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SHOOTING VIDEOS AT HOME: TIPS AND TRICKS

bsp-admin-1 on May 4, 2020

Whether you permanently work from home or not,  being able to shoot a decent video has become a core skill set required for just about everyone wanting to communicate effectively. The fact is that as we become more global, we need to capture, show, demonstrate, and communicate, and video is a great way to do that.

The good news is that as gear gets cheaper and more affordable, it also gets better in quality and easier to use, making it more accessible to the rest of us. Today we will look at some gear and techniques that must meet three qualifications.

  • It has to improve something dramatically. It has to affect the quality of your end product directly, otherwise what’s the point?
  • It has to be relatively affordable. “I’ll give you a few options to choose from depending on your budget.”
  • It has to be easy to use. “I don’t have time to learn a complicated piece of tech.  I just need it to work” We’re talking more or less plug and play here.”

We’ve all been subjected to that video of a person shooting up their nose, with what looks to be Edison’s first light bulb illuminating them, talking to us from an echo chamber, or sitting in front of a window as if they were in the witness protection program. The good news is that each of these problems is easy to fix. All you need is a little bit of knowledge and, in some cases, an affordable piece of equipment.

AUDIO

Good audio is arguably more important than good video. The truth is people will tolerate a lower quality picture before they tolerate low-quality audio.

My recommendation is this $60 video mic by Rode. Simply plug it into your phone or camera, and presto you’ve dramatically improved your audio. It’s affordable, makes a massive improvement, and couldn’t be easier to use.

If you want to take it to the next level, we need to get into a lavalier mic set up. Typically a decent one of these with a mic starts at $700-$1000. I present to you the Rode Wireless Go for $200. One end plugs directly into your phone or camera while the other clips onto you. The cool part is that the transmitter has a mic already built-in. With this setup, you can be as far away from the camera as you want, and the audio is still crystal clear. Once again, affordable and sounds excellent, and is plug and play.

If you do nothing else after reading this, get a good mic. It will immediately set you apart from the others.

LIGHTING

No matter what camera you are shooting with, if you have bad lighting, it will look bad. The opposite is also true. No matter what camera you are shooting with, if you have good light, you can get some fantastic results.

My recommendation is the $45 Aputure AL-M9. Aputure is known for its high-end lights, but this tiny light packs a punch with very complimentary soft light. It can easily be attached directly to your camera or any 1/4 inch screw compatible stand. I’ve even taped it to the wall. Additionally, you can easily adjust its brightness to suit your shooting needs. For this price, it’s a no-brainer.

If you want a lot more light, with more control and convenience, the $169 Core SWX TorchLED Bolt 250W is a fantastic option.  This light is very bright, and you can adjust the color and brightness with a convenient remote. I like it because not only does it look beautiful, it’s also compact and easy to store and still affordable.

CAMERA

I’ve been hinting at this, and it’s true you CAN get started with your phone. So long as you know your phone’s strengths and weaknesses.

Its Achilles’ heel is light, or the lack thereof. Phone cameras do not do particularly well in low-lit rooms, including most offices, whether home or in an office building. Hence the importance of having an extra light in your kit. Having said that, don’t wait to start shooting because you don’t have a fancy camera. Start with your phone, add in a good mic, and a light, and you’re ahead of the curve.

If you want to upgrade your image quality substantially, I recommend one of the entry-level mirrorless cameras on the market.

  • They are relatively inexpensive.
  • You graduate to a camera with upgradable lenses, so it’ll last you longer.
  • They perform better in low light.
  • You get that beautiful shallow depth of field, which we all think looks so cinematic.
  • Examples of a camera like this would be a Canon EOS M50 or a Sony a6000, both of which you should be able to pick up for approx $500 with a kit lens included.

STABILIZATION

You’re going to need something to put your camera on while you film yourself. For beginners, a simple tripod will do the trick. I’m a big fan of the $39.99 Neewer tripod. It’s small, lightweight, and does the trick. There are many more expensive options out there, but for starters, this is all you need.

If you want a smaller tabletop solution, you can look at something like the Manfrotto Pixi for around $50.

COMPOSITION

Let’s take a moment to talk about composition (or pointing your camera). When you talk about a tripod, you automatically imply that you’re going to set your camera on it and point it somewhere. How you point it and how you frame your shot can make a huge difference in how professional your video looks. Best of all, this part is free. So here are your completely free composition 101 tips.

  • Clean up. The less you have in your shot, the better. Get rid of anything and everything you can. Take a moment to look at what is behind and around you. Is your kid’s toy in the shot on the floor? Dirty laundry in the room down the hall? Is an unsightly extension cord hanging out of the wall?  Little things like this go a long way.
  • Rule of thirds. This is the easiest way to make sure your shot looks a bit more interesting. Simply draw two vertical lines and two horizontal lines across your screen. Now place your subject on any of the intersections.
  • Take advantage of any pre-existing lines. A simple rule is to try to have any existing lines point toward your subject. This will naturally draw the viewer’s eyes to the subject.

Remember that these composition techniques apply whether you’re shooting a blockbuster movie or a webinar with your webcam.

B-ROLL AND GIMBALS

If you’re already using a lot of the gear and techniques discussed above and want to take your video to the next level, add some B-roll. B-roll is footage that demonstrates what you are talking about in your main video (unofficially called A-roll). You can use this footage to add interest and help explain or show what you are talking about.

One of the coolest and now most affordable tools to help you capture cinematic B-roll is a gimbal. In a nutshell, it stabilizes your footage while you move your camera around, allowing you to get some beautiful moving shots without all the shakiness. While there is some technique to be learned to master your gimbal, straight out to the box, it will already improve your footage immensely. For your phone, I suggest looking at the $139 DJI Osmo Mobile 3.  If you’re using one of the mirrorless cameras mentioned above, take a look at it’s $439 older brother the DJI Ronin-SC.

As you can see, it doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated to dramatically improve your self-shot videos, no matter where you are shooting.

We can deliver to financial institutions that become sales agents in a secure environment, and we can also comprehensively manage videos for B2C that are uploaded to YouTube.

bsp-admin-1 on April 13, 2020

ALL VIDEO CONTENT IS PRODUCED IN-HOUSE

Pictet was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1805. Since then, it has grown as a private bank that focuses on managing assets for ultra-high net worth individuals, such as European royalty and aristocracy, with a focus on “not reducing” assets, and in 1981 it opened an office in Tokyo. The Japanese corporation provides world-class asset management services as a base for the asset management division. In Japan, the company’s activities are centered on information sharing with financial institutions that act as sales agents and educating institutional and individual investors.


Mr. Kei Ito, General Manager of the Marketing Communications Department of the Marketing Division, says, “Pictet does not rely on a business model that makes profits from selling financial products and charging commissions. Continuous communication is important for customers and sales companies to understand our products and investment approach. That’s why we’ve started using videos,” he says.


The company started using videos for communication in 2012. In addition to introducing the products they handle and their investment strategies, they have also produced a variety of content in-house, including explanations of the global economy and market conditions, and basic investment knowledge. ‘Our company president always says that videos allow you to convey your message directly. That’s why videos are good,’ he says. Our educational content, which includes stock and investment trust videos, is very popular, and we are now on our 15th video. We often receive requests to send trainers to give training sessions based on our videos, and because the participants in these training sessions are expected to have understood the content of the videos beforehand, the training sessions are very satisfying for them” (Mitsuru Nakahara, Assistant Marketing Officer, Pictet Asset Management Japan Ltd.

IMPROVING THE VIEWING ENVIRONMENT AND ENHANCING ACCESS ANALYSIS FOR CLIENT COMPANIES

For several years after it started working with video, Pictet only distributed its videos on YouTube. However, while YouTube is free to use, it was impossible to achieve everything you wanted to do with it due to its specifications. There were also major problems. Some of the company’s clients were financial institutions that had viewing restrictions on general sites from a security perspective, so there were cases where YouTube content could not be viewed as part of their work. In addition, although they were hearing positive feedback, it was difficult to understand how much it was actually being used because they were unable to obtain viewing data.


In order to solve these issues, the company considered a video platform that would allow them to securely store and distribute video content. They tried using several different tools, but none of them fully met their needs, and they gradually stopped using them. They then re-examined several video platforms from the perspective of security and availability, and whether or not they could use viewing data for marketing analysis, and decided to adopt Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite.

Nakahara says, “The Video Marketing Suite is easy to use, and the access analysis functions are outstanding. It is a suite product that has all the functions related to video marketing, and it also has a variety of sophisticated functions. It was also highly evaluated for its ability to perform marketing analysis in conjunction with Salesforce and Sitecore.

YOU CAN ALSO FIND OUT WHO, WHEN AND HOW PEOPLE WATCHED YOUR VIDEOS.

With the Video Marketing Suite, you can now manage all your videos comprehensively while taking advantage of the best features of both YouTube and Brightcove.

Mitsuru Nakahara

Assistant Marketing Officer, Marketing Division, Pictet Asset Management (Japan) Ltd.

Since implementing the system, the company has been making use of the advanced functions of the Video Marketing Suite in various aspects of its video communications. For example, Brightcove Live is used for live broadcasts of market analysis sessions held in the company’s studio every week. Videos uploaded to Youtube for B2C use are also managed centrally using the Video Marketing Suite, and can be posted and deleted via Brightcove Social. This minimizes operational errors, such as forgetting to delete videos with limited availability. “Ideally, videos for B2B should be distributed directly from Video Marketing Suite, which provides a highly reliable and secure environment. On the other hand, general investors are probably more familiar with Youtube. With Video Marketing Suite, we can now manage all videos comprehensively while taking advantage of the strengths of both platforms” (Nakahara)


They have also started to analyze marketing data. Using Brightcove Audience, they have been able to import viewing data into Salesforce. Salesforce already has a wealth of B2B customer information stored in it. This means that they can now not only see viewing rates, but also find out “who”, “when” and “how” people are watching their videos. By achieving this level of operation, they aim to analyze the effectiveness of their video communication to an even higher degree. They are also planning to link this with Sitecore in the near future, enabling them to combine viewer information with web audience information for analysis.


“We want to connect the various information we have in-house with the data on the results of our video communication, and accurately measure the impact of video on our business. Our department can also use this information to create better videos. We think that Video Marketing Suite is an extremely useful tool for this purpose” (Ito).


We will continue to improve the content itself so that it is even more needed by viewers. Mr. Nakahara says, “Video has many times more information than words. Our mission is to increase the number of people who understand and sympathize with the concept of asset preservation. For example, there are still some general investors who say that investment trusts are difficult to understand. We are thinking about creating content that will help people like this to understand investment trusts without using the term ‘investment trust’”.

OVERVIEW OF THE BRIGHTCOVE ARCHITECTURE REVIEW PROCESS

bsp-admin-1 on April 13, 2020

We believe in continuous improvement at Brightcove. That applies to more than just ourselves and our software: it also applies to our processes. Recently, a group of us got together to talk about how our architecture review process was working for us and decided to give it a refresh. We want an architecture review process that is:

  • Iterative
  • Comfortable
  • Adaptable to different types of projects
  • Respectful to the expertise of the participants

The end result was the following document that describes our updated process.

WHAT IS ARCHITECTURE?

Software architecture is about making fundamental structural choices that are costly to change once implemented (source).

WHAT IS THE PROCESS?

Designing software is a continuous process. If it was possible to know everything we need to know to make perfect decisions up front, we wouldn’t need agile. To reflect this, our architecture review process has several steps that can be adapted to the needs of each project.

It may not be necessary to perform all these steps. It may be helpful to repeat steps. Generally, a review and a retrospective should be considered the minimum. Do whatever makes the most sense to achieve the following goals:

  • Make the best software architecture decisions possible
  • Produce useful engineering documentation
  • Learn along the way and adapt your plans to what you learn
  • Keep your peers informed of what you’ve decided and what you’ve learned

The following sections describe each step in the process.

ARCHITECTURE WORKSHOP

Maybe you’re planning a new project, but just don’t know how to implement it yet. Maybe you have a challenge that isn’t fully defined yet. Maybe you have three different perspectives on a challenge and are not sure how to pick one. Maybe you have an idea for an architectural change and would like to connect it to a problem statement. Rather than hunkering down and trying to answer these questions in a silo, it’s good to start talking to other experts early. This makes it easier to incorporate feedback and consider big changes before the plan gets too established. It also helps the architecture review run smoothly, since the architecture will be more ready.

CHECKLIST

  • Invite subject matter experts (eg: leads of impacted teams)
  • Invite the architecture reviews Slack channel
  • Suggest 3-8 attendees

SUGGESTIONS

  • Start by fully providing the context and explaining the problem that needs to be solved. Inviting someone who has no pre-existing knowledge can help hone the problem statement and challenge assumptions.
  • Architecture workshops can be speculative. Maybe the idea won’t end up moving forward, or it could become a hackweek project instead. No problem! If all you’ve done is gotten some experts to discuss and learn more about the challenges we face, it was a win.
  • If there are too many unknowns to move forward, consider some research activities then try again. Prototypes, research spikes, and reading are useful tools in this phase.
  • Invite non-experts too. This is a good opportunity to give people more experience in architecture design. The best way to learn how to design good architecture is to either try it yourself and fail a few times or watch other people do it.

ARCHITECTURE REVIEW

An architecture review is the presentation of your architecture to a broad audience. Here, we want as much participation as possible. You’re both soliciting additional feedback and educating the audience about your project. This should be done before development begins if possible.

CHECKLIST

  • Invite the main engineering Slack channel
  • Remind #engineering right before the meeting starts
  • Create engineering documentation before the architecture review and share it with participants in advance
  • In the meeting, walk through the documentation, explain it in detail, and solicit questions and feedback.

SUGGESTIONS

  • Start by fully providing the context and explaining the problem that needs to be solved. Remember: your audience probably includes people who are new to Brightcove and people who have no context about your engineering area. Avoid saying “as you already know…” as it can alienate newcomers and reduce participation.
  • Make engineering documentation that will be updated going forward, not just a one-off document. At the end of the project, you will ideally have up-to-date documentation of what was actually built. This documentation can be used for reference, to share with stakeholders, to ramp-up new team members, and so on.
  • Be visual in your documentation. Diagrams and photos of whiteboards can really help readers take in your ideas efficiently.
  • It’s possible to feel like this is a defense rather than a feedback cycle. If you feel like you’re on the defense, remember you don’t need to have all the answers now. It’s ok to say “Thank you for bringing that up, we’ll get back to you after we’ve had some time to think about it.”
  • There is no expectation that you do everything someone says you should do. Disagreements are ok. Overlooking something is not as great. As people learn from each other, they will gravitate toward the best ideas.

DOCUMENTATION

Here are some suggestions of what to include in your documentation. Not all of these will be relevant to every project.

  • System interactions
  • Interfaces
  • Domain modeling
  • Deployment plan
  • Technologies used
  • Where will the hosts live
  • Monitoring plan
  • COGs
  • Billing
  • User experience
  • Maintainability
  • Accepted compromises (technical debt, etc)
  • Security
  • Potential patterns of abuse
  • Secure coding practices
  • Authentication / authorization
  • Auditing / logging

PARTICIPANT GUIDELINES

  • Presenting new ideas to a big group can be pretty stressful. Please help them have a good experience!
  • Avoid advocating for your ideas by raising the stakes, eg “If you don’t do this, the project will fail.” Focus on explaining the specific ramifications that you believe are being overlooked.
  • Avoid saying “Why don’t you just…” This suggests that the presenter is making an obvious oversight. This is usually a matter of perspective, so approaching from a perspective of curiosity and exploration can lead to a more constructive conversation.
  • If you have a feeling something won’t work, but you’re not sure why, it might be better to give it some more thought before bringing it up. Or, if you want to raise a gut feeling, call it what it is. eg “I have a gut feeling there is a problem with using this tool we’re not thinking of, so I want to revisit this again later.”

ARCHITECTURE UPDATE

For long-running projects, it is useful to get together regularly to talk about the progress of the project. This acts as a retro for the progress so far, a review of the updated architecture, and a chance to change plans according to what was learned.

CHECKLIST

  • Invite everyone involved in the project
  • Invite the architecture reviews Slack channel
  • Update the engineering documentation you created in the review so it reflects the latest state of the software.
  • Solicit retrospective notes ahead of the meeting. Provide a place for people to write what is working, what isn’t working, and suggested actions.
  • In the meeting, walk through the updated engineering documentation, call attention to the changes, and solicit questions and feedback
  • In the meeting, have everyone read their retro notes and encourage discussion

SUGGESTIONS

  • For long-running projects, it may be wise to do this at least once a quarter. This can result in finding hidden issues or novel new ideas, even if the project is going well.
  • If you feel like it’s time to have this meeting, you’re probably right. Don’t wait until the end of the quarter, end of the project, etc.

ARCHITECTURE RETRO

Have this meeting after the software is shipped. Essentially, this is the same as the architecture update, except it’s the last one and it should include a wider audience.

CHECKLIST

  • Invite everyone involved in the project
  • Invite the main engineering Slack channel
  • Update the engineering documentation you created in the review so it reflects the latest state of the software.
  • Solicit retrospective notes ahead of the meeting. Provide a place for people to write what worked, what didn’t work and suggested changes.
  • In the meeting, walk through the updated engineering documentation, call attention to the changes, and solicit questions and feedback
  • In the meeting, have everyone read their retro notes and encourage discussion

SUGGESTIONS

  • Retros are one meeting where sticking to the agenda is not always best. If people want to discuss a particular challenge, make room for it. You can always schedule more time if needed.

Q4 2019 GLOBAL VIDEO INDEX: SMARTPHONES KEY TO VIDEO DISTRIBUTION

bsp-admin-1 on April 9, 2020

Next-gen 5G wireless networks are just starting to light up around the globe, promising beefier video streaming capabilities like greater speed and more robust reliability. The deployments can’t come fast enough, as share and time spent with over-the-top content continues to grow, especially in emerging markets.

Events like Australia’s drought-driven fires, the coronavirus pandemic and other news events – like national elections – all are driving up time spent watching video on smartphones, as Brightcove’s Q4 2019 Global Video Index found.

The quarterly Video Index, which is based on more than 400 billion anonymized data points from Brightcove customers, found that time spent watching streaming video during Q4 increased 23% Y/Y globally, with spikes in news viewing in Australia Y/Y and Q/Q.

SMARTPHONE GET 55% OF THE WORLD’S VIDEO VIEWS

Smartphone share of video views neared 55% in the quarter and time spent watching video increase substantially. Globally, consumers spent 30% more time watching streaming video on iPhones and Android-based smartphones than they did during the same period a year ago.

Even tablets, which have seen their share of video views stagnate in recent quarters, saw time spent watching increase 6% in Q4 2019, compared to a year earlier.

Computers, while still seeing strong usage in short-form video viewing (0-5 mins.), were the lone device where consumers spent less time watching videos in the quarter. Computers, overall, actually also saw a sharp decline in the number of videos viewed during the quarter; that number was down 10% from a year ago.

The biggest winner in terms of global growth were connected TVs, with time watched up 114% and video viewing share growing 25% in the quarter,

The 2% decline in time spent watching videos on computers and 10% drop in views are indicative of the evolution taking place in streaming video. Where we once talked about the democracy of screens, that whatever screen at hand was the one we were most likely to choose to watch, viewers have evolved and now use mobile devices to source content on the go, and to watch that content on connected TVs.

SMARTPHONES RULE IN EMERGING MARKETS

While connected TVs are seeing growing video consumption in most developed markets, there are several, most notably developing markets in Asia-Pacific, Latin America and MENA (Middle East/North Africa) where mobile screen rule.

For example, 81% of all video starts in Asia-Pac were on smartphones in Q4 2019, up from just 45% a year earlier. Time watched jumped 38% and completion rates were at 48%, similar to the rest of the world (ROW).

In Latin America, share of video starts on smartphones was 57%, up from 43% a year earlier. Time watched was up a modest 4%, but completion rates on smartphones topped 50% for all video lengths (from 0-5 mins. through 41+ mins.), one of the better completion rates in the world.

MENA saw video starts on smartphones grow 78% Y/Y to take a nearly two-thirds share of video starts on all devices (64%). Time watched on smartphones was up a strong 41% with completion rates at 47%.

But smartphones play a major role in mature markets, too, especially, as we’re already seeing in Q1 data, during times of crisis, like the coronavirus pandemic.

Smartphone share of video views during Q4 in Europe hit 58%, and 59% in Japan/Korea. Australia/New Zealand saw share at 38% and North America 40%. But in three of the four regions, the number of video views on smartphones was up significantly, more than 65% in ANZ, 81% in Europe, and more than 60% in North America. Japan/Korea saw just a modest 20% increase in views, but did have the highest share of video views on smartphones among the four markets at 59%.

DURING CRISIS, NEWS IS KING ON A SMARTPHONE

As noted earlier, smartphones were a go-to source for information during Australia’s devastating fires late last year. During Q4 2019, news views were up 22% Y/Y on all devices. The biggest gain was shown by mid-form video (6-20 mins., a typical half-hour show excluding commercials), up 97% Y/Y. Views of short-form video (0-5 mins.), meanwhile, increased 31% and long-form content views were up 6%.

But smartphones led the pack.

Global Video Index data showed the number of news video views of all lengths doubled between Q4 2018 and Q4 2019 on smartphones in Australia. Short-form video views (0-5 mins.) were up 159%, medium-form video views (6-20 mins.) increased 182%, with the number of views for news-related videos over 21 minutes in length rising about 18%.

Short-form video views also increased on tablets and connected TVs (18% and 123% respectively), with computer views declining 13%. While medium-form content views increased 182% on smartphones, views also were up on tablets (85%), computers (60%) and connected TVs (43%).

THE BOTTOM LINE

With 5G on the horizon, there’s little doubt mobile will play an increasing role in the distribution and consumption of streaming video, especially on smartphones, the screen most often at hand for a massive proportion of consumers globally when they need news, for example, on the go.

For content owners, especially those for whom news content is critical, smartphones must be a pillar of any distribution strategy. It certainly is for viewers.

BACK TO TOP

 

What is the operational design required when managing and distributing videos?

bsp-admin-1 on April 7, 2020

When a company introduces a video distribution platform, it is necessary to design how the system will be operated. In this blog, we will explain what operational design is, why it is important, and how to decide on the design items for video management and distribution, including specific design items. Table of Contents ①What is operational design? ②Operational design required for video management and distribution ③Design items ①What is operational design? Operational design refers to creating a framework for operational tasks by considering the situations and issues that may arise. More specifically, it means compiling the necessary information for each person in charge regarding the content of work, work rules, and work processes that are carried out on a daily, regular, or irregular basis.

STREAMING ZOOM MEETINGS AND WEBINARS WITH BRIGHTCOVE LIVE

bsp-admin-1 on March 30, 2020

In the last few weeks, we’ve seen an unprecedented amount of organizations forced to close their physical doors and set up operations, meetings, and events in the virtual world. No surprise, video has remained a core tool for enabling these organizations to stay connected with both employees and customers. Today, we are sharing a quick tip on how to scale your Zoom meeting to hundreds of thousands of attendees, leveraging Zoom and Brightcove Live.

With Zoom + Brightcove Video Cloud, remote and geographically dispersed speakers can join a Zoom meeting or webinar to create a multi-speaker experience, such as a company town hall or a live webinar panel discussion, that can cost-effectively scale to reach thousands or hundreds of thousands of attendees. By copying and pasting Zoom’s RTMP stream into the Brightcove Video Cloud Live module, you can securely stream the source video and capture detailed video analytics for large scale events within seconds.

Figure: Zoom meetings and webinars with Brightcove Video Cloud

Figure: Zoom meetings and webinars with Brightcove Video Cloud

BRIGHTCOVE PLAYER AND BRIGHTCOVE LIVE

The Brightcove Player and the Brightcove Live modules are industry-leading tools that enable you to stream your events to any device across any of your properties and simulcast them to YouTube and Facebook.

Once connected in Video Cloud, you can take advantage of features, including:

  • Player Customization enables you to style and customize the look and feel of the Brightcove Player leveraging Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and the Brightcove Player module. 
  • Live Video Clipping allows you to create a short, teaser clip that can be posted to social media to drive views to live stream.
  • Live Event Portal offers pre-, during, and post-event states and supports page-level ads and calls to action. 
  • Single-Sign-On (SSO) enables you to authenticate viewers and secure your video content.  

Videos from Zoom that run through Brightcove Live are automatically added to your Video Cloud media library and are immediately available for your normal production workflow. For step by step instructions on how to connect Zoom and Brightcove Video Cloud read the Host Zoom Conferences with Brightcove support article.

About the functional integration between Zoom and Brightcove

bsp-admin-1 on March 30, 2020

With the global spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19), there is a growing demand for video streaming of events such as exhibitions, ceremonies, forums, and seminars. There are various types of video streaming, but even in Japan, where webinars have not taken off, there has been a sudden surge in the shift to online events.

OTT ADVERTISING IS HITTING ITS STRIDE

bsp-admin-1 on March 26, 2020

OTT IS BOOMING

Traffic is high and growing rapidly on connected devices (CTV). This high traffic, in addition to the uncluttered, high quality experience, is driving up CPMs. Due to the premium nature of their content, Brightcove customers have even reported CPMs between $25-$70, surpassing the range observed by eMarketer of $19.84 to $28.33 from Q4 2017 to Q4 2018.

In the competitive and crowded market of streaming services, these high CPMs, along with a lower barrier to entry for viewers, make ad-supported models attractive for media companies. Even HBO, which has historically been known for its lack of ads, has announced that it will be including ads with its HBO Max offering in 2021, according to Reuters. Agencies like Mediacom are even launching divisions specializing in OTT with smart TVs and gaming consoles as their core focus.

For Brightcove, the ANZ region has been a leading indicator for what’s to come for digital advertising. The ANZ market is dominated by free to air Broadcasters and non paywalled content, which has forced leadership and innovation in the space. So we turned to our Australian colleagues, customers and partners to weigh in on some global OTT advertising challenges and opportunities, starting with IAB Australia CEO, Gai Le Roy,

“The Australian market has seen a huge surge in CTV investment over the last 12 months with the percentage of local media owners’ video revenue for big screen inventory increasing from 23% to 40%. The increase in trading has been driven by a combination of higher consumption and agencies embracing the opportunity of buying inventory in high quality environments often with first party data that can help replace reach that may have been eroded by shrinking linear TV audiences.”

OTT ADVERTISING STILL HAS CHALLENGES

There has been a major gap between the tracking, reporting and targeting available on desktop versus what’s available on CTV, with mobile falling somewhere in the middle. This has led to lower fill rates on CTV compared to other devices. While there are inherent measurement challenges in OTT environments, this inventory is subject to the same scrutiny as traditional online video advertising. It’s important for buyers and sellers to understand this and come to the table with the right expectations. One common example is that some advertisers have been reluctant to buy inventory that doesn’t include viewability or doesn’t let them drop a cookie.

“The value of being seen in an uncluttered, big-screen environment vastly outweighs the nearly non-existent value of having a viewability metric on a CTV, but buyers are still slow to change,” says Mark Stanton, VP, International Product Management at Brightcove.

THINGS ARE IMPROVING

New standards: In response, leaders in the space have begun investing in initiatives designed to alleviate the problem, like the IAB’s Open Measurement SDK. Smart TVs are also getting easier to work with. Teams around the industry are building universal HTML5 apps that work across Samsung, LG, Playstation, etc. to further encourage standardization. However, these efforts are lost if buyers do not get on board.

Buyers are loosening up: Although buyers don’t get the granular reporting they are accustomed to on the web, they are loosening their requirements as they see the opportunity in OTT. While there are still technical limitations, buyers have become more accepting that an ad on a TV is inherently viewable. Some DSPs have made updates to their algorithms to detect whether inventory is coming from a CTV and evaluate it differently from web and app. Other factors, such as Google phasing out cookies and restrictions on user tracking imposed by GDPR, will help drive action. The technologies used to track users that are unavailable in CTV environments will soon be unavailable on the web as well, forcing buyers to adapt.

Juliette Stead, Senior Vice President, APAC for video advertising platform Telaria weighed in saying, “BVOD (broadcast video on demand) is 100% viewable.  Most buyers now appreciate that viewability vendors simply don’t have a consistent product solution for CTV. The need for viewability measurement across CTV has generally decreased among savvy buyers who recognise the power, value and long term benefit of television, and who are safe in the knowledge that curated, professionally produced content which is 100% viewable will provide an effective environment for their brand. BVOD generally, and CTV in particular, has seen a significant increase in demand from a broad range of advertiser categories over the past 24 months, and I expect to see a further increase in investment over coming years.”

Advancements in audience data: Media companies are providing more context for content beyond just name and genre; leading companies are even using AI indexing on content. Many broadcasters have been building out their audience data on CTV. However, agency CTV data is still limited.

“The industry is developing new ways of measuring audiences to both verify audience data as well as evolve co-viewing estimations. Locally three quarters of AVOD audiences are watching content with another person for at least half of their viewing sessions,” confirms Gai Le Roy, IAB Australia.

Limited agency data can be viewed as both a positive and a negative for media companies: It’s good in that if agencies want targeting, they need to buy using the media company’s data. But it’s bad in that if agencies are buying programmatically using their own data, CTV inventory will get overlooked. In comes third-party data.

Third-party measurement and data providers like Nielsen, OzTAM, and Moat are actively trying to solve this dilemma with solutions like co-viewing measurement and by leveraging manufacturer data from vendors like Roku. Things like global scale and how this data is transacted upon still need to be sorted out, but this effort represents progress nonetheless.

Peter Henning, Principal Consultant at Traffic Software, who has worked extensively with major broadcaster TVNZ expresses, “It will be interesting to see the innovation that OTT publishers and technology vendors can achieve with first party data ‘logged in and federated’ solutions, that are secure and scalable.”

According to Julliette Stead, “At Telaria, we work with a number of Australian and New Zealand broadcasters – Seven West Media, Nine Entertainment, Foxtel, Ten, SBS, TVNZ and Mediaworks. All have a data capture strategy in place, and we have integrated with publisher DMPs in order to best segment BVOD supply for targeting purposes across all devices, including CTV. In addition, we are able to ingest content metadata for show specific or category targeting. This allows broadcasters to create solutions to the many differing needs presented by brands for broad and targeted reach campaigns alike.”

THERE’S STILL A WAYS TO GO

“Innovation is happening on multiple complimentary fronts in OTT to increase the value proposition for advertisers. These innovations need to integrate with a server side ad insertion foundation to offer a viable product pathway for OTT publishers,” says Henning. “Consumers now expect a quality viewing experience and it is vital that the industry pivots in how we deliver marketing messages to provide interactive, contextually relevant experiences.”

At Brightcove, we’ve been using our unique position in the industry to help solve these tough challenges. Among other efforts, we’ve been investigating how to improve the data available from CTV Server-Side Ad Insertion – both the data about the user that’s available to the ad decisioning system and the data about the ads served (or not served) that’s available to the publisher. We’re keeping these considerations in mind in order to enhance our SSAI measurement and to optimize OTT apps with flexible monetization.

Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Problem Solved: Troubleshooting Ad Delivery in the Brightcove Player”.

HOW TO CALCULATE AND INCREASE SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO TRIAL CONVERSIONS

bsp-admin-1 on March 24, 2020

Trials have always been an effective customer acquisition tool for video subscription services. However, from social media lookalike campaigns to exclusive content or popular movie promotions, the reason many customers sign up for a trial can vary widely. Increasing conversions requires properly measuring the free trial conversion rate and employing today’s free trial best practices.

FREE TRIAL CONVERSION RATE

Free Trial Conversion is one of the most important metrics to monitor in a successful SVoD business. It’s a simple calculation of the total number of trials that are successfully converted to paid, divided by the number eligible to convert on any given day.

Number of Successful Conversions
———————————————-
Number of Trials Eligible to Convert

 

That said, in a subscription video business, there are other variables that can affect your conversion rate.

Since almost all video businesses batch their monthly billing rates into a daily billing run, failed billing attempts will impact your daily conversion numbers. Most companies employ different retry mechanisms and intervals for processing failed billing attempts (also called a dunning process). It is important to apply a consistent calculation when comparing conversion rates.

CONVERSION RATE METHODOLOGY

At Brightcove, we use the same methodology for calculating conversion rates across all of our customers, regardless of their dunning methodologies. This is important as it allows us to compare conversion rates of different customer cohorts within a single customer account and provide industry benchmarks to help you understand how your key metrics compare to similar services.

Free Trial Conversion

The way we calculate conversion rates is not too different from most calculations, with one small difference.

CONVERSION RATE VARIABLES

For example, if there are 100 trials that are eligible to convert on a given day and 70 of them pass billing, a standard calculation would be 70% conversion. However, at Brightcove, we also take failed billing transactions into account and standardize the conversion rate accordingly.

A number of those free trial customers may request a cancellation before their trial period ends and the rest would be eligible for conversion. Let’s say 20 (voluntary cancellation) of that original 100 request a cancellation and the other 80 go through billing. Of those 80, that same 70 successfully pass billing and convert to a paid user, and 10 fail billing and enter the dunning process.

When a trial conversion billing attempt fails, that subscription would then become eligible for a billing retry according to your dunning process billing rules. For example:

  • 100 people sign up for a 7-day trial (day 1)
  • 20 voluntarily cancel during the course of that trial (their trial will end on that bill date)
  • 80 are processed for billing on day 8, and 10 of them fail
  • The conversion rate for those day 1 customers is 77.8%
  • 100 signed up, 20 canceled, and 10 held over for retry

 

70 Successful Billing Transactions
———————————————-
90 Trials Eligible to Convert

 

The remaining 10 will then become eligible to convert at a later date.

Now let’s assume 100 more sign up for a trial on day 2, and during the trial process, 10 decide to cancel. Billing runs, and 10 more fail billing. If the standard retry logic is to retry credit cards one day later, the 10 failed billing transactions would be eligible for retry. Of those, 5 pass and convert, and 5 fail and stay in the dunning process.

So on day 9, there would be 95 eligible conversions: the 80 that signed up on day two and passed billing, the 10 that voluntarily churned, and the 5 that passed dunning. The conversion rate would be 89.5% (85/95).

CONVERSION RATE APPLICATIONS

You can also take the daily conversion rate and average that over 30 total days to calculate a monthly conversion rate. By breaking it down to this level, you can ensure that you are smoothing out any outliers and getting to a consistent number.

Furthermore, breaking your base into different campaigns and customer cohorts gives you an accurate read on how well you are acquiring customers. This allows you to consistently analyze which campaigns successfully bring you paying customers that stay in the service for the longer term.

FREE TRIAL BEST PRACTICES

With the proper trial conversion metrics in place, you’ll be able to test and implement several best practices that our customers have had success with.

  • Keep Trials Short. Seven-day trials convert the best. It provides enough time for potential subscribers to watch a few programs and get a sense of the library. We’ve heard the argument that longer trials provide more time to evaluate the video service and lead to lower month-one churn rates, but this hasn’t been our experience.

  • Dial-in your Onboarding Program. Establishing a consistent onboarding program for trials is a good first step to converting as well as retaining these customers throughout the first few months. For example, an email promoting shows with a high Attention Index ensures an entertaining first few days for each audience member. Hidden Gems also work well to showcase the depth of the content library.

Stalled Trialists

  • Target Your Stalled Trialists. Some people sign up, watch one video, and never engage again. To increase your conversion rate with this cohort, we recommend a slightly more aggressive outreach program. Identify these stalled trialists and in addition to the regular onboarding program, make sure they receive at least one more email. Promoting titles with a high, shared audience may be a good hook to get these trialists beyond the first video and into your library.

  • Advertise More Viewing Options. A recent analysis by the Brightcove Customer Success team found that trialists watching on 2 or more devices convert at rates 10-15% higher than those watching on only 1 device. In addition to promoting select titles from your catalog, an advertisement for the other apps and devices you have invested in should be appended to your trialist messaging. Getting a trialist to log in on a second device may tip them into becoming a paying subscriber.

OPTIMIZING FREE TRIALS WITH BRIGHTCOVE

You only have a few days to nudge a trialist into becoming a subscriber. Having your data set up to quickly work with your marketing or email tool to target each cohort is essential. Your data defines an optimal target and can even influence the creative by identifying the titles that convert well.

Brightcove Audience Insights is designed to make this easy. Your data is harmonized and exportable, either as a csv or through a direct integration with Hubspot, Sailthru, or Segment. Audience Insights identifies Stalled Trialists and the videos that are the best Trial Drivers. And our Customer Success team meets with our clients every 1-2 weeks to share best practices and act as an additional business analyst, identifying opportunities to optimize your video service.

Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Hidden Treasure: Getting the Most from Your Content Library”.