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HOW SEVEN WEST MEDIA (SWM) PUT VIEWERS IN CONTROL

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2024

As one of Australia’s leading integrated media companies, Seven West Media (SWM) offers top quality, story-driven content to millions of consumers across the country. Whether it’s in the form of broadcast programming, magazines, newspapers, or digital media, SWM operates from the standpoint of creating engagement and value from powerful storytelling.

SWM decided to pivot its business strategy and become a total video enterprise, putting consumers in control of the viewing experience. In order to do that successfully, the company identified two major goals: (1) incrementally monetize all of its live stream content, and (2) measure each asset independently. Says Clive Dickens, Chief Digital Officer for SWM: “If we could incrementally monetize and independently measure, then we’d be able to take our total video experience to all devices, better known as TV Everywhere.”

What makes us different is that still today, we’re incrementally monetizing…live streaming with addressable live TV using server side ad insertion technology, and also independently measuring it…

CLIVE DICKENS

CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, SEVEN WEST MEDIA

Seven West Media launched its TV Everywhere strategy with Australia’s first-ever, 24/7 live stream television operation, giving viewers live access to big events like the Wimbledon Championships. From there, SWM built a network using the power of Brightcove technology, most notably its transcoding and encoding features, ensuring its consumers can access content anytime, anywhere. The company implemented Brightcove’s server side ad insertion (SSAI) solution to mitigate ad blockers, optimize ad delivery, and boost monetization. Further maximizing the advantages of the Brightcove platform, SWM then launched its own OTT streaming service, 7plus, blending the excitement of live stream content with catch-up programming via on-demand video, allowing consumers to decide how and when they want to enjoy SWM media. With the Brightcove platform, SWM was able to quickly power the service and send to market, all in a cost-effective, efficient manner.  Within twelve weeks following the launch, the service had already recorded nearly three million unique visitors per month.

Standout events fueled a year of stunning growth for SWM in 2018. The Summer of 7Tennis campaign reached 50% of the Australian population through its duration, as 3.3 million viewers tuned in simultaneously at the peak of the Australian Open men’s final. The Winter Olympics reached even more Australians, with 16 million viewers tuning in throughout the event, logging  27.4 million social video views. Finally, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games racked up a total of 189 million live streaming minutes at final count. Throughout the year, their service handled these extreme traffic loads without viewability issues, thanks to the robust capabilities of the Brightcove platform.

HOW JOURNAL MEDIA EXTENDED ITS REACH WITH MOBILE AND OTT

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2024

VIDEO VIEWS SURPASS GOAL IN SIX MONTHS WITH HIGH TRAFFIC AND AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT

If you’re one of the 3.2 million farmers in the United States, chances are you’ve heard of Farm Journal Media (FJM), one of the oldest agricultural publications in the country. What started as a print magazine 140 years ago has now evolved into a full-blown multimedia company focusing on the intricacies of the commercial farming industry.

FJM’s evolution is apparent in its collection of media properties, including 11 business publications, eight broadcast programs, 26 websites, two e-newsletters, and an OTT network, Farm Journal On Air, which is available via web and mobile app. Its programs are broadcast to 100 or so local network affiliates, and they’re also available on digital cable and satellite channel, RFD-TV. Considering FJM’s audience reach, high-quality content, and impressive viewership of nearly two million people weekly, the company is arguably the agricultural industry’s leader in media publishing.

In order to stay number one, FJM knows it has to continue evolving and providing viewers quality content in whatever mode they prefer. “It’s important we go where the customers are,” says Clinton Griffiths, Editorial Director of FJM’s Broadcast Division. And as evidenced by FJM’s track record, they’ve been doing just that. A perfect example is the company’s transition from a single print magazine to an industry premier website, AgWeb, and syndicated broadcast program, AgDay, which is also available on a variety of platforms, including Farm Journal On Air, RFD-TV, and the AgDay website.

“The AgWeb site has now grown into a powerhouse of the industry,” says Griffiths. “It gets more than half the traffic from people looking for agriculture news, markets and other related information. It’s just a behemoth out there in the business.”

We’re looking to roll out our OTT channel to services like Apple TV and Roku…to deliver to bigger screens and living room television sets.

CLINTON GRIFFITHS

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR OF FJM’S BROADCAST DIVISIONWATCHIT

Giving customers what they want has always been the driving force behind FJM’s business model. That’s why the company teamed up with Brightcove to further expand its digital footprint. In just about seven months, Brightcove successfully supported FJM in building and launching its OTT and mobile initiatives, driving incredible engagement across all digital properties, and discovering new ad revenue opportunities to help fund future video endeavors.

FARM JOURNAL MEDIA PARTNERS WITH BRIGHTCOVE TO SUPERCHARGE ITS VIDEO CONTENT

During the company’s transition to digital, FJM first delivered video through a content delivery network, but during that time, the team recognized several challenges that were preventing FJM from optimizing its assets. For one, the network’s player, based in Flash, forced content to load far too slowly. Two, the platform lacked a smart tagging system and a flexible player. This made it nearly impossible to play video seamlessly within different browsers or mobile devices, and it erased any chance of enabling interactive content. And three, the entire platform was behind the times; it couldn’t provide FJM the tools it needed to stay on top of the latest technology trends. That’s when the FJM team began looking for the industry standard platform, and discovered Brightcove.

Brightcove’s player has proved to be the ultimate asset for FJM. Its optimized, lightweight technology allows for fast load and play times, which is incredibly helpful for consumers living in areas of limited connectivity. Since FJM’s target demographic is located mostly in rural areas, consumers’ access to high-speed internet is spotty at best. That’s why the Brightcove player helps FJM deliver high-quality video content to any location, regardless of bandwidth.

The player also supports smart tagging, making it easy to distribute video seamlessly, no matter what browser or platform people are using.

“You can put up one video, and it is delivered to multiple players,” says Griffiths. “That’s as opposed to setting up and managing each player individually.”

And because of its impressive workflow efficiency, Brightcove’s platform has truly transformed the way Griffiths and his digital team think about producing and distributing content. Rather than managing separate players and playlists, they’re now able to focus solely on managing the videos themselves, which makes a big difference as far as efficiency is concerned.

OPTIMIZING CONTENT HELPS DRIVE AD REVENUE FOR FARM JOURNAL MEDIA

Since partnering with Brightcove, FJM has been able to take advantage of the platform’s many benefits to drive an increase in ad inventory.

The team is segmenting video content into short, strategically packaged pieces—a helpful practice that drives more traffic to multiple distribution points. Griffiths explains:

“We discovered shorter, more compact clips are far better solutions for digital audiences. Now that we’re doing smart tagging, we’re shortening our clips and being more specific. We’re writing new stories around everything and driving traffic to individual pieces of video, as opposed to the entire show every day.”

FJM now is able to repurpose one piece of video into individual segments and deliver them separately throughout the company’s multiple digital properties and platforms. Therefore, FJM doesn’t have to create more video content; instead, it can distribute many versions of the same video, resulting in more viewing opportunities and a highly efficient work process. In fact, within the first six months of using the Brightcove platform, FJM hit its max data limit for video views, indicating incredibly high traffic and audience engagement. From August 2016 to August of 2017, digital video and audio plays have risen nearly 140 percent.

As FJM’s video assets continue to grow and its viewership increases, its sales team has begun seeking opportunities for additional revenue to support the company’s video initiatives. Griffiths says the team is collaborating with sales staff to develop an impactful approach to pre-, mid-, and post-roll opportunities proving to advertisers just how valuable FJM’s digital content is.

BOOST IN MOBILE USE ALLOWS FJM TO MAKE THE ARGUMENT FOR OTT VIDEO

While broadband connectivity poses a challenge to most of FJM’s rural viewers, it’s actually helped expand FJM’s mobile viewership. With more people investing in mobile technology, including increased data plans and 4G speeds, the company’s ability to reach on-the-go audiences has skyrocketed.

“It makes sense that people are going to get the content where they can actually stream it,” says Griffiths. “It looks like our viewers use their phones for that because oftentimes the connection is actually faster than the internet connection they have at home.”

And with such an attentive mobile audience, FJM is now aiming to attract even more users to its OTT channel, Farm Journal On Air. The channel’s recently revamped mobile app, built with the help of Brightcove’s OTT Flow, will be a huge asset in extending the reach to mobile consumers and at-home audiences. FJM expects their mobile app will be especially appealing to those who have chosen satellite TV or have “cut the cord” in favor of other video services for direct-to-consumer viewing.

“We’re looking to roll out our OTT channel to services like Apple TV and Roku,” says Griffiths. “We eventually want to deliver to bigger screens and living room television sets.”

HOW YOUNG HOLLYWOOD DELIVERS 150M MONTHLY VIDEO VIEWS

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2024

BRIGHTCOVE’S CONTEXT AWARE ENCODING REDUCES STORAGE AND BANDWIDTH WHILE IMPROVING VIEWER EXPERIENCE

As one of the leading producers and distributors of celebrity-driven digital media, Young Hollywood has solidified itself as the go-to entertainment source among millennial and Generation Z audiences. The company’s collection of nearly 5,000 hours of exclusive programming, reaches more than 150 million viewers each month in over 130 countries across the globe.

Since Young Hollywood’s debut in 2007, its entire digital video ecosystem has been supported by Brightcove technology, particularly its video platform and accompanying APIs. The publisher streams its content using the Brightcove player, and syndicates its video to partners via MRSS feed. Young Hollywood also relies on Brightcove analytics to review video performance data at a granular level, tracking how it has expanded its reach and increased engagement with audiences all across the globe.

In December 2017, Young Hollywood implemented two additional Brightcove Video Cloud features — Dynamic Delivery and Context Aware Encoding (CAE). These two features have enabled Young Hollywood to make more efficient use of bandwidth while saving costs on storage and video operations. Most importantly, these Brightcove technologies have helped Young Hollywood maintain an exceptional end user experience for its massive viewership. During the company’s first few weeks of use, its namesake brand, Young Hollywood, saw a 20% savings in storage and a 17% savings in bandwidth, while its OTT channel, Young Hollywood TV, realized a 23% savings in storage and a 35% savings in bandwidth.

YOUNG HOLLYWOOD BUILDS ROBUST DISTRIBUTION NETWORK

Young Hollywood boasts ten different media brands, including Young Hollywood, Younger Hollywood, Beyond the Athlete, Food Feed, The Code Word, The FanGirl Life, Inside the Look, Ampd Up, The Social Stream, and an OTT channel, Young Hollywood TV. Video content across the company’s entire media portfolio is original, produced in-house, and entirely void of libelous gossip, which, according to CEO R.J. Williams, makes videos highly shareable, resulting in increased views and audience engagement. While some celebrity-driven content is sensationalized hearsay, Young Hollywood focuses its efforts on producing only positive stories. Celebrities like Lady Gaga often share the publisher’s content to their own distribution channels and web pages, since it’s the type of press they actually want fans to see. By positioning itself as a trusted, respectful media source and building strong relationships with celebrity talent, Young Hollywood has successfully created a robust distribution network with incredible visibility.

Through Brightcove, we know exactly how many people watched a video and for how long they watched it—to a T.

R.J. WILLIAMS

CEO

“It’s content that celebrity talent is really proud of, which helps us in a big way because it gets them to actually share it,” says Williams. “It’s happening more now with social media. On a daily basis, talent is tweeting about us, putting us in their Instagram story, and putting us on their Facebook fan pages,” says Williams.

And because of the company’s distinctly curated brands, each targeting specific age groups and demographics per vertical, Young Hollywood ensures consumer retention, or “stickiness,” with its audience. Williams explains:

“We’ve expanded the verticals, and our expectation is that our audience is going to transition from Younger Hollywood to Young Hollywood, and then maybe to Beyond the Athlete or Inside the Look. People will be able to transition from one brand to the next depending on what their interests are and where they go in the future.”

YOUNG HOLLYWOOD SYNDICATES VIDEO CONTENT WITH BRIGHTCOVE APIS

Young Hollywood also syndicates video to distribution partners through an MRSS feed using Brightcove’s CMS API. Currently, Young Hollywood syndicates OTT video content to a handful of platforms such as Vewd (formerly Opera TV) and Xumo TV. Barry Cohen, post production supervisor for Young Hollywood, explains the specifics:

“We set up a custom secured feed allowing us to create specific delivery targets that are both private and secure. So if we need to deliver to somebody who’s in Argentina, for example, we can set up a feed that’s specifically for them, and it’s secured, private, and controlled. They can get the delivery assets they need. At the same time, we control whether they turn it on or off.”

By syndicating video content and providing viewers access beyond their owned and operated properties, Young Hollywood is driving brand expansion, visibility, and increased viewership.

“We’ve had it [the syndication feed] in place for a few months now, and we’ve had great success with it,” says David Bell, system operations director for Young Hollywood. “It’s opened up an opportunity for another distribution channel for our product…And it could open up different geographic areas to us in the future.”

BRAND-TARGETED AD INVENTORY HELPS INCREASE CPM

Young Hollywood leverages its own collection of niche media brands and respective audiences to boost overall value of ad inventory. The company manages individual private marketplaces (PMPs) per brand and demographic; it also partners with different advertisers specific to each brand. Because of this, Young Hollywood is able to create customized ad inventory ensuring advertising partners’ content performs well among consumers.

“We look closely at the advertising brands and who they’re trying to reach,” says Williams. “Then we put them on the platform where they’ll reach the audience that makes the most sense for them.”

As the publisher continues to add more editorial content, therefore broadening reach and viewership, Young Hollywood’s PMPs attract premium advertisers competing for the highest quality ad inventory. Combining the company’s highly attentive consumers and valuable collection of ad space, Young Hollywood manages to increase its CPM price tag.

BRIGHTCOVE ANALYTICS DRIVE AD REVENUE SUCCESS

Brightcove’s integrated analytics play an important role in the success of Young Hollywood’s ad monetization strategy. Analytics not only provide data critical to determining video best practices; they also offer the company’s production staff a consolidated collection of performance data across third-party sites and platforms. With Brightcove’s analytics tools, Young Hollywood saves both time and money, eliminating the need to subscribe to additional third-party analytics services. Hence, the company is able to track extremely detailed engagement metrics across all of their brands and various distribution points. “Through Brightcove, we know exactly how many people watched a video and for how long they watched it—to a T,” says Williams. “We have accurate analytics that are actually better than those we’d receive from Nielsen or comScore, which both rely on a panel of users as opposed to specific viewers. It’s a good predictor of success for our programming and what remains in the general interest.”

YOUNG HOLLYWOOD REDUCES BANDWIDTH USE, FORECASTS FUTURE SAVINGS

For Young Hollywood, with its incredible distribution network and extensive viewership, delivering top-quality content in the most efficient way possible is a top priority. The company enabled Brightcove’s Dynamic Delivery and Context Aware Encoding features to accelerate internal cost savings while improving playback quality.

Dynamic Delivery allows users to distribute media more rapidly by processing different quality levels of media formats in real time. Files are packaged in the correct format for each device requesting content at the time of the request, removing the need to pre-create and store multiple combinations of bitrates, streaming formats and DRM . Context Aware Encoding uses machine learning to optimize encoding settings on a per-video and delivery context basis. The technology is proven to reduce storage and bandwidth costs associated with video delivery, all without compromising visual quality.

Young Hollywood initially configured the technologies for two of its brands—Young Hollywood and Young Hollywood TV. In the early innings of using CAE the brands have seen reductions of up to 35% in bandwidth and 23% in storage. Says Williams, “Based on historical viewing patterns of content across Young Hollywood and Young Hollywood TV, these innovations at the platform level are allowing us to forecast a much more efficient use of bandwidth that won’t compromise the end user viewing experience.”

HOW WATCH IT! ENGAGED 400 MILLION PEOPLE

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2024

400 MILLION AND COUNTING

As the world’s largest Arabic streaming network, WATCH iT! offers premium video-on-demand and live streaming to 400 million people across the Arab world.

6 million downloads of the WATCH iT! app

5.2 million paid subscription accounts registered with WATCH iT!

650,000 hours of current and reformatted content on the WATCH iT! platform

90% of subscribers visited the WATCH iT! site each day during Ramadan

Want to reach an audience of 400 million people? Then keep an eye on WATCH iT!. As the world’s largest Arabic streaming service, its blend of legacy programs, sports and original content are designed to engage more than 400 million people of Arab descent across the globe. But more than just an OTT (over-the-top) viewing experience, WATCH iT! is deeply committed to honoring Egyptian culture while providing opportunities for Arab content providers. With the innovations and technology of Brightcove at its side, WATCH iT! will see its purpose and potential achieve new heights.

OLD STORIES, NEW AUDIENCES

One of the key drivers defining the mission of WATCH iT! is its commitment to bring back original Egyptian dramas, TV shows and movies from the 1960s and beyond. More than just entertainment, these shows and movies have great cultural value, enabling WATCH iT! to play a major role in educating Egypt’s next generation. “There’s great interest in this content,” said Moustapha Behkeet, VP and Managing Director WATCH iT!. “We’ve had lots of international stars emerge from Egypt, Nobel prize winners, and so much other history represented in this older material. When you restore the quality of the audio and the video, and then digitize it, the next generation is eager to enjoy it.” This legacy content provides a perfect balance to the contemporary programming of WATCH iT!, which includes original dramas and action content, top-rated tv shows and movies, blockbuster series, live- streamed concerts, documentaries, Egyptian Premiere football matches, and much more. Powered by Brightcove, it’s viewed across all devices in full HD quality, and Behkeet believes this will continue to position WATCH iT! as the “biggest Arabic streaming service, offering the biggest library of all times.”

VIDEO, A CREATIVE FORCE

We count on Brightcove to always give us the edge in technology, the edge in security, and the edge in distribution while remaining economical and efficient.

MOUSTAPHA BEHKEET

VP AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, WATCHIT

“We believe in the power of creativity we have here in Egypt,” said Moustapha Behkeet. “As we find the right forum for creators from the Arab region, and help them monetize that content, we’ll be on solid ground.” From the very beginning, WATCH iT! has been focused on supporting its local creative and production industry, which had been severely impacted by digital piracy. With its subscription-based platform, it will establish a precedent for the way that content is viewed and paid for in the Arab region. The key to making that happen is security–protecting the content they acquire, and the content they produce. This is where Brightcove plays a significant role. “There’s a huge effort being done by Brightcove engineers–and more to come–for content protection,” said Behkeet. “We are always looking at staying a step ahead of illegal distribution, and Brightcove is a main part of that.” With this relentless focus on content protection, digital rights management and more, WATCH iT! can provide vital support to Egyptian content providers while continuing to fuel its expansion to a growing worldwide audience.

KEEP WATCHING WATCH IT!

WATCH iT! is meeting the future head-on with a bold growth plan focused on acquiring more content, creating more original content, and increasing distribution. This includes new scripted series, additional international content, and reaching audiences with innovative approaches such as being available on leading game consoles. With the technology and expertise of Brightcove helping it achieve untold potential, WATCH iT! can stay firmly rooted with its Egyptian heritage as it competes at a world-class level in delivering content for 400 million across the Arab world.

HOW ROGERS MEDIA LEADS CANADA’S MEDIA MARKET

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2024

FREE, TARGETED CONTENT DELIVERED ACROSS MULTIPLE PLATFORMS BOOSTS VIEWERSHIP AND REVENUE

For over a century, technology advances have driven changes in user behavior, forcing publishers and broadcasters to evolve their businesses. This trend has accelerated in the past few years as streaming services, social video and other alternatives to traditional media outlets have surged in popularity. To stay relevant—and profitable—in this new environment, conventional broadcasters are continuously looking for new models to grow and monetize their audiences.

One company that is successfully evolving is Rogers Media, a leading Canadian media company. Under the Rogers Media umbrella are over one hundred brands delivering news, sports, and lifestyle entertainment to over 13 million digital visitors. Known for its long history of innovation, Rogers Media is putting digital video at the center of its new business model.

FREE, HIGHLY-TAILORED VIDEO PROGRAMMING DRIVES AUDIENCE GROWTH

Rogers Media content includes a wide variety of national, local, and regional current season programs addressing topics ranging from politics to health to arts, as well as US-acquired primetime shows. The company also owns rights to air professional and amateur sporting events, showcasing teams Canadians care about most. Through this type of focused programming, Rogers Media ensures there’s something for everyone.

One of the main differentiators for Rogers Media’s local City™ brand is offering primetime shows for free. “We’re the only major broadcast channel that puts in-season shows out for free,” says Kasra Zokaei, Director of Digital Product Development at Rogers. “Our content is ad-supported, whereas most other platforms are subscription-based and feature only past season content. Our viewers aren’t limited to past season catch-up.”

There’s a very important connection between sports fans who follow multiple sports at different times of the day, and the availability of various content—video, traditional stories, scores, data—all on digital devices.

DALE FALLON

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AT ROGERS

The instant gratification of up-to-date programming for those who don’t have a cable subscription is helping Rogers Media attract new viewers. This is supported by the company’s decision to not require authentication to access Rogers Media’s videos, which allows viewers to catch up on current season shows with zero hassle. This convenience has helped make City a major destination for primetime shows in Canada.

VIDEO VIA APPS DRAW MOBILE-SAVVY AUDIENCES

Rogers Media’s live and custom programming is accessible through multiple digital platforms—desktop, mobile, tablet and connected devices. As part of its strategy to reach audiences everywhere, Rogers Media pairs brand channels with a free app, allowing viewers to consume video content on-demand while on the go. This way, Rogers Media maintains their current viewership and gains new audiences. “We’ve been a pioneer in terms of our hybrid approach. In addition to making some content available at no charge to consumers and without authentication, we also offer a special tier of subscription access to our linear channels,” says Zokaei. “As our linear audience is very tech-savvy and quick to adopt our digital products, there’s a lot of uptake on mobile, so we really strive to give them the best mobile experience when it comes to consuming video.”

SPORTSNET REIGNS: MULTI-PLATFORM STRATEGY DRIVES REVENUE AND AUDIENCE GROWTH

Sportsnet is a prime example of Rogers’ success delivering content on a variety of platforms and through multiple business models. As the country’s number one sports brand, Sportsnet® delivers 24×7 access to regional and national coverage, in-depth analysis, and live events for a variety of professional leagues, including NHL, MLB, NBA, Curling and WWE—perfect for the all-around sports fan. Viewers can access this content free with advertising on the Sportsnet website or the Sportsnet app. In addition, Rogers Media also offers fans a subscription-based OTT product—Sportsnet NOW—for those who want live streaming of six Sportsnet linear channels, anytime, anywhere on a variety of different devices. The first mainstream sports TV channel in North America to be offered directly to consumers, Sportsnet NOW is available on desktop, through the Sportsnet App on mobile devices, Apple TV, and other connected TV platforms including Xbox.

“The Sportsnet mobile app is key to our success; it is heavily focused on distributing video. Our demographic is very mobile savvy, so we extend the brand to all major mobile devices,” says Dale Fallon, Director of Digital Product Management.

The Sportsnet App has helped Sportsnet grow a substantial audience and has become a revenue driver within the Rogers Media sports portfolio. Available on iOS and Android, the Sportsnet app won top prize for Best Mobile Utilities at the nextMEDIA Digi Awards and Best Apple Watch app at the Apple Best of Awards. The app has become a fan favorite, and is a regular fixture in the top downloaded sports mobile apps.

“There’s a very important connection between sports fans who follow multiple sports at different times of the day, and the availability of various content—video, traditional stories, scores, data—all on digital devices,” Fallon explains. “With our portfolio of products, we have all bases covered.”

BRIGHTCOVE PLATFORM PROVIDES EASY TRANSITION TO DIGITAL VIDEO SUCCESS

Rogers Media’s aim is simple: distribute video wherever people are consuming it. Using Brightcove’s technology, Rogers Media is able deliver on that goal.

Fallon explains: “In general, we’ve found Brightcove’s product plans and roadmaps align nicely with our needs, whether it’s SSAI, Brightcove Social, mobile SDKs, or integration with different ad servers. Brightcove is really a partner to us. There is a strong fit between the needs of our business and what Brightcove recognizes as trends in the media industry and priorities for media companies.”

Zokaei praises Brightcove’s Video Cloud solution for its high-functioning adaptability and superior technology.

“Brightcove has the fastest player on the market, and that’s very important for our audiences who want fast, uninterrupted viewing. We also have a lot of flexibility in how we customize and modify our players based on our brands. Each of our brands has its own unique needs, so customization is key.”

Overall, the collaboration between Rogers Media and Brightcove has delivered strong results. In expanding localized video content to digital platforms, Rogers Media has found a way to reframe its value potential for advertisers.

INNOVATION CONTINUES FOR ROGERS MEDIA

With Brightcove handling the heavy lifting on the technical side, Rogers Media is able to focus its efforts on finding innovative ways to expand. The company hopes to incorporate new discoverability methods to introduce viewers to alternative content. It’s also exploring digital live-feed capabilities for those who want to consume content in real time.

To increase monetization opportunities, Rogers Media plans to use Brightcove’s SSAI tools, which mitigate the impact of ad blockers and deliver an improved TV-like viewing experience across multiple platforms. The company has implemented Brightcove Social for its major brands, allowing streamlined publishing and aggregated performance data across both social networks and owned and operated sites.

In the end, Rogers Media doesn’t want to just grow as a company. It wants to continue building brands that offer relevant, reliable content to its audience where they want it. Zokaei explains: “We want to make it easy for our audience to get to the content they care about by bringing that content to the platforms they want to consume it on.”

“We are leveraging our content to turn viewers into local superfans. We want to win our viewers’ time so they’ll continue watching our channels, using our digital products, and interacting with our brands,” concludes Fallon.

HOW MILBON CLAIMED MORE MARKET SHARE WITH VIEWER ENGAGEMENT

bsp-admin-1 on December 6, 2024

JAPAN’S NO. 1 HAIR CARE BRAND USES BRIGHTCOVE TO SURGE VIDEO ENGAGEMENT

Since 1965, Milbon has been supplying beauty salons with professional, high-quality products for healthy, beautiful hair. In Japan alone, over 500,000 stylists use Milbon brand hair care, including 2,000 signature products and 500 color treatments, to smooth, moisturize, and repair clients’ locks.

Nationwide, more than 230,000 salons carry its exclusive collections. In order to maintain consistent use and best practices across all locations, Milbon provides salon professionals the education necessary to master product application, technical skills, and innovative hair trends, ensuring customers receive the best hair treatments possible. Subsequently, stylists offer critical insight and feedback for Milbon’s beauty experts, which helps them to continually improve its products and hair care initiatives. This collaboration has proven successful—since 2000, Milbon has held the highest domestic market share of professional hair care products in Japan.

With such a massive customer base, Milbon realized digital video would be the best way to educate stylists and communicate product information effectively and efficiently. Following a period of trial and error, Milbon’s Educational Planning team decided to implement Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite, which offered the perfect solution for superior video management, workflow efficiency, and customer engagement. The partnership was so rewarding, it resulted in a huge surge in viewership and brand visibility, highlighting Milbon as an inspiring leader within the beauty industry.

VIDEO PROVES THE BEST SOLUTION FOR COMMUNICATING WITH CUSTOMERS ACROSS JAPAN

Because of Milbon’s geographically dispersed customer network, one that includes independent stylists, salons, and company-branded studios across Japan, it had to find a way to deliver easily accessible educational content in the most efficient way possible. After reviewing possible solutions, Milbon found that digital video was the answer to providing product expertise, technical guidance, and skills training to 500,000+ customers nationwide. Beyond accessibility, video also gave Milbon a multidimensional approach to teaching; it allowed customers to study precise technical instruction beyond static resources like pictures or text.

Right from the start, Brightcove’s platform was easy to work with and videos were easy to manage.

ATSUSHI MASUKO

HEAD OF MILBON’S EDUCATIONAL PLANNING DEPARTMENT

“If we want to communicate an application technique using our own coloring agent, one would need a considerable number of textbooks and photographs to tell how to divide the hair and apply it correctly,” says Atsushi Masuko, Head of Milbon’s Educational Planning Department. “It’s important to know the tools, like scissors and hands, and delicate movements of the hair to acquire beauty skills. The movement is important to accurately convey technical know-how. It’s not an overstatement to say it’s impossible to communicate this by photographs.”

In 2011, Milbon launched its free video channel, an ad-supported digital resource providing a visually dynamic educational environment for customers. With the channel, Milbon stylists could learn application and product use via video demonstrations and explanations. Accessible on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices, the channel not only served as a convenient teaching tool for those far away or on the go; it also gave Milbon a chance to communicate with repeat customers in search of follow-up instruction. One viewer even noted, “Since I can simulate the styling experience by video, I can learn skills more clearly, and I can better understand the product.”

MILBON TURNS TO BRIGHTCOVE FOR KEY VIDEO CONCERNS

As the video channel popularized, Milbon’s digital marketing team raised several key concerns. For one, the video platform proved less than practical in terms of data management. It was difficult to organize its numerous video assets, and as a result, viewers were having a hard time searching for specific videos. Also, the ad-supported channel featured irrelevant commercial content—advertisements were in no way applicable to the Milbon brand or its products. Third, in terms of technical prowess, the platform fell flat. Uploads were time-consuming, playback speeds were slow, and video performances were inconsistent at best. Finally, the platform offered zero analytical data, and Milbon’s video marketing team had no way to test creative output. Plus, adding an analytics function to the existing platform would be an expensive investment.

After five years and much consideration, Milbon refocused its video marketing efforts and adopted Brightcove Video Marketing Suite as its platform of choice, which provided an extremely manageable environment for video distribution. With the new technology, Milbon re-released its video channel on its own website and debuted the “Biyoushi Doga” app, a convenient, highly-efficient video platform for the company’s customers and digital marketers.

The impact was almost immediate. Masuko notes, “Right from the start, Brightcove’s platform was easy to work with and videos were easy to manage.” The user-friendly data management system allowed Milbon to dramatically increase its video production, subsequently driving viewership and overall engagement. Plus, the platform gave Milbon a radically enhanced player solution, boosting video upload times and playback speeds. But the most salient improvement overall was the access to Brightcove’s analytics. By studying the number of video views, completion rates, and other various metrics, Milbon’s digital marketers could use this information to better understand a video’s impact, thus leading to more relevant content creation.

BRIGHTCOVE-POWERED VIDEO RESULTS IN INCREASED MARKET SHARE, 90% COMPLETION RATES, AND DOUBLE THE PLAYBACKS

In terms of investment return, Brightcove’s all-in-one video solution has proven a real game changer. No longer does Milbon worry about irrelevant ad-content; with Brightcove, Milbon hosts its channel on the company’s own website, therefore eliminating ads from competing businesses. As a result, Milbon has amplified its brand presence across various distribution points, including Milbon’s YouTube channel, web channel, and app. According to Masuko, the enhanced visibility has helped drive Milbon’s overall marketing penetration rate.

And because Brightcove’s platform provides a spectacular viewing experience for its videos, stylists and salon owners have really taken to the content. Since implementing Video Marketing Suite, the company has experienced a tremendous uptick in engagement—video playbacks have nearly doubled, and completion rates have steadied at 90%. That’s even the case with lengthier, three-minute videos.

Milbon’s digital strategists have also been able to measure viewer frequency rates, indicating which types of videos receive the most attention. In this case, “how-to” pieces have shown to be the most appealing. Masuko says, “The numbers we’ve received [from customers] and data analysis have been so useful for a variety of improvements.”

MILBON SETS ITS SIGHT ON AUDIENCE TO ENHANCE DIGITAL MARKETING

With the overwhelming success of Brightcove’s Video Marketing Suite, Milbon continues to implement extra features, like Brightcove Audience to help drive marketing efforts even further. The Audience module will allow Milbon to sync its Brightcove video analytics with its marketing automation platform, resulting in detailed viewership data from contacts within its own customer database. Also, Milbon is planning to leverage the Brightcove platform again, making use of its multilingual captioning to reach overseas audiences.

“It’s now possible to display multilingual compatible subtitles in videos and distribute globally,” says Masuko. “We’d like to explore the possibility of delivering our educational services, products, and brand images to the world.”

HOW THE CTA LIVE STREAMED MORE THAN 90 SESSIONS AT THE CES

bsp-admin-1 on December 6, 2024

The Consumer Technology Association (CTA)™ is the trade association representing the U.S. consumer technology industry. Approximately 2,200 companies enjoy the benefits of its membership, which include policy advocacy, market research, technical education, industry promotion, standards development, and the fostering of business and strategic relationships.

CTA also owns and produces owns and produces CES® — the world’s gathering place for all who thrive on the business of consumer technologies. CTA uses video content to enhance value for CES attendees, expand its reach to those unable to attend in person, and increase media coverage.

LACKLUSTER UX, DISJOINTED TECHNOLOGY POSED CHALLENGES FOR CES LIVE STREAM

CTA coordinates and manages a live stream of CES, which is ungated and free to public viewers, and typically only live streams about one-third of the conference program. CTA noticed three specific challenges stemming from its live stream efforts, affecting not only its audiences’ overall viewing experience, but also its handling of archives and asset management.

The first challenge was the end-user platform, which was not designed for livestreaming many concurrent sessions and didn’t allow for customization of visual elements to create a branded experience. Similarly, CTA’s video archives were hosted on a different platform from where they were broadcast, which was another challenge.

By having archives immediately available in the Brightcove media library, we’re able to do live clipping for social and leverage those videos for marketing and promotional purposes, as well as advance CTA’s thought leadership capabilities.

ALICIA GOODMAN

SENIOR DIGITAL CONTENT MANAGER

“Archiving turned out to be problematic,” says Alicia Goodman, Senior Digital Content Manager for CTA. Goodman and her web team struggled with how to pass large files and get them cleaned and posted within a short period of time.

As a result, some archives weren’t posted for weeks after the show. And because archived content was hosted on two separate platforms, the live streaming platform and the video hosting platform, viewers didn’t have a single clear place to watch or browse.

The third challenge, according to Goodman, was that data and analytics were minimal and didn’t offer the insights they needed. “We couldn’t distinguish between a live view and an archival view,” she says. And because CTA’s archives were stored across two platforms, it wasn’t possible to view aggregated data.

BRIGHTCOVE GALLERY HELPS DRAW OVER 250K VIEWS, 2K UNIQUE VISITORS

Goodman and her team identified the resources they needed to mitigate these challenges for future CES live streams. For the conference’s external audience, they determined that the imperatives to enhancing the user experience were a high-quality live stream, up-to-date live stream programming, access to live stream recordings, a schedule of live stream events, and search options. For its internal audience, CTA would need to give partners and presenters the ability to download live stream archives, as a record of their participation or for promotion.

Upon reviewing these needs, Goodman decided to create a separate portal within the CES website, using Brightcove Gallery, and designed a “streaming now” playlist, a video collection of each stage’s sessions, and placeholder images for each streamed event that included basic session information (title, date, and time of session) at a glance. And with Brightcove’s Video Cloud platform, Goodman and her team could now host archival footage in a single location and capture accurate video data with Brightcove’s analytics API. For internal use, Goodman also created a handful of password-protected, download-enabled Brightcove Gallery sites, allowing partners and conference speakers to download their sessions after presenting.

GALLERY-POWERED WEB PORTAL HOSTS 90+ LIVE STREAM SESSIONS

For CES 2018, CTA rolled out the newly enhanced, Brightcove-powered web portal, which hosted more than 90 live streamed sessions across seven stages, including the keynote addresses. Prior to the event, CTA promoted the live stream via social media and email, while CES partners shared links and embedded the Brightcove Player on their respective sites and channels. And with the help of the Brightcove platform, Goodman was able to move CTA’s entire video library and execute six days’ worth of live stream sessions in just two months’ time.

“We couldn’t have been more excited with the speed at which we were able to onboard our staff and transition our library,” she says. “Having the Gallery as an out-of-the-box option, where we didn’t have to involve our development team in that transition, was a huge help in terms of time. But it also meant we didn’t have to spend a lot of time on QA or troubleshoot any technical problems on our own.”

In addition, Goodman relied on Brightcove’s Live Support team to make sure keynote live streams didn’t experience any issues or outages, ensuring CES audiences top-quality live viewing.

“That really gave us peace of mind to have someone available to answer questions and troubleshoot if we did have any problems during these high-visibility events,” she says.

CES 2018 DRAWS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF VIEWS, EXPANDS AUDIENCE

Following the show, CTA’s web team was able to access accurate, aggregated viewing. In total, Goodman recorded hundreds of thousands view of live and archived video.

“We were also able to verify that people who weren’t event attendees watched the live stream,” Goodman says.

More important, CTA now has a single-location asset library where VOD clips of live stream footage can be housed and subsequently repurposed for future digital marketing campaigns.

HOW CHEIL WORLDWIDE LED IN MULTI PLATFORM ADVERTISING

bsp-admin-1 on December 5, 2024

Leading Korean advertising agency Cheil Worldwide shows leadership in Multi Platform Advertising as it creates a “first of its kind” live streaming.

CUSTOMER BACKGROUND

Cheil Worldwide Inc. is a global marketing and communications company headquartered in Seoul, South Korea and operates 29 networks in 25 countries. It is South Korea’s largest advertising agency and was ranked 19th in the world by Advertising Age for 2010. Cheil offers marketing communications services including advertising, public relations, sports marketing, exhibition and display production, as well as the production of large-scale performance events. Cheil also operates a Communication Sciences Institute that publishes trend reports on the South Korean advertising industry.

Internationally, Cheil has carried out communications campaigns for Samsung Electronics.

SOLUTION

Cheil is leveraging the Brightcove platform to deliver first of its kind live streaming video content to Apple devices like the iPhone and iPad, Android devices, and the Web.

I am very impressed by Brightcove’s adroit delivery of our content onto the PC, iPhone, iPad and Android platform. This technology has opened up a floodgate where innovative ideas can now be realized for our clients. It has further cemented our status as the leading advertising agency in South Korea as we continue to leverage technology to deliver the best solutions to our clients.detailed viewer analytics.

SHANE PARK

HEAD OF INTERACTIVE DIVISION OF CHEIL

As part of this, Cheil is also taking advantage of Inlet Technologies Spinnaker™7100 to encode live streams and push content to Adobe® Flash® Media Server and HTTP streaming servers of Shinsegae Information and Communications, a South Korean Content Delivery Network vendor.

KEY BENEFITS

With the success of the first of its kind live streaming, this event has opened up a new world of opportunities for Cheil Worldwide’s employees. What had started out as a tool for education and training for the internal Cheil use has seen enthusiastic take up with the organization’s clients, including Samsung Electronics, to deploy it as the core of their digital strategy globally.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Cheil Worldwide’s i-division hosted a conference with a panel of five distinguished social network marketing experts for internal Cheil employees to learn how a traditional ad agency can leverage social marketing in the era of multi platform advertising.

With staff of more than 70, the i-division is the digital marketing department of Cheil Worldwide and is leading the charge for Internet and social media advertising.

The i-division wanted to reach out to as many employees as possible and not be limited by a physical location as they have several office locations in South Korea. Live streaming of the event was an option that needed to be investigated. Cheil contacted James Yoon of Brightcove who worked with them to deliver the live streaming event.

BUSINESS SOLUTION

Brightcove enabled Cheil to deliver the first of its kind live streaming for this event, making content accessible across Apple and Android mobile devices and on the Web.

Brightcove’s support engineers provided real-time support throughout the event to ensure that the live streaming went smoothly. As a result, the live event was a major success, with different Cheil departments asking for more meetings to understand how to leverage Brightcove for their client’s digital and mobile campaign.

FUTURE GROWTH WITH BRIGHTCOVE

Thanks to the success of the first live event, Cheil Worldwide has decided to leverage Brightcove for the global Samsung account, which is the agency’s key account. This underscores the organization’s confidence in Brightcove’s solution and support.

Cheil has also leveraged Brightcove to showcase a mobile e-learning platform at a recent Human Resource forum for the Samsung Group companies, further evidence of the effectiveness of the Brightcove platform.

FINTOS!”, which provides investment information in video format, is growing rapidly. Video use in other departments is also becoming more active.

bsp-admin-1 on December 17, 2020

With the economic environment changing due to the impact of the new coronavirus, and the sense of uncertainty about the future increasing, the importance of asset formation for the future is increasing. In order to form assets, it is essential to have a long-term perspective, as well as to make speedy investment decisions in response to changes in the environment. Nomura Securities Co., Ltd., which provides services such as asset management and fund procurement to individual investors and various companies, was looking for a way to provide the various content it had been providing to institutional investors, such as analysts’ research reports, to individuals. The content provided includes not only text, but also audio and video materials. To this end, they launched the “FINTOS!” service, which provides investment information via smartphone app. They also started video distribution, and the number of users has grown significantly, by 300% compared to the previous year.

WE CHOSE BRIGHTCOVE BECAUSE IT WAS THE BEST

Akihiko Nasu, from the Future Co-Creation Department, says that they chose Brightcove as their video distribution platform because it was the best.

When you think about global-level development and security, there’s no reason not to choose the ‘best’.

Nomura Securities
“When deciding on a platform, we compared and considered three or four major domestic video distribution companies. We did receive various proposals from domestic companies, including customizations. However, as we are a global company, we felt that domestic platforms would not be very user-friendly when considering their use in other countries and regions. When we considered the necessary requirements, such as high security at a global level, we felt that Brightcove, which has a proven track record, was the best option. Even if there was a slight difference in cost, there was no reason not to choose Brightcove.”

THE VIDEOS THEY PRODUCED ALSO CONTRIBUTED TO IMPROVED SALES EFFICIENCY

Once they actually started producing and distributing videos, the creators came up with more and more ideas. “Up until now, we only produced videos a few times a year, such as for seminars. However, with the introduction of Brightcove, we now have an environment where we can produce and distribute videos on a daily basis. We have a variety of ideas for projects, such as ‘I want to make something like this’ or ‘I wonder what would happen if we made a video out of this text? We have also received feedback from users saying that ‘videos are easier to understand than reading text’.” They say they are also receiving more and more inquiries from other departments about video distribution. “Many people are involved in creating articles in text form within the company, but video production is still rare. We’ve had a variety of responses, such as ‘I didn’t know videos could be made so easily’ and ‘I didn’t know videos could be distributed in this way’.” Before long, the videos created for FINTOS! were being used by other departments. In some cases, sales efficiency has increased by adding videos (links and QR codes) to the materials given to customers by the sales department. “Because the videos we produced to convey investment information were easy to understand, there was a request to add videos to sales materials as well. When you have to talk to customers using only paper materials, you need to digest and summarize many times the amount of information contained in the materials beforehand. However, if you attach videos to the documents, you can convey many times more information than on paper, so the amount of work required for sales preparation is reduced.” There were also survey results showing that ‘the time required for preparation was reduced by 20%’ as a result of improving the documents, such as by adding videos, and it was found that the number of contacts and the contract rate also improved because the time saved could be used to contact other customers.

INCREASE SALES EFFICIENCY BY ADDING VIDEOS TO SALES MATERIALS

FINTOS! Number of users: 300% increase year-on-year
Reduction in time spent preparing for sales: -30

OTHER DEPARTMENTS ARE ALSO BECOMING MORE ACTIVE IN USING BRIGHTCOVE

Not only are the videos created for FINTOS! being used by other departments, but there are also now departments that are creating their own videos. Tetsuo Fujisaki of the Future Co-Creation Department, which is in charge of promoting financial education and financial literacy, says the following

“We are developing a nationwide program of visiting schools to teach financial education, but with just four members in our department, we obviously don’t have enough hands. So, in order to enable members of our branches nationwide to take charge of teaching at schools in their sales areas, we film our lessons and pass the videos on to each branch. With Brightcove, we can set passwords so that only the people who need to see it can see it.”

“We have also started producing a series of videos called ‘First Time Investing’ aimed at beginners in the field of investing. Then, a person in charge of human resources at a company asked us if we could put the videos on their company intranet, as they wanted to show them to all their employees. We are currently in the process of discussing this, but the members of the sales department who heard about it said, ‘I’d like to introduce this video to my customers too. Because of the nature of the financial and economic education content, it is easy for sales members to introduce it to customers. With the growing interest in financial literacy these days, there seems to be a lot of interest in this.”

The trend of producing videos spread further within the company, and the business division also started producing videos. Ryujiro Kitamura of the Asset Formation Promotion Department says

“We offer a financial wellness program, a seminar for employees of listed companies to help them reduce their future financial concerns. However, there are many cases where people are unable to attend the live seminar on the day because of other commitments. For this reason, we have been asked for some time whether it would be possible to provide the seminar on demand as a video. When we heard that Brightcove was being used for financial and economic education to produce and distribute videos, we decided to give it a try.”
In the production of videos for the workplace, they are using Brightcove’s engagement score to make the next proposal

“In the past, we used to make relatively long videos of around 60 minutes, but when we looked at the engagement score, the average viewing time for the videos was around 30 minutes. Based on these scores, we are now able to make the next proposal to our customers.”

Kitamura also says that Brightcove’s powerful security features have increased the flexibility of their proposals and use.

“The videos of the Financial Wellness Program seminars also provide information in line with the systems of listed companies. However, personnel-related system information is also confidential information for those companies. For that reason, we often receive requests to ‘make it so that it cannot be viewed from outside’.”

“To solve this problem, we added a viewer security option to the Brightcove system, so that we could restrict the IP addresses from which people could connect. I think this has helped us to gain the trust of our customers, and has given us more freedom in our proposals and use of the system. I think another convenient aspect of Brightcove is that we can flexibly rearrange the modules as needed.”

WE WANT TO PROMOTE THE USE OF VIDEO WITH THE CONVENIENCE OF OUR CUSTOMERS AND COMPANIES IN MIND

The company is also promoting the sharing and joint use of videos produced by different departments. Regarding future video utilization, Mr. Nasu, Mr. Fujisaki and Mr. Kitamura had the following to say “The investment information provided by FINTOS! is something that can be described as ‘perishable’, so we want to shorten the lead time between an event occurring and the provision of information as much as possible. Ideally, if we could provide videos of what happened today as soon as it happened, we think it would be even more convenient for users” (Mr. Nasu) “We are developing financial education for teenagers. They are a generation that find even three-minute videos long. For this reason, we will also take on the challenge of producing and providing short videos“ (Fujisaki) “We want to develop our business in the workplace to meet the needs of each company. We want to have a lineup of both long and short videos so that companies can choose the videos that suit them” (Kitamura)

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