Since you are going to spend money to produce videos, you will probably want to see business results such as increased brand recognition, increased engagement, increased customer numbers, increased membership numbers, and increased sales. However, the amount of work involved in producing videos will increase with each video.
Ever since video content could be stored in digital formats, piracy has been and continues to be a major obstacle for broadcasters and content owners around the world.
In today’s streaming landscape, piracy has a substantial revenue impact—with the illegal downloading and streaming of movies and TV shows projected to cost the TV and film industry US$51.6 billion globally by 2022.
The piracy problem continues to escalate within the OTT space—and the current streaming wars are only adding fuel to the fire.
Read on to learn more about this trend and how to address the issue of OTT video piracy from all angles.
Online video piracy has evolved from BitTorrent sites to illicit streaming devices (ISDs), which appear similar to a set-top box and come preloaded with channels and content. These devices allow users to stream movies, TV series, and live sporting events without any authentication or security protocols.
With their slick user interfaces (and sometimes, a subscription fee), it’s easy to fool anyone into thinking that these devices offer a legitimate service. It’s mind-boggling to think that in Singapore, a model nation for law and order, anyone can openly buy these devices in local electronics stores or online through popular e-commerce sites such as Lazada. It’s easy to understand the appeal of these devices: They provide access to programming that is either not shown locally or has not gone through the local censorship agencies.
Aside from ISD devices, illegal video streaming sites are thriving because of the size of their content library and how they break down the exclusive content silos.
In a recent case in the United States, two illegal streaming sites, who have amassed a portfolio of content pirated from Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and even other popular pirate sites were indicted. These streaming services were not only available over the Internet but were also designed to work across numerous devices and platforms ranging from mobile devices, Smart TVs, video game consoles, digital media players, and set-top boxes. Now, that’s a sophistication level that may prove difficult to tackle, so a three-pronged approach is needed:
Work with local government agencies and the Asia Video Industry Association’s Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) to enact stricter piracy laws and significant fines or prison sentences
Ban the sale and distributions of ISDs, and suspend or revoke licenses of electronic stores known to sell these devices
Work with internet service providers to shut down or block illegal streaming sites
Even though all of the tactics listed above are intended to shut off the supply side, it’s important to address the demand side, as well. One may think that the explosion of streaming services would disrupt the demand for online video piracy. But it’s causing an unanticipated consumer behaviour because, after years of decline, BitTorrent usage is beginning to rise. The rise is due to the ever-escalating streaming wars—in which major media companies are all competing to create an exclusive, in-house content portfolio as a means to drive subscriptions and reduce their content licensing costs.
This exclusivity strategy only becomes more expensive for the consumer—who ends up subscribing to multiple OTT services to meet their content needs. Consumers are open to signing up for multiple OTT services, but they do have a certain spend threshold when it comes to how much they are willing to pay. Let’s remember that the reason why OTT streaming services were successful in the first place was that they offered a less-expensive alternative to pay-TV services. If subscribing to multiple streaming services becomes too costly for consumers, users may just sign up for a couple of services—and pirate the rest of the content on their wishlist. As such, OTT streaming providers should consider implementing an aggregate strategy on top of their standalone offering, as well as an ad-funded pricing strategy.
Does this sound like we are going back to the pay-TV era of an aggregated model, but through an OTT delivery and price point? It seems to trend that way. OTT streaming providers need to be mindful that ever-escalating streaming wars will only drive up the cost for the consumer, and in response, it could mean losing audiences to piracy.
It’s important to remember that piracy exists because it delivers what the consumer wants at a fundamental level: almost instantaneous access to their desired content at an affordable price (or even for free).
We know that recommendation engines can play a crucial part in subscriber retention. OTT streaming providers should consider adding a reverse function of asking the consumer what they want to watch (and incorporating those titles into the content library) as another way to meet consumer demand, curb the need to pirate content, and extend the lifetime value of a customer.
In order for piracy to fade into irrelevance, OTT streaming providers must address both the supply side and the demand side. From the supply side, OTT streaming providers need to work with government agencies to address both the legal and policy aspects of piracy and lobby for stricter legislation.
Tackling the demand side means OTT streaming providers need to design a user experience that delivers the absolute best-in-class experience for the consumer. That means incorporating several parameters that are key to consumers: content needs; flexible payment packages that offer a combination of ad-funded, ad-free options, or a hybrid option; frictionless sign-up experiences; and high-quality video streaming.
Want to learn how to address OTT video piracy is impacting your business and content?
Speak to our OTT experts today.
We can’t believe summer is almost over. Hopefully you were able to relax and take some time off. Here at Brightcove, we have been enjoying summer in Boston, while also releasing some exciting new product updates. Check them out:
Have you seen Brightcove’s Live Streaming solution? It has had a full platform overhaul to bring you an even more scalable, flexible, and reliable experience.
Our live streaming solution offers some great new features, including:
A new, easier-to-use interface that allows even a non-technical user to create and manage a live stream
The ability to clip a live event to short, snackable on-demand assets, while the stream is still running
The option to publish your on-demand clips to social channels without leaving the Brightcove platform
Get a trial set up so you can explore these new features.
Do you post videos on Facebook, only to have them stolen and re-posted on sites that are not yours? Good news: you can now configure rights properties within Brightcove Social if you have Rights Management enabled on Facebook.
Earlier in 2018, Facebook released a feature focused on combating the “stolen video epidemic,” as reported by TechCrunch. Facebook’s Rights Manager is an admin tool that allows businesses to upload video clips to be monitored, and be notified if copies of these videos are posted to Facebook.
Check out our Product Documentation for more details around the Facebook Rights Management process and how to configure your Brightcove Social account.
At Brightcove, we strive to ensure that any videos uploaded to our platform meet the World Wide Web Consortium Standards for accessibility. Last quarter we released Closed Caption capabilities within our Brightcove Social module that allows for optimal sound-off viewing of your Facebook & YouTube videos.
In the coming months, Gallery will improve accessibility for both Portals and In-Page Experiences. We are working with accessibility experts to ensure that our customers can meet Web Content Accessibility Standards while using Brightcove Gallery.
To learn what other measures Brightcove is taking to ensure accessibility, check out our Knowledge Base.
Benesse Corporation is a company that mainly operates distance learning services for infants, children, and junior high and high school students. For its “Kodomo Challenge” distance learning service for children aged 0 to 6, the company had previously created video learning materials and delivered them to customers on DVD, but it has now switched to providing them online only in response to changes in customers’ viewing environments. The service has been highly evaluated as one that meets customer needs, and the company has succeeded in providing content that is even more popular with customers. Brightcove’s Video Cloud is supporting this system.
Kodomo Challenge provides video teaching materials, including animations of the program’s most famous character, Shima Jiro, and how to use the teaching materials. Previously, some videos were distributed on the website for members, but the teaching materials were basically distributed on DVDs. However, as the number of members who do not have DVD players has increased in recent years, “we began to explore the possibility of distributing everything online,” says Daiki Kubota of the Kodomo Challenge Engineering Department, Engineering Division, Kodomo Challenge.
“The first thing we considered was video distribution via mobile apps. While this would have the advantage of allowing parents to watch the videos anytime, anywhere, we also anticipated that some parents might be concerned that their young children would be watching on a small screen, which might be bad for their eyesight. In that respect, we felt more comfortable with the idea of DVDs, as they are usually watched on a big TV screen at home.” (Kubota)
The service we were using when we were already streaming some videos on our website did not support TV streaming, so we decided to look into using a different service. After comparing several services, we decided on Brightcove because of its ease of use on TV devices and its stable streaming environment. From April 2023, we will be streaming all of our video teaching materials online.
“We knew that Brightcove offered an all-in-one service for video distribution, and that we could use it to provide a stable service for video distribution of Kodomo Challenge. For these two reasons, we decided to make Video Cloud the standard for use within Benesse. Of course, video distribution is also more cost-effective than DVD distribution” (Yuki Shibata, Infrastructure Strategy Promotion Section, Infrastructure Solutions Department)
Kodomo Challenge has six courses, each with 10 to 20 editing staff, and the video teaching materials are produced with the cooperation of production companies.
“We create around 10 videos for each course each month. These include new video teaching materials, re-edited versions of videos we have used in the past, and supplementary videos that are not the main teaching material, but by switching everything to online distribution, we have been able to provide around twice as many videos as before. Also, with DVDs, we could only deliver them once a month, but now we can also deliver them on a weekly basis, for example, every Saturday, and we are really feeling the benefits of this” (Kubota)
The biggest challenge after introducing Video Cloud was transcoding. Of course, if the data size is large, you can deliver beautiful videos, but if you’re watching on a smartphone, it will take up a lot of space. We had to experiment to see how we could reduce the data volume while maintaining a satisfactory quality.
For example, with anime, you can watch it relatively easily even if the file size is small because it’s a series of still images, but with video teaching materials that have actually been filmed, if you reduce the video file size too much, things like video distortion and dropped frames will occur. While actually watching the video, we adjusted it by saying things like, ‘This is a little too compressed’ and ‘This is too big’.” (Kubota)
As a result of being able to watch it on a mobile app, the way it was traditionally viewed became possible.
“We’ve received a lot of feedback saying that it’s great to be able to watch videos while you’re out and about, such as in restaurants or while waiting to buy something, when before you could only watch them at home on your TV or in-car DVD player. Also, with DVDs you have to change the disc, but with streaming there’s no need to do that, so it’s less of a burden for parents. Plus, unlike free video platforms, there’s no risk of being taken to unintended videos or being interrupted by ads, so people say they feel more at ease about showing them to their children” (Kubota)
Data can be a powerful tool for marketers around the world. By leveraging customer and prospect data, you can drive successful campaigns that resonate with your audience in exciting new ways.
But before you can effectively leverage this data, your organization needs to have the right data strategy in place. As Drew Donaldson—content and data strategist and founder of GroHaus, a consulting firm focused on helping businesses develop organic content and data strategies—points out, this strategy must address three main challenges:
Data standardization and governance
Data transformation and automation
Data storytelling
“Most organizations collect data on video views, web site visits, downloads, etc., only to find that they are unable to effectively leverage the collected data for marketing campaigns, management insights, or even simple trend analytics,” Donaldson stressed following his presentation at Brightcove’s most recent annual PLAY conference.
“To make the most of the data we collect—and not spend countless hours manually creating reports that are not all that meaningful—organizations need to bite the bullet and establish a strategy for managing data. This first step can be a heavy lift, but it is critically important in order to begin using data to drive marketing.”
In order to make the most out of the data you collect, you need to have the necessary governance plan in place. “Data governance, while broad in scope, boils down to the rules of the road for data collection, storage, and utilization,” explains Donaldson. “You need to have a clear policy on how you collect data, what data you collect, how that data is stored, who has access to it, and what you’re going to do with it now that you have it. You also need to clearly share these policies with your audience (customers/prospects) not only because it is the right thing to do but as it’s now a legal requirement according to GDPR and CCPA—as well as a host of smaller laws making their way through legislatures around the world.”
“Without governance, all your cool data-driven automations and deep-market insights won’t be possible,” Donaldson stresses. “Data governance is the liver and onions before you get a big bowl of micro-targeted ice-cream. It is the foundation from which everything else that you want to do with your data is built.”
When it comes time to establish an effective data standardization and governance program, your executive leadership plays a crucial role. Unfortunately, as Donaldson called out, this type of leadership is lacking among many companies today. Consider the reaction among companies to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU law on data protection and privacy for all individual citizens of the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). Six months after the law was enacted, 47.9% of affected companies still had no formal process in place to become GDPR-compliant. And they’re not alone:
Only 41% of all companies have a defined data governance program in place
39.6% of companies report they do not have the human assets in place to establish a formal governance strategy
And 18.8% of companies have senior leadership that do not think data governance is important
It’s time to take action. “Without governance, marketing will be consumed by the manual and repetitive creation of reports that offer two-dimensional static insights,” Donaldson notes. “Without this crucial first step, discovering and tracking those high-value insights on a consistent basis will be nearly impossible. What you’re left with is all data, no story (or worse, the wrong story).”
Once your organization has the necessary data governance and standardization procedures and policies in place—which typically involves establishing a schema, creating a unique identification convention, and mapping user data—you’ll be able to automate reporting and fully leverage your databases. Doing so will reveal a treasure trove of critical insights and stories.
With his clients, Donaldson is able to automate the extract, transform, and load (ETL) process in order to marry data from multiple data sources through the use of Domo and other BI tools—including Power BI, MySql, and Python.
“Our multi-channel client reporting ETL automation pulls in data from Google Analytics, Eloqua, Brightcove, and various other sources; runs a number of labeling processes; and then separates the content based on identifying values for each client thereby creating independent data sets for each client,” Donaldson explains. “The data that we collect in various forms—from site-served cookies, white paper download forms, webcast registrations, etc.—provide insights into the demographics of our audience. This allows us to show our clients that their content is getting in front of the right people and which user groups are being attracted by a specific piece of content, with daily breakdowns and running totals of the data.”
On the video side of things, Donaldson gets data from Brightcove Audience, which allows him to track viewer behavior to the individual level and introduce a much deeper level of reporting to his video clients. Instead of just reporting on impressions and views, he can provide aggregate and individual-level engagement to highlight how well a video is performing among specific subgroups. When interconnected with additional engagement, demographic, and individual data sets, Donaldson can tell much richer stories and provide valuable tools and information.
Of course, the purpose of data collection is not just to generate a report or one-off anecdotes, but to develop marketing vehicles and campaigns that leverage these findings to reach existing and prospective customers. But Donaldson’s advice to marketers who want to use ultra-granular demographic or behavioral data to directly target prospects is simple: Don’t do it.
“People tend to be creeped out in general by the idea of data collection,” he points out. “If a marketer uses an overly targeted approach or if your marketing materials leverage overt personal details about your recipient based on data collected online, it may have the opposite of the intended effect and freak people out.”
When creating data-driven campaigns, it’s important to keep in mind how your tactics will be perceived by your target audience. Donaldson urges you to put yourself in their shoes: “How would you feel if you received an advertisement or offer from a company that seems to know more about you than they should, integrating your daughter’s name or your anniversary? This may seem extreme but this is all data that is easily scraped from public sources. Would you choose to continue doing business with them or be freaked out and avoid them like the plague?”
Right now, valuable stories are hiding inside your organization’s data—from trends that only come into focus through joining and analyzing of different data sets to deeply granular demographic information about your audience. By implementing data governance, standardization, and automation, you can identify these stories and leverage your data effectively.
Starting with the latest version of the Brightcove Player (6.35.1), the Players module on Video Cloud now supports the ability to play videos back at double speed. This means that you can now add the ability to play videos back at double speed to your video players without having to configure any plugins.
Executive-level decision-makers are a notoriously difficult-to-reach audience for marketers. In order to develop an effective video campaign for this audience, you must conduct research to drive every facet of the initiative, according to executive producer and creative director, Eliot Brodsky.
“We’ve come a long way from the stale, formulaic corporate videos of the past,” Brodsky stressed following his presentation at Brightcove’s most recent annual PLAY conference. “In today’s information-rich, social-media-driven world, the video work needs to have value, be informative, and connect with the audience, not its creator. Time is becoming more of a premium, and the best ways to not waste people’s time is to conduct research on your audience, collect data on it, and then use those insights to coordinate everything from the creative to how it reaches the viewer—delivering a personalized video experience.”
Interested in hearing some best practices for launching a data-driven video campaign? You’re in luck: Brodsky shared an example from his time at Oracle, where he recently served as the director of video strategy and production for over two years. Follow the three steps below to ensure your video reaches your target audience across channels.
As Brodsky explained, Oracle wanted to be viewed as a future technology leader—and as a progressive brand that is taking on and supporting noble causes. To understand just how one of the company’s key target audiences—executive-level decision-makers—view Oracle in this context, the company conducted initial research of industry influencers, information technology (IT) decision-makers, and C-level corporate executives.
Based on the research findings, Brodsky’s team developed an overarching theme: “Smart companies have a vision of their future and are taking concrete steps today to secure it.” The team then used additional demographics and personal interest research on executive-level decision-makers to determine what would be the best type of creative to tap into the audience’s personal interest—and position the Oracle brand as a driving force for positive change that empowers them to take immediate action.
Take a page out of Brodsky’s book and consider how your team could benefit from performing a similar exercise. Start by determining how you want your brand to be seen in the marketplace and the type of research you can conduct to understand how to effectively develop that image.
To tailor its media strategy to executive behavior, Oracle used existing research to learn how to best reach and engage executive-level decision-makers. These findings prompted the team to adopt the following tactics:
Amplify social content with paid promotion
Co-brand the content on premium news sites
Create an organic, mobile-friendly user experience
With their media distribution strategy in place, Brodsky’s team then leveraged data to shape the content of the video in an effort to portray Oracle as a company that is all about delivering “your tomorrow, today; and dedicated to customer-focused innovation, speed of change, anticipating what’s next, and having an action plan for getting there,” explains Brodsky.
“In our execution, we decided to showcase visionary customers that are innovating beyond current trends; tell stories through video, social posts, editorial content, and outbound advertising; and use arresting headlines and striking images to drive readers to a vision of the future.”
Additional research findings that also influenced Oracle’s creative included:
The average human attention span is eight seconds
82 percent of all videos on social media are watched without sound
Less branding helps audience retention, but hurts brand recall
In light of these findings, the team created short and focused videos that started with the most engaging content, made heavy use of on-screen text, and experimented with lighter vs. heavier branding.
“All of this research essentially boiled down to the fact that we had mere seconds to catch the attention of a busy executive as they glance at their phone between meetings,” Brodsky notes. “That’s why we knew that we had to reach them on an emotional level.”
One of the videos created for the campaign is reminiscent of the film, Gorillas in the Mist—highlighting the efforts of Diane Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI) to save mountain gorillas with the help of technology from Oracle.
Once the creative was ready, Brodsky’s team used paid promotion to drive and boost video viewing and traffic. “We carefully balanced our budget between production costs and media spend to give the campaign the biggest bang for the buck,” Brodsky recalls. “In the end, we saw that optimized, data-driven videos outperformed other videos across all platforms. On average, these videos had double the completion rates and half the cost-per-completion.”
Using data, Brodsky and his team achieved their goals of successfully reaching executive-level decision-makers across channels, realizing a slightly positive impact on brand metrics, and producing stories that resonated with the target audience in a number of formats and environments. The video campaign generated 151 million impressions, 93 million video views, and 31 million complete views.
The results above tell one simple truth: Data can be a powerful tool for helping you understand how to create campaigns that reach your target audience effectively. Consider replicating the steps Brodsky outlined to define your brand image, conduct audience research, and leverage the insights you gain to improve your content.
Whether you’re promoting a conference your company is hosting or your participation in a major industry event, video should play a large role in your marketing strategy.
Here are some tips and tricks for the different types of video content you can create before, during, and after an event.
Your pre-event promotional assets can be a valuable tool for driving attendees or meeting signups for your next event. By following the best practices below, you can ensure your event videos reach your audience effectively and keep them engaged.
If you’re creating a talking-head video—in which someone addresses the audience by talking directly into the camera—your choice of talent is super important. After all, this is the person who’s really going to sell your audience on the value of attending your conference, meeting with your team at an industry event, etc. The ideal candidate is someone who is engaging and comfortable on camera—providing the energy you need to get viewers excited. That being said, you can (and should) play around with different formats depending on who is on camera.
Your target audience is likely made up a variety of personas in different industries—and it’s important to remember that each of these segments wants to go to a particular event for different reasons. As such, you shouldn’t use the same assets for promotions across your entire audience. By developing segment-specific videos, you can ensure your message resonates, which will help to boost the overall ROI of these assets.
As a best practice, create a template for these targeted videos. While the content itself will certainly be different, the look and feel can be the same for all audiences.
Interested in seeing an example? Check out the four segmented promo videos we created for our most recent PLAY conference. As you can see when you watch the videos play side by side, the imagery and standard PLAY messaging is the same for all four, but some content—such as the specific breakout sessions and speakers highlighted—varies by the target audience:
Live streaming your event comes with its own unique set of opportunities and challenges. By putting the right plan in place before the event, you can avoid the dreaded live-stream-gone-wrong scenario.
Nowadays, streaming your opening and closing keynotes is just table stakes. To take it to the next level, you need to think about who your target audience is and the type of additional content they’d like to see. For instance, this could include live interviews with your speakers. Of course, you need to think about your capabilities from a technical and promotional standpoint, too. Ask yourself the following questions:
What types of content do you have the budget, time, and resources necessary to stream beyond the keynotes?
What types of content will you have the bandwidth necessary to promote effectively (on social and other channels)?
Set yourself up for success by ensuring your streaming plan incorporates a strategy that your team is equipped to execute well—and content that will resonate with your audience.
This tip might seem a little obvious, but it’s important to call out explicitly. When it comes to live streams, the more testing and redundancy the better. And this period of testing and rehearsal time should include a few different things:
Meet with the camera operators. Use this time to lay out expectations for the types of footage you want these individuals to collect. For instance, if you know your keynote speaker is going to make a joke at a certain point in her presentation, you can instruct the camera operators to do an audience reaction shot at this time. Consider creating a cheat sheet that spells out these types of instructions explicitly.
Rehearse with the presentation on-site. By conducting this type of dry run, you can ensure the whole team is aware of what comes next in each stage of a presentation. For instance, if a certain slide links out to another site or asset (such as a video), you can align on a plan to make this transition as seamless as possible. And don’t forget to build in fail-safe slides so that your team knows where to point to if you encounter some technical difficulties.
Have you ever thought about how you could repurpose your event content down the line? One super valuable way is to record some (or all of) your sessions and turn them into video on demand (VOD) assets—which could potentially all live in one designated site, landing page, or playlist.
If you do decide to record some of your sessions, there are a few things you should keep in mind. Of course, asset management—both on-site and post-event—is an important factor to consider here. The more organized you can be, the better.
First you need to define how much data you will be generating, and whether you will have enough space to store it. If you have limited space, consider which content you should prioritize.
Then, define who will manage the media on-site and who will be in charge of the asset “dump.” I recommend that you have one dedicated DIT person to perform the latter task, as this will help you to streamline and simplify the process.
When you’re creating and producing content at an event, it’s always best to plan for the worst-case scenario. After all, you could run into a variety of technical difficulties—from a camera malfunction to your recorder burning out.
Consider the types of things you could manually do later if the audio or visual were to cut out in a particular recording, and put a plan in place so that you have all the necessary materials to do this work. For instance, make sure you have access to all the presentation decks, so you can always add those back into a recording down the line if something goes wrong on-site.
In today’s media landscape, viewers want and expect vlog-style content on a variety of channels. These assets empower you to engage with your audience in a whole new way—giving them a firsthand peek into what it’s like to attend a particular event. Here are a few of our tips and tricks on how to create a powerful vlog strategy.
Identify team members to own each channel. In an effort to avoid duplicating work, it’s important to lay out vlogging responsibilities before an event takes place. When defining these roles, be sure to lean into your teams’ existing skill sets. For instance, if a particular individual is an Instagram pro, let him or her own Instagram Stories throughout the event (and shoot in their preferred style).
Develop a content plan. In order to compile footage that’s engaging and boosts your ROI, you need to establish your goals and determine which themes you would like to focus on in each vlog. For instance, one video could provide a behind-the-scenes look into an event’s live stream while another could focus on highlighting the coolest new technology on the show floor.
Create a promotion plan. Of course, you need to determine how you will promote each vlog that you create—from distributing them on your social channels to embedding them in related written content.
My final tip is to always shoot more than you think you need. Doing so will help you achieve the fast-paced energy you’re looking for and equip you with lots of resources you can leverage in next year’s promotional materials.
Remember: When covering an event, your goal should be to not only create great content—but to produce event videos that give off the exciting feeling of being there in-person.
In this article, we will introduce the “Google Analytics Event Tracking” feature, which was released as a new feature of the Brightcove Players module in July 2019.
