how to improve your video campaigns with DAM The Increasing Role of Online Video Did you catch a hot new documentary streaming on NetFlix last night? Are your kids grooving to the latest Katy Perry video on YouTube in their bedrooms? If so, you’re not alone. According to comScore, a leading provider of digital business analytics, Americans today are watching more online video than ever. That ability to access video at any time, and from nearly any device creates an environment of unlimited opportunity for marketers and other content providers, but at the same time presents significant challenges to be overcome on the back end. Faster Internet connections and state-of-the-art hardware have contributed greatly to the video format becoming almost ubiquitous in marketing. A 2012 B2B LinkedIn marketing survey conducted by EG Innovations indicates that over 46% of marketing managers use videos as one of their top five content strategies to drive thought leadership, brand awareness, and gain new customers. Digital technology has reduced the barriers to creating video content cost-effectively, and the volume of both user-generated video and content published by businesses has increased dramatically. Because of the increase in distribution channels and the now-affordable production costs, many brands face daunting challenges in storing, managing, and distributing online videos. Storage & Management Challenges Online video (especially HD) typically requires, on average, four to ten times more storage space than static images. Storage architectures that support high-performance transactional applications are not always a good fit for new video applications. Distribution Online video requires significantly more bandwidth to distribute than other media. Online video cannot be delivered in a standardized format; it must be accessible to viewers worldwide, using a variety of video playback formats. Fast Facts: Online Video In 2011: • There were more than 100 million online video viewers per day in the US alone • Videos viewed per month reached 43.5 million • Videos per viewer rose from 175 to 239 per month • The average per-video viewing time increased from 5 minutes to 5.8 minutes Source: comScore Managing Video Workflow When outside agencies work with brands to deliver campaign video assets, crisp, proven processes for review, approval, and delivery are key to success. Things become complex, however, when processes become bogged down due to multi-tiered approval requirements. In the past, gathering feedback from multiple levels of reviewers and ensuring that revisions were implemented correctly was a time-consuming, manual process. Agencies hired dedicated Traffic Managers to coordinate all the moving parts of a video review. And above and beyond the internal subject matter expert (SME) reviews, there was also usually a corporate legal review that was performed after all stakeholders had signed off on the campaign video. And then, once the video content was finalized, it had to be archived so that users could search for and access video files in order to re-purpose them for use in later campaigns. You can imagine how long all this used to take. But now that we have advanced technologies developed specifically to automate the review, approval, and delivery of video assets, the industry has been transformed. With the advent of digital asset management (DAM), managing rich media resources has become dramatically faster and more efficient. In particular, brand assets that comprise the video campaigns such as logo, images, and artwork can be shared and reviewed across departments, freelancers, stakeholders, agency producers and creative from anywhere, anytime. This collaboration enables vast savings in terms of time-to-market and production costs. The Impact of Video • Online video is the fastest growing ad format in 2012, with nearly 55% growth • Mobile and tablet shoppers are three times as likely to view a video as laptop or desktop users • Online video now accounts for 50% of all mobile traffic • Video in email marketing has been shown to increase clickthrough rates by over 96%. Source invodo.com Manage High Volumes of Video While Controlling Costs The increase in the use of online video means that storage, management, and distribution will be key to the successful utilization of your assets. You need a featurerich, scalable system to help you easily and efficiently share, manage, and control your video assets. Today, more and more organizations are moving toward using DAM for video management. DAM systems provide a centralized location in which content publishers can efficiently store, manage, and distribute high volumes of video files. Advanced video DAM solutions provide management, distribution, centralization, automation, workflow optimization, and virtual collaboration of rich media files—all through intuitive, user-friendly, browser-based interfaces. They also enable a broad range of workflows, including a video post-production archive. Video DAM will help you: • • • • • • • • Speed time-to-market Reduce costs Measure media ROI Create new revenue streams Eliminate repetitive tasks Automate processes Increase asset value Enable global brand consistency Evaluating DAM Systems Develop a taste for the different flavors of DAM - Companies must carefully evaluate solutions and ensure alignment with asset management strategies. Failure to do so can have serious consequences — extended timelines, failure to achieve optimal benefits and extended budgets. Apply rich-media-specific business rules - If a metadata schema is not defined and enforced, no solution will be successful. Make rich media metadata management a religion - Taxonomies and metadata are critical components for ensuring content is easy to locate. No matter how sophisticated the solution, if users can’t find its contents, the value is limited. Source: Forrester, 2011 Power Your Search and Archive Search results are founded on great metadata usage. This means that assets are always found on a centralized server (onsite or cloud-based), and are not housed in silos on individual desktops prone to be the wrong version and not backed-up for disaster recovery. Timely archival procedures can be automated so only work in progress and active campaigns are found in production. The Role of DAM in Video Management Advertising, commercial printing, publishing, and corporate marketing organizations must be able to access, repurpose, and deliver video content both quickly and securely across a variety of platforms. And the 24/7 nature of the Internet dictates that they be able to retrieve and use these video assets anytime, and from any location—with better control of workflow and overhead. DAM systems make video content easily available for utilization by authorized users, including internal corporate users and third parties, such as external partners and the media. Software as a service (SaaS) DAM systems enable the delivery of online video to large-scale audiences without making a negative impact on IT infrastructure. They can be configured to automatically convert video files into a wide variety of formats and channels as needed, while maintaining strict control of key brand elements such as logos, images, and typography. Video: The Word on the Street Business decision makers LOVE online video because it gives them the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time. – Robert Weiss, MultiVision Digital The sheer cost of video production has come down to a point where there are no barriers to entry – Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute Video marketing is the most effective way to get someone’s attention and engage them for a substantial period of time. – David Grimes, ThesisReady.com Source: brainshark Best Practices: Video DAM • Standardize on an accessible format to avoid codec or format problems • Use proxy clips to allow quick previewing of video • Understand cataloguing and processing; more processing power determines how fast you catalog and convert files • Understand storage needs so you can catalog the largest resolution and highest quality video available • Understand bandwidth needs by performing test uploads and downloads • Embed video metadata into your video files so that it is accessible in other applications Manage High Volumes of Video While Controlling Costs IO Integration (IOI) deploys advanced asset management solutions for video from North Plains and censhare. Xinet Video North Plains’ Xinet Video extends the WebNative Suite workflow by introducing a highly automated and easy-to-use video keyframe viewing system which allows users to store, browse, and search for videos and manage the assets stored in the database, an updated GUI that is smart-phone and tabletfriendly for better ease of use. Telescope North Plains Telescope is North Plains’ modular, awardwinning digital asset management platform. It enables the secure access, management, and distribution of all digital and rich media content in virtually any file format, across any size organization, in any industry. censhare Media and Communication Solution censhare media information and communication system enables organizations to rapidly collaborate, communicate, and publish any rich content to web, print, video, mobile, or social media from a central repository. Resources IOI – Xinet 17: Click for more information IOI – North Plains Telescope: Click for more information IOI – censhare: Click for more information IOI Demo - Xinet Video Module: Click to watch video TV Technology Webinar: Best Pratices in Generating Demand for and Profiting from Video Content About IO Integration IO Integration is a global leader in marketing automation and digital media management for the world’s top brands, agencies, and publishers. Recognized for our technology expertise and commitment to client satisfaction, we bring a proven methodology, a strategic focus, and an unrivaled team of experts to every client engagement. We help creative organizations rapidly increase productivity and collaboration while reducing costs. Find us on the web at www.iointegration.com