demand event recordings.
Fellow employees are often a great place to start when hunting for topics and on-air talent. Look beyond the executive ranks to subject matter experts at all levels of the organization. Their passion and first-hand experience will add a relatable human touch to your videos.
Whether you’re appealing to employees or customers, your video content should reflect who you are and what you stand for. Is your company scrappy? Innovative? Buttoned up or down to earth? Everything about your video content should be consistent with your brand and culture.
The optimal length for a video depends on your goal, audience, subject, and viewing platform. In general, shorter is better—and more bingeable. The first seconds of a video are critical; they must be immediately engaging, or you risk losing the viewer’s interest.
Constantly refine your content strategy with deep, cross-device insights into what your audience is watching. Keep tabs on which videos are most popular and where viewership drops off. Data points like these allow you to learn what works and grow smartly over time.
Use Brightcove Cloud Playout to program a mix of live and on-demand content from your existing assets. A simple drag-and-drop interface makes it easy to assemble and edit a video playout (i.e., playlist) and stream it at a scheduled time or in a repeating loop.
Use metadata and tags to help categorize, organize, and find relevant assets. This makes it easier for the team managing your app to create channels and playlists and for your audience to zero in on the videos they want to watch.
Data is essential in today’s OTT streaming market. With so many SVoD services competing for similar audiences, having access to every possible data point on your customer, from engagement to revenue, is the bare minimum to stay in business. But to stay ahead of the curve, that requires more than data. That requires aggregated intelligence.
Marketers have taken advantage of lots of data points over the years: subscriptions, video views, customer payments, marketing touch points, video metadata, marketing channel investment. All of the metrics speak to critical business needs. But the next evolution in audience and content insights will aggregate those metrics to provide a comprehensive, 360-degree view of the video performance tied to customer engagement.
With so much data already available, this approach will unlock new insights that can provide the much-needed edge in an increasingly saturated market. For example, in order to lower customer acquisition costs and churn rates, while maximizing investment in content, companies should use these enhanced insights to inform the following strategies:
Focus on high lifetime value (LTV) customers. Net-new acquisition costs for OTT companies are high but audience insights can lower acquisition costs by identifying which marketing sources have the highest conversion rate and lowest cost per acquisition. Data exports can also establish high LTV lookalike profiles for ad buys on platforms like Google and Facebook, allowing OTT companies to target audience cohorts with the attributes of the most high value customers, making for a more targeted ad spend.
Engage stalled trialists. Audience data can indicate which subscribers signed up for your service, but have yet to stream a video. That viewer insight can inform automated marketing emails to those viewers, prompting them to watch and engage.
Reduce churn of at-risk customers. Identify which audience chorts are declining in their engagement and have a high likelihood of canceling based on behavioral patterns in their viewer history. Then send personalized emails with offers and watch recommendations to engage them, to prevent churn.
Increase loyalty. Leverage targeted, personalized marketing campaigns to promote relevant content based on viewer behavior.
Optimize content investment. Content acquisition costs are a huge investment. Use audience insights to understand what content is driving the most subscribers and the most consumption. Then license more content like that.
Promote the videos that will drive the most revenue. Use content performance intelligence to direct audiences to the content assets that will maximize the revenue achieved through the acquisition of this content.
Wrangling several disparate data sources makes it challenging to capture these kinds of insights because the data flows through multiple, decentralized systems. Furthermore, building insights from that data requires an additional layer of machine learning on top of the data infrastructure.
This is why Brightcove recently acquired Wicket Labs, an audience insights company. In addition to offering the existing video analytics native to Brightcove, augmenting these metrics with content and subscriber insights is the latest business need. It’s the kind of audience data necessary to drive revenue and business value for OTT companies, particularly those operating with an SVoD model.
Through this acquisition, Brightcove customers can collect and analyze data from multiple sources to produce valuable insights. By bringing these data sources together, our machine learning technology analyzes this scalable, harmonized data set to produce a comprehensive scorecard with insights on how to optimize content, marketing, and product strategies for more revenue.
When our video performance metrics are coupled with the audience insight data from Wicket Labs, video works harder for your business and harder for your revenue goals. Audience data plus video performance data, in a single, reliable, secure and scalable platform, layered with machine learning makes for clear recommendations that have the potential to maximize returns.
In today’s fast-paced market, having the right data is no longer enough. Businesses need intelligence from that data. They need centralized solutions that not only house that data, but translate it into measurable results. That is the next evolution of audience and content insights, and at Brightcove, that evolution is now.
Roberta Cambio, Brightcove Sales Director, at the 2021 DPP Leaders’ Briefing
People–whether in the form of workforce, talent, culture, or skills–are at the heart of every media company. Julie Mitchelmore, Vice President of Digital at A+E Networks EMEA, noted at the 2021 DPP Leaders’ Briefing that people deliver the technical, revenue, or operational changes, not the other way round.
The Leaders’ Briefing, an annual event where media companies discuss industry trends and projections, was attended by several senior leaders who stated that the greatest challenges at their companies revolved around people, not technology. Broadcast leaders today are challenged to develop and retain the talent needed to build services that keep pace with audiences.
Media companies need to move faster than ever before. They’re faced with rapidly changing audiences, aggressive competition for eyeballs, and complex workflows. If we take into account the occurrence of a black swan like a global pandemic, services need to adapt in months, not years. To help meet this need for speed, development teams have switched from waterfall to Agile methodologies, allowing for continuous delivery rather than longer projects subject to obsolescence before completion.
Gartner Research noted the methodology trend in a 2018 Gartner survey: “Some organizations may shift to a product management-based approach for digital innovations because it allows for multiple iterations.” A year later, another Gartner report continued: “To succeed in digital transformation, large enterprises, especially, need to reorganize themselves into a product-based structure, which is cross-functional and organized around customer problems.”
Transitioning to cross-functional teams is a major mindshift that breaks down silos between departments and turns functional teams into product teams. In fact, many European broadcasters like Sky UK, A+E Networks EMEA, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) are already shifting to product-led teams focused on short term milestones with weekly and monthly check-ups.
At a time when long term planning is hindered by an unpredictable future, this is a very viable model. Building one step at a time allows for quicker reaction times to unforeseen changes.
Companies are more successful when their staff know the culture of the company and the team they’re in, and this means retaining people and fostering communication between different departments.
For example, NRK cross-pollinates skills and experience by taking advantage of their multi-generational team. More seasoned team members share their experiences with newer team members. Inclusion and diversity matter a lot in the workplace, so it’s important to capitalize on the entire team’s experience, no matter what stage of their career they’re in.
According to the Technology Leaders Agenda 2021 survey, “data initiatives, innovations and skills look set to define the agenda for technology leaders for the foreseeable future.” In fact, “data integration and infrastructure initiatives are the top technology priority for the year, cited by 68% of respondents.” Good metadata is fuel for the automation engine media companies are building within their infrastructure to inform their business decisions and power their operations. But challenges often arise due to different types of metadata from different systems and vendors, inconsistent, inaccurate, or incomplete metadata, not to mention the need for good metadata interfaces.
Having staff with the skills to interrogate the right metadata enables a company to understand their customers and their behaviors and tailor its products accordingly. At a time when the death of third party cookies challenges user tracking, a metadata-driven omni-channel approach is needed to offer a unified customer experience.
For example, RTL Nederland, a Dutch media network, has reduced their digital extensions from 50 to 4, which is particularly relevant in a country like the Netherlands which has the highest density of SVOD services. This reduction in complexity has enabled them to build a 360-degree view of their users, which maximizes the value back to the user as well as advertisers and ultimately RTL.
