Contact us
|
+1 888 882-1880
M-F 8am to 8pm EST

HOW FACINGDISABILITY.COM USED VIDEO TO CONNECT PEOPLE

bsp-admin-1 on December 5, 2024

POWERFUL IMAGES, VITAL MESSAGES

Like thousands of organizations, FacingDisability.com counts on the power, flexibility and reliability of the Brightcove Player to have more than 3,500 videos ready to go. Here’s a snapshot of the sheer volume of content that the Brightcove Player handles:

AVERAGE DAY:

23 million views, streaming 465 years worth of video through web player

2.2 million views, streaming 180 years through Android SDK

2 million views, streaming 188 years through iOS SDK

Delivers 84 million ads

Display players on 21,170 unique domains

In at least 55 unique apps

EVERY MINUTE:

4.7 weeks of live video through web

4.47 days of live video through Android SDK

2.71 days of live video through iOS SDK

For patients and families who are impacted by a spinal cord injury, FacingDisability.com is the destination where questions are answered, support is offered and strength is discovered as real people tell their stories with honesty and insight. With a video library of more than 3,500 videos, FacingDisability.com covers every aspect of spinal cord injury with focused interviews featuring doctors, psychologists, therapists, rehabilitation experts and above all, people with spinal cord injuries and their families.

“YOU ARE NOT ALONE”

This is the resounding message of FacingDisability.com, whether it’s you or a family member who’s experienced a spinal cord injury. The suddenness of this injury, combined with the relatively rare amount of cases, leaves families in the difficult position of being unprepared and isolated. This is exactly what happened to Thea Flaum and her family when their daughter Vicki was disabled at age 19. Flaum channeled that fear and frustration into the creation of FacingDisability.com, with a mission to offer a human connection that says in the most simple and powerful way that “we’ve been there and we’ve done that.” And nothing delivers that raw, truthful message like video.

THE UNMATCHED POWER OF VIDEO

The sound of a voice. The look of a smile. The pause between words where nothing is heard–but everything is said. These are the moments that only video can deliver, and FacingDisability.com makes this experience up close and personal. It’s just the person and the camera, answering intensely personal questions: What was the hardest part of the first days in the hospital? What’s become easier over time? How do you handle anger? How do you see your future? The answers—unvarnished, unrehearsed and without tears or words of inspiration—give spinal cord injury patients and their families the most accurate view of life they could ever expect. And those videos, in turn, provide them with a valuable connection to this new, overwhelming world which has been thrust upon them.

CREATING A CONNECTION

People judge something they see on a computer or phone screen in the same way they judge something they see on TV. So from the very beginning we insisted on broadcast quality video. That’s what we get with Brightcove.”

THEA FLAUM

FOUNDER, FACINGDISABILITY.COM

For patients and their families dealing with the isolation and fear associated with a spinal cord injury, these videos create a one-on-one experience that truly deepens their understanding. These experiences reflect the guiding principle of FacingDisability.com: Nobody knows what you’re going through like someone who is living with it. And finding that “someone” is a key element of FacingDisability.com. Its extensive video library lets people search specifically for parents, spouses, siblings, friends, etc, who have dealt with spinal cord injuries. “What you’re getting are honest, human responses,” says Flaum. “Video gives you the power of the image, the power of the close-up. As a result, you get to see real people talking about their experiences in a revealing, straightforward way.”

A NEW VIDEO SERIES FacingDisability.com released a new 10-part video series called, “Voices of Experience – Living With Spinal Cord Injury.” Created for national distribution to in-hospital TV networks, healthcare institutions and online audiences, it’s just the next step in the partnership with FacingDisability. com and Brightcove® as new avenues are explored in the future of video. In the words of Thea Flaum, “whatever happens next, Brightcove is going to be part of making it happen.”

HOW CTCA DELIVERS VIDEO TO CANCER PATIENTS NATIONWIDE

bsp-admin-1 on December 5, 2024

A cancer diagnosis can provoke difficult questions: “Why me?” “What about my family?” “What do I do now?”

The mission of Cancer Treatment Centers of America® (CTCA), now City of Hope®, is to help answer this last question by providing personalized, patient-centered cancer care. CTCA is focused on treating and caring for cancer patients, with comprehensive cancer treatment centers and outpatient care centers located in the greater Atlanta, Chicago, and Phoenix areas.

USING DIGITAL VIDEO FOR CANCER EDUCATION

An important part of CTCA’s mission is education. “The goal is to empower and inspire viewers so they don’t feel alone after receiving a cancer diagnosis,” explained Michael E. Harkins, Head of Production at CTCA. “And we’ve found web pages with videos can outperform pages without videos by up to three times.”

But using video meant the playback and viewing experience had to be seamless. “The viewer is already experiencing a tremendous amount of friction in their life,” said Harkins. “My goal is to help remove some of that friction by providing the best-in-class video experience in healthcare and specifically in oncology.”

DEALING WITH DISTRIBUTION

Brightcove really is the engine that powers our online video distribution strategy. It’s a great partnership.

MICHAEL HARKINS

HEAD OF PRODUCTION AT CTCA

CTCA faced several challenges in realizing their video goals. Internally, the publishing process was not streamlined. Videos had to be published across several sites and social channels, but fractured and redundant distribution workflows consumed time and bandwidth.

“Distribution is important because it doesn’t matter how great the content is if it doesn’t get out there,” explained Harkins. “We have 44 cancer sections on our site, and sometimes we want the same video in every section, because each visitor has a different cancer journey.”

CTCA also needed a way to organize its extensive advertising media library, which Harkins calls “one of our most valuable IP resources.”

MANAGING MISINFORMATION

Another challenge came from using YouTube as a distribution channel.

As a healthcare provider, CTCA has to ensure the information they share is up to date and medically accurate. However, the videos YouTube was recommending alongside their videos would sometimes contain misinformation or lack medical credibility.

“We can’t have information popping up that isn’t vetted by us,” remarked Harkins. “Not only is it problematic from a healthcare information standpoint, it creates a poor user experience and reflects poorly on us as a healthcare provider.”

TAKING THE FRICTION OUT OF DIGITAL VIDEO

In order to streamline distribution and improve the user experience, CTCA needed a centralized video solution. They needed a single platform where they could publish videos across multiple destinations, monitor performance and engagement, define the user experience, and have an easily accessible advertising media library.

Integrating Brightcove into CTCA’s workflow made multi-channel distribution seamless. Publishing the videos to the correct destinations required a network of connectivities, including CMS plugins and social media integration—not to mention the need for video transcription and closed captioning for ADA compliance.

“It saves us at least 15 hours of work per week,” Harkins estimates. “Brightcove not only powers the videos on our website and other web properties, it’s also how we distribute videos on our YouTube channel.” And while YouTube is a key part of their video distribution strategy, it doesn’t have everything CTCA needs to host videos on their site.

Through Brightcove, CTCA was able to craft the user experience they wanted for their viewers. They created custom video players with branded colors and styling, custom playback, controls, as well as end screens. “This level of customization and control simply isn’t possible through YouTube,” said Harkins.

Analytics were also key to improving the user experience. Through native integrations, CTCA could enable event tracking to see Brightcove player data in Google Analytics 360. Within the Brightcove platform, CTCA could also see how videos were performing individually and as a whole.

This helped the team create tailored experiences for users on different cancer journeys. “We have multiple versions of the same video because we have multiple cancer sections. Each experience is tailored to the folks that are looking for information about a specific type of cancer or treatment option,” explains Harkins.

CTCA now delivers best-in-class topical information that drives viewers back to their site, while still emulating the familiar YouTube experience. For Harkins, accommodating viewer preferences was key: “We wanted to emulate the way our viewers are used to engaging with video.”

VALUABLE ASSETS BECOMES ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

Meanwhile, the advertising media library came to life in partnership with Brightcove Global Services.

Creative agencies had previously housed most of CTCA’s advertising assets. While CTCA stored some assets locally, advertising assets were not easily accessible outside of their internal video team. “We needed a way to easily house, catalog, search, view, and share all our advertising creative, while still tracking distribution and video metadata,” said Harkins.

To achieve his vision, Brightcove Global Services created a team to build the ad portal. Consisting of a project manager, a technical lead, a UX designer, a business analyst, a QA engineer, and developers, this team would meet with Harkins weekly to share updates and feedback. Instead of taking months to complete, the custom development took mere weeks.

Thanks to Brightcove’s advanced tagging functions, Harkins’ team is able to tag and sort all their advertising assets and are confident they will be stored in the right place. “A lot of agencies have these kinds of ad portals where they manage their client’s assets. But I would be willing to put ours up there against any of them,” said Harkins.

“Brightcove really is the engine that powers our online video distribution strategy,” concluded Harkins. “It’s a great partnership, and we continue to look for new ways to improve our online video experience for cancer patients.”

HOW BARROW NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE DREW OVER 40,000 VIEWS

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

PREMIER NEUROLOGICAL INSTITUTE USES VIDEO TO ATTRACT PATIENTS, RESEARCHERS, RESIDENTS

Barrow Neurological Institute is one of the world’s premier destinations for neurosurgery and neurology. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the institute combines state-of-the-art treatment with exceptional educational opportunity, establishing itself as a first-class facility for patients, scientists, researchers, and clinicians. Its core philosophy is simple: Accept challenges. Reject norms. Push boundaries.

One thing that distinguishes Barrow from all other teaching hospitals in the U.S. is its claim to the country’s largest neurosurgery residency program. Its seven-year program has produced some of the brightest and most innovative neurosurgeons in the world, including directors of many distinguished academic neurosurgical departments. This philosophy of excellence ultimately translates to unparalleled care for all patients requiring neurological and neurosurgical expertise.

To extend awareness and help grow the institute’s already well-established brand, Barrow turned to video as a way to draw patients, researchers, and residents to its facility. In 2013, Barrow partnered with Brightcove to elevate its video marketing initiatives and create more impactful digital messaging for those three core audiences.

Since putting the Brightcove platform to work, Barrow now distributes video efficiently across its website and social media channels. It’s also incorporated live stream neurosurgeries into its video marketing repertoire. Barrow recently live streamed an acoustic neuroma surgery to over 40,000 viewers, which then helped increase traffic to its website and improve overall SEO ranking. And with the added benefit of Brightcove’s analytics providing valuable insight into viewing behavior, Barrow’s digital team can now implement best video practices, optimize video content, and command viewership across target audiences.

STORY-DRIVEN VIDEO WINS AUDIENCES

If you’re dealing with website marketing, the thing you’re looking for to make your life a bit easier is a bulletproof content management system. Brightcove was the bulletproof CMS for our video content.

ANDREW WACHTEL

DIGITAL MARKETING AND STRATEGY ANALYST

Before partnering with Brightcove, Barrow’s digital team focused on distributing high quality, low quantity assets via video billboards, TV ads, and YouTube. But Andrew Wachtel, Barrow’s Digital Marketing and Strategy Analyst, realized these efforts were too few and far between to generate the level of brand awareness the institute was looking to achieve. From a branding standpoint, YouTube was particularly problematic. With YouTube, Barrow lacked total control over the user experience, and it bombarded viewers with unrelated or irrelevant content, which often prevented audiences from migrating to the Barrow website.

Wachtel refocused Barrow’s efforts on creating a branded video site to gain complete control of the user experience. Zeroing in on video storytelling as a way to promote the Barrow name, he pushed for shorter, high-quality, narrative-driven video content that would attract top medical students to Barrow’s residency programs and help spread the word about the hospital’s life saving treatments.

The first project under this new direction was Barrow’s “50 Years, 50 Faces,” a 50th anniversary tribute to the hospital. Wachtel’s digital team produced 50 individual story-driven video vignettes, each highlighting a Barrow staff member, and they released one per week throughout the year. With this new strategy, the team saw how much more audiences engaged with the shortened, story-focused content.

“Our emphasis became more of doing something quickly, timely, and relevant, as opposed to spending a lot of time and money on only two or three videos a year,” says Wachtel.

BARROW CHOOSES BRIGHTCOVE TO EXECUTE REFINED VIDEO STRATEGY AND DRAW TARGET AUDIENCES

After implementing Barrow’s new video strategy, Wachtel realized he needed a powerful video solution capable of managing and distributing Barrow’s increasing collection of branded video content while providing technology necessary for live stream distribution. As it turned out, Brightcove was just the platform.

With Brightcove’s flexible video ecosystem and partner integrations, Wachtel and his team were able to easily merge Barrow’s content management system with the video platform, thereby creating an all-in-one solution for managing and distributing assets across the Barrow website.

“If you’re dealing with website marketing, the thing you’re looking for to make your life a bit easier is a bulletproof content management system,” says Wachtel. “Brightcove was the bulletproof CMS for our video content.”

ROI ANALYTICS ARE KEY TO IMPROVING BARROW'S VIDEO MARKETING INITIATIVES AND PROVIDING ROI

Wachtel also says Brightcove’s analytics have proven critical in establishing best use practices for video content, especially in regards to social media.

“Looking over the data, we know video on Facebook and all the other social platforms really helps,” he says. “Video, over other forms of content, tends to perform much better on those platforms.”

Video analytics have also become a vital asset in determining effective use of video within the Barrow site itself. Using Brightcove analytics to review video performance data Wachtel was able to see just how precisely video content could be modified in order to provide the most marketing impact for the organization. Specifically, he saw that longer videos failed to perform as well as the shorter ones, which led the digital team to recraft the lengthier pieces into shorter ones for the website.

“Instead of one video, we now have three different pieces of content we can release over time and maximize the value of our video efforts,” Wachtel says.

He continues: “I use the analytics to really make my case for video marketing. I can prove it with data, and that’s really as good as it gets for me.”

USERS LIVE STREAM SURGERY DRAWS IN OVER 40K USERS

In an effort to propel the Barrow brand even further, the hospital arranged to live stream a surgical removal of an acoustic neuroma. To promote the event, Barrow published an article on its website introducing readers to Dr. Randall Portell and Dr. Mark Syms, the two neurosurgeons on the case. When the same article was posted to the Facebook page of the Acoustic Neuroma Association, word spread.

The day before the live stream, over 27,000 Facebook and Twitter users clicked on promotional ads, which, in turn, brought a tremendous increase in traffic to the Barrow website. About a month preceding the surgery, over 40,000 users logged on to watch the live stream footage. Moreover, the aggregate national average search ranking for the term “acoustic neuroma” jumped 12 spots over the course of the promotional period.

Similarly, Barrow live streamed the surgical treatment of a patient suffering from Parkinson’s-related tremors. The treatment, known as deep brain stimulation, is part of the hospital’s DBS program, which promotes awareness of the surgery in order to make it more accessible to people in need. Program coordinators provided the patient’s wife with ample education and guidance preceding the surgery, so much that she felt comfortable enough watching the live stream in real time. And the patient, himself, noted how honored he was to help educate others considering DBS surgery.

HOW FINASTRA INCREASED ROI BY 26X

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

Finastra enables the financial services world to deliver the future of banking with applications, marketplaces, and an open innovation platform for banks, fintechs, and non-banks to connect and collaborate. Over 8,000 financial institutions in 130 countries rely on Finastra to boost their business performance.

When COVID-19 shut down the team’s traditional channels for connecting with prospects and customers, Finastra shifted fully to digital engagements. However, every digital experience began to feel the same. “We were drowning in a sea of sameness,” said Joerg Klueckmann, Head of Marketing at Finastra. “It got harder and harder to cut through the noise.”

The Finastra team decided to reinvent how they engaged with prospects and clients. To stand out in a digital-first world, they created a new format for education, prospecting, and conversion.

“We decided to build the Netflix for the financial services industry: Finastra TV,” said Klueckmann.

CONNECTING FIRST-PARTY DATA TO VIDEO

We’ve been using Brightcove for many years, and we knew the quality and service there was exactly what we wanted to create our own channel.

JAMIE STEPIEN

DIRECTOR OF DIGITAL MARKETING, FINASTRA

Finastra took a content-first approach to video marketing. “We produced different series for all lines of businesses at a financial institution,” said Klueckmann. “Each series consists of 10 to 15 episodes. We really tried to think like a media agency. We only produce a new season of a series if we see traction in the viewing data.”

The biggest strategic decision was to un-gate video content for any return visitor. Finastra created a custom-built solution with Marketo and Brightcove that required only one form fill and tracked what each viewer watched. This made the viewing experience more seamless while offering insights into what the audience really wanted to know. In return, this defined the content production schedule of Finastra.

“The strategic framework focused on the first-party cookie so we could capture and own our customer data,” said Jamie Stepien, Director of Digital Marketing at Finastra. “We used Google Analytics and Hotjar data to design the UI and architecture of the Finastra TV experience. And then we used SEMRush to build the taxonomy and optimize for Google findability. We’ve been using Brightcove for many years, and we knew the quality and service there was exactly what we wanted to create our own streaming channel.”

“We developed a custom solution on the channel where we dropped a cookie behind the user’s first Marketo registration form,” Stepien added. “Gating is a thing of the past. Multi form-fills on a site are a thing of the past.”

With Brightcove streaming video and Marketo integrating first-party data, Finastra could promote video content to targeted audiences and understand who watched what and how much of it. Finastra TV quickly became the most popular marketing channel for the team, serving both as an educational resource and a place to build an engaged community.

Furthermore, video marketing became a new inbound channel across both online and offline channels.

OPTIMIZING VIDEO WITH ADVANCED ANALYTICS

With the advanced viewer analytics of Brightcove, Finastra realized that the most valuable interactions with prospects and customers were happening with video marketing content. Especially because Finastra TV became a destination channel.

“In the past, we had video content on YouTube. But we weren’t getting analytics, the data wasn’t integrated with our CRM, and the user experience was very fragmented,” said Klueckmann. “Today, we can see what content each prospect consumes, whether they’re watching a video about green lending or a new regulation, and if they visit another Finastra website. The digital UX is fully integrated within all Finastra’s digital entities.”

By integrating marketing automation with Brightcove, Finastra could identify viewers by name, job title, and behavior. Sales could follow up based on specific video content that was consumed, ensuring every message was relevant. As the lockdowns of COVID-19 eased and physical events came back, Finastra doubled down on video content by integrating it across the marketing strategy.

An important lesson learned was that video content only worked well if it was created for digital consumption. Recording a session from a physical event and making it available on demand didn’t produce the expected engagement. Because of this, Finastra builds studios at events and briefs speakers that a shorter version of the event presentation will be filmed in a proper studio setup. Animations, different camera angles, and high-quality post-processing make the video production stand out. By integrating the event and video strategies, while understanding viewer interaction at a first-party level, Finastra saw a 26X increase in video marketing ROI.

“This is a great example of how marketing can be an innovation driver,” Klueckmann says. “From production to measurement, the marketing team led the video marketing strategy from beginning to end.”

Watch the full PLAY Season 1 episode of how Finastra built their own streaming channel.

HOW WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY USES VIDEO TO REACH EVERY AUDIENCE

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

Few organizations use video in a wider variety of ways than a college or university. Think about it: communicating with alumni… getting on high-school students’ consideration lists… convincing accepted students to commit… keeping parents informed about what’s going on at school… helping faculty members share their research… showcasing their campus to students too far away to visit. Video can do all of these things exceedingly well, but having so many audiences and kinds of video can create serious content management challenges.

Wesleyan University, a prestigious liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, knows all about the power, potential, and pitfalls of connecting with their many constituencies via video. They have been working with Brightcove for eight years, and in that time we have helped them build a video platform that is powerful and versatile enough to handle whatever they need it to do, yet so easy to use that anyone can upload video and deliver it to the correct destination without needing sophisticated IT skills.

WHEN STUDENTS COULDN’T BE ON CAMPUS, VIDEO BROUGHT THE CAMPUS TO THEM

As it did for so many organizations, last year posed some special challenges for Wesleyan. According to Manager of Video Services and Lead Video Producer Melissa Rocha, “When we interview students and we ask them, ‘What made you want to come to Wesleyan?’ a lot of [them] say, ‘When I was walking around campus on a campus tour, I just felt something here.… I felt it was the place for me.’ Obviously, during the pandemic, that was not an option. So I think [we] needed to really somehow try to get that on-campus experience across to people, and I think that that’s where video can play a really big role: in being able to get that feeling.”

The university relies on the emotional impact of video – its ability to convey the spirit of “Wes,” as it’s affectionately known – in all of its communications. Notes Interim Marketing Director Melissa Datre, “We use it in every aspect. We do highlight videos, small pieces. We do longer format video. We use [it] on our website as part of a marketing campaign. We have video playing, showcasing drone shots, so you can get a real sense of what it’s like to come here. We’re a nice, small, residential school – we show that off through video. We tell stories about our students. We have athletics – thirty teams. We have a lot of great features about the value of Wesleyan that we use video to showcase.”

It really is amazing the level of sophistication of the Brightcove platform. It’s easy to use; it’s intuitive, which, trust me, is hard to find these days.

MELISSA DATRE

WESLEYAN INTERIM MARKETING DIRECTOR

Before choosing to work with Brightcove, the school had been hosting their videos on another platform, but the environment was a bit too unpredictable for an institution like Wesleyan. “I don’t like it when a video plays and at the end of the video a random video pops up to be played next, particularly when our audience consists of prospective students and parents,” observes Datre. “With the Brightcove system, we have total control over our video and video players.” Adds Rocha, “We don’t have to worry about ads popping up; we don’t have to worry about related videos that have nothing to do with Wesleyan popping up. We have a lot of control over it, [and] the process [of getting video] into Brightcove is smooth and easy.”

BRIGHTCOVE GETS AN A FOR EASE OF USE

In fact, having a platform that’s very easy to use is an essential element of its power and versatility. It doesn’t matter what a system can theoretically do if there’s a bottleneck because only a couple of people understand how to upload video into it. That’s where the Brightcove platform shines. “Brightcove makes having a place to deploy our finished video product simple and easy to navigate. It’s like a one-stop-shop for the finished video,” explains Rocha. “And if there are changes that need to be made, it’s super smooth to be able to go into the media module and edit a video. If we have to edit the title, description, tags, even upload a new thumbnail, it’s so simple to navigate and to use, and I think that the end result, when it’s actually on a webpage, looks really clean.”

“There’s so much more video to manage,” offers Datre. “Brightcove makes it a lot easier to upload, manage, and access our video content and analytics, which makes our process much more efficient. It’s a time-saver for faculty and other department staff to be able to upload video and place it on their website through a single form. With this self-serve approach, we are able to free up our resources to focus on the content rather than technical support to deploy the videos. If we were using another platform, we could not have this automated process. Brightcove also helps us meet ADA compliance guidelines. Like many universities, Wesleyan requires all public-facing content to have closed captioning. Brightcove’s integration with third-party closed captioning tools streamlines this process and optimizes our resources. Our experience with other platforms’ closed captioning, while free, is that it is not very accurate and requires several extra steps to review, correct and then upload the final video.

A VIDEO PLATFORM SHOULD OPEN UP POSSIBILITIES, NOT LIMIT THEM

“It really is amazing the level of sophistication we have with the Brightcove platform. It’s easy to use. It’s intuitive, which, trust me, is hard to find these days. I can remove or change out videos quickly and without changing the Brightcove ID (link to the video). It makes several renditions of a single video file, which is important to us to be able to reach an international audience or places where video playback and bandwidth may be a concern. The analytics and reporting [are] very good. There’s certain filtering I can do, so I can get pretty granular on what I want to analyze, and I have the ability to generate reports on a video or group of videos ad hoc or on a regular schedule. I wish some of the other software platforms we work with had that kind of analytics.”

Wesleyan takes a lot of pride in educating the leaders of tomorrow. And Brightcove takes a lot of pride in supporting their video leadership today.

HOW SIMUCASE GREW VIDEO VIEWS BY 648% IN THREE YEARS

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

GROWING QUICKLY

Every year, online learning platform Simucase creates between 40 and 60 new simulations for students in over 600 allied health profession programs. Starting in speech pathology over a decade ago, Simucase has since expanded into audiology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and social work. One membership gives an account user access to videos across professions, encouraging cross-discipline collaboration from the beginning of a student’s academic training program.

Students can engage with videos in two virtual environments, making Simucase a comprehensive learning tool: simulations, where they can interact with a patient and be graded on their decisions; and patient videos, where students can observe experienced clinicians interacting with patients.

The shift to online learning during the pandemic put Simucase on the fast track. When many on-campus clinics closed and students had to learn from home, Simucase helped its higher education clients meet the challenge. In April 2020, Communication Sciences and Disorders students at Illinois State University were able to earn clinical clock hours through the Simucase platform, even when the on-campus clinic was closed. This let students stay on track and graduate on time.

GROWING PAINS

The quick expansion meant that Simucase was soon hosting 14,000 video assets on its platform, up from 8,000 before expanding into audiology, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and social work. Adding another layer of complexity, Simucase’s simulation videos branch out, showing a new video after a user makes a decision. This feature means that a simulation could in fact contain anywhere from 10-200 videos.

Not being able to download the content and have it shared externally was an important factor for us in the decision-making.

KATIE ONDO

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, SIMUCASE

“We were looking for a secure system to deliver the media to our customers,” said Katie Ondo, director of operations at Simucase. This delivery need required organization into a content library for patient videos in particular, including meta-tagging for client-side searchability. “We wanted to be able to categorize and tag all of the individual video files, so that our users could search and find content that’s relevant to what they want to learn.”

CREATING A FIRST

Simucase needed an end-to-end video solution that would support its mission of content delivery to a large audience with the highest security, without having to rely on multiple external vendors.

Accessibility was critical, especially around closed captioning. Previous to working with Brightcove, Simucase had been using a multistep process involving multiple vendors. “We wanted a more streamlined solution for how we can accomplish what we need in terms of accessibility,” said Ondo.

In addition to organization, Simucase also needed security to protect the confidentiality of the patient stories. “Not being able to download the content and have it shared externally was an important factor for us in the decision-making.”

SOLUTIONS

Simucase decided that Brightcove’s Video Cloud covered all these bases.

Simucase was able to adapt its Video Cloud account to its unique needs. Using Brightcove’s metadata and aligning it with Simucase’s search functions, Simucase sorted the patient videos into a library, while Brightcove’s in-house captioning services ensured the high level of accessibility Simucase requires. No more outsourcing meant quicker video uploads, letting the Simucase team move on to the next video.

With Brightcove’s uploading capabilities, Simucase delivers content on both desktop and mobile seamlessly, letting students learn wherever and whenever they can. Those 14,000 (and counting) video assets were securely uploaded and stored using Brightcove’s cloud server.

Lastly, Simucase leaned on Brightcove’s analytics to get a clear idea of video completion rates, which helps the learning platform determine how useful certain videos are and what they can do to increase them.

BETTER TRAINING, BETTER OUTCOMES

Thanks to Brightcove’s solutions, Simucase has seen the impact of the patient videos in real time. “We had over 187,000 video views last year,” said Ondo, up from 25,000 in 2018 – a 648% increase.

“Simucase just keeps improving, especially with the latest videos of other professions. You are helping our students grow as clinicians as well as providing opportunities for interprofessional education. Thank you!” – University of Wyoming

“Thank you for the updates about the additional simulations. We have utilized them and are quite pleased with all of the additional observation videos as well.” – Southwestern Community College

But the marker for success is more than views. Ondo added, “With each video view, a future professional learns more about the patients they will work with in the future.” Thanks to Brightcove’s Video Cloud, Simucase can continue on the leading edge of remote learning and, most importantly, enable cross-professional collaboration that leads to better patient outcomes.

HOW THE NSW DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION STAYED CONNECTED

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

VIDEO INITIATIVE LAUNCHES FAST WITH LOTS OF VIEWS, LOTS OF FUN

With the COVID-19 situation forcing thousands of students to remain at home, “NSW Education Live” was launched, a live stream series that started each day with a 15-minute segment covering everything from sports and music to gardening and cooking. Each segment featured an Australian celebrity or famous face.

750,000 students in the audience

55,563 total views of the live stream via the Brightcove Video Cloud in just 14 days

2,200 public school sites securely received the live stream

1,400 Facebook pages received the live stream

The NSW (New South Wales) Department of Education is the largest provider of public education in Australia. It’s responsible for delivering high-quality public education across early childhood, primary school, secondary school, vocational, adult, migrant and higher education across two-thirds of the NSW student population. With over 2,200 schools and a total enrollment of over 750,000 students, its focus is to prepare each and every child and young person for a dynamic and rewarding life.

EVOLVING WITH VIDEO

Video is playing an increasingly important role in classrooms across the world. It’s recognized for creating more engagement among students than traditional printed materials, along with delivering sights and sounds that result in a more memorable sensory experience. Educators know that video raises the digital literacy of both students and teachers while creating new opportunities for curriculum, campus events, and internal and external communications. As schools look to increase their use of video technology, Brightcove® offers seamless, secure and proven solutions that make it easy to get up and running instead of burdening administrators with technical concerns. The NSW Department of Education partnered with Brightcove on two important video initiatives, demonstrating the power of video to remain an established, trusted source of information while also being flexible enough to respond to individual situations.

CREATING A HUMAN CONNECTION

The “Schools Video” initiative enables 2,200 schools within NSW to create and distribute content across websites, social and internal channels. This video content can take many forms. It may be external communications to parents and the community, or internal communications to students and staff, including the ability to live stream announcements, assemblies and campus events. Powered by Brightcove Video Cloud™, “Schools Video” makes it possible to upload raw footage, create a video and share it quickly and easily. For the Department of Education, this allows them to create a higher awareness of their activities and achievements while developing a visual “brand” that gives the Department a unique identity. Above all, video is key to helping the Department develop a richer human connection with its school community. Knowing that the very core of teaching is a face-to-face experience, video can help amplify that experience with the powerful combination of a face and a voice that builds trust and encourages understanding.

VIDEO, NIMBLE AND POWERFUL

Faced with the sudden delays and closings brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the NSW Department of Education needed to communicate quickly with the student and teacher population while also making sure to provide reassurance and comfort during an unprecedented time. This led to the launch of NSW Education Live, a series of 15-minute wellbeing classes live-streamed at the start of each school day. Connecting students with expert presenters across the fields of music, art, food, gardening, technology, and sports, it helped them continue their learning from home while bringing a needed sense of normalcy to their day.

Our live streams are a unique and exciting way to support parents, students, and teachers with additional resources to help with learning from home.

MARK SCOTT

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SECRETARYRECORDINGS MANAGER

The series featured Australian celebrity guest speakers including Olympic gold medalist Bronte Campbell, artist Ben Quilty, filmmaker Gracie Otto and singer Guy Sebastian, winner of Australia Idol and former judge on Australia The X factor. “I was keen to be involved with these live streams to do what I could to help kids stay positive and happy through this,” said Sebastian. “It can also give them the mental wellbeing to stay focused on their learning.” This series, supported by Brightcove Live™, was streamed directly to 2,200-plus public school websites and 1,400+ school Facebook pages.

For the NSW Department of Education, video has delivered several key advantages. While demonstrating the importance of innovation and creating new channels of communication, it also allows the department to speak with one unified voice, furthering a sense of trust and human connection.

Together with the power and reliability of Brightcove technology, these initiatives are well-positioned to be an important part of the future for the next generation of students in New South Wales.

HOW MATH TUTOR DVD GREW VIDEO REVENUE 50%

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

BRIGHTCOVE SOLUTIONS WITH MOBILE APP AND SOCIAL DRIVE 20 PERCENT INCREASE IN SUBSCRIBERS

In 2004, Jason Gibson launched Math Tutor DVD, a business-to-consumer learning company offering students of all ages extra help tackling math and science subjects like algebra, physics, and calculus. With a background in academic tutoring himself, Gibson began by creating specially-designed lesson plans and then filming courses with a friendly, encouraging approach.

Gibson first burned his video courses to CDs and sold them on eBay. He eventually transitioned his course content to DVDs and launched his own e-commerce website using a distributor to handle DVD sales and shipping. Then with the growing popularity of online video, Gibson debuted the Math Tutor DVD YouTube channel, which proved a far more efficient mode of content distribution. At the same time, he began shifting his website to a membership model, emphasizing on-demand video subscriptions over DVD sales.

To support this new monetization model, Gibson needed to find a video platform that not only offered video hosting behind a paywall, but also provided customers with superior viewing across multiple devices. He decided on the Brightcove platform to do just that. Gibson’s recent inclusions of Brightcove Social and Brightcove Gallery have also helped boost consumer engagement across several social platforms, including his YouTube channel, resulting in a 20 percent increase in subscriptions within a few short months.

MATH TUTOR DVD MOVES TO ONLINE VIDEO, BUILDS NEW MEMBERSHIP-BASED REVENUE MODEL

Since Gibson’s e-commerce website was already built with the necessary infrastructure to support automatic billing, login, and security, all he needed was the right video platform to host, manage, and drive engagement for his online video content.

Revenue from the members’ area, which is basically driven by Brightcove video, is around 50 percent of total revenue now, whereas before it was zero percent.

JASON GIBSON

FOUNDER, MATH TUTOR DVD

Gibson chose Brightcove for its streamlined platform, easy workflow, and e-commerce capabilities that support subscription-based and pay-per-view access to online video content. He implemented the platform and adjusted his revenue strategy, transitioning to a paid membership model. This allowed users to access video courses either through a monthly unlimited subscription or a pay-as-you-go option. Since introducing the new membership model, Gibson has seen a 50 percent increase in video-driven revenue.

“Revenue from the members’ area, which is basically driven by Brightcove video, is around 50 percent of total revenue now, whereas before it was zero percent,” says Gibson. “About half the entire business is online streaming digital delivery.”

COMBINING BRIGHTCOVE GALLERY AND BRIGHTCOVE SOCIAL BOOST SUBSCRIPTIONS BY 20 PERCENT

By partnering with Brightcove, Gibson has been able to create a more lucrative revenue model for his company, plus increase audience engagement across multiple channels. In fact, Math Tutor DVD’s new membership platform has contributed to a year-over-year 20 percent bump in membership.

The site itself uses Brightcove Gallery’s In-Page Experiences, which allows visitors to sample lessons before purchasing a membership. These limited sampler videos, also pushed to his YouTube channel, are short in length and give prospective users a taste of what they’d be getting as a member, encouraging them to interact with the content and learn more about the company’s services.

“I’ve had lots of people say, ‘There are many free lessons out there, but you guys have it organized step-by-step, sequenced, one-two-three-four,’” says Gibson. “By visiting that Gallery, they were able to see exactly what they could get as a member.”

With the ease and simplicity of Brightcove Social’s distribution tools, Gibson is now able to post video clips to various social platforms, which helps drive traffic back to his website and increase memberships. They also prompt visitors to click through to the Math Tutor DVD YouTube channel, driving viewers back to his site. Out of Gibson’s YOY 20 percent membership boost, a whopping 85 percent of that occurred in just four months of using Brightcove’s social solutions.

Brightcove Social’s cross-posting feature has also helped Gibson save time in distributing video across multiple social platforms. Because of this, he now has time to create additional lessons and grow his video library with even more engaging educational content.

“Now, I just go into Brightcove Social, I tag, click, and cross-post. I press the schedule button and then just forget about it. This is what’s really responsible for growing the channel seventeen percent in four months. Every couple days each week a new video just pops up in Facebook or YouTube, which drives engagement, clicks, traffic, and more subscribers. Brightcove makes me look like a bigger company. So for me, it’s a kind of magnification,” explains Gibson.

MATH TUTOR DVD CATERS TO MOBILE USERS WITH NEW APPS, DRIVING ADDITIONAL REVENUE STREAM

Recently, Gibson debuted the Math and Science Tutor mobile app, a free, on-the-go companion to his online video courses. Built by Brightcove’s Global Consulting team, the app offers over 1,500 lessons across all math and science subjects, and users are able to sample almost half of each course’s material free of charge before committing to buy. According to Gibson, the try-before-you-buy model helps engage learners and encourage membership sales. Similar to his website subscription model, users can pay monthly for unlimited access. And because Brightcove streams video within the app, users never experience any lag time. All content is crisp, and viewing quality is top-notch.

“Every video in that app is streamed through Brightcove,” says Gibson. “So it’s not a download. It’s not like you have to wait for the video to load. You just open and press play to access all my lessons, and there’s an option to subscribe.”

In just over one month, the app has tallied 4,000 total downloads, and has received numerous positive reviews within the Apple app store.

HOW KAPLAN TEST PREP LIVE STREAMED TO OVER 600,000 VIEWERS

bsp-admin-1 on December 4, 2024

By partnering with Brightcove, we were able to go live with a really compelling experience reaching learners who never would have had access to test preparation. And it’s a game changer for us, because that allows us to reach tens of thousands of learners, which changes the economics.

MICHAEL PALMER

VICE PRESIDENT, DIGITAL MEDIA, KAPLAN TEST PREP & ADMISSIONS