One of the great things of the new big data and fast computing era is the opportunity to create unique experiences with online video. In this case, I am showcasing the latest trend in CRM, which is the automated development of personalized or smart videos, that allow brands and companies to connect with their customers and tell them usual things like invoices or loyalty card info in engaging, intuitive and visual ways. Welcome to smartvideos, the new frontier of direct marketing.
Imagine the following situation...instead of getting your traditional mobile phone invoice by regular mail from your telco supplier you get an email with a personalized video that shows step by step how my mobile phone usage has generated the monthly cost, and what things I could have done to save.See the following example:
For some paper nostalgics, this might seem a waste, but for Gen C consumers, which are passionate about video, this is a way to have a new type of relationship with its utility suppliers, airlines, and any brand or company with a loyalty card. And for companies, this is an opportunity to put a human touch in an otherwise increasingly impersonal relationship that is mediated by mobile devices...Quoting the CEO of BBVA, "people are going to visit our phyical branches once a year, they will visit our regular website once a month, and they will check their mobile app every day"...So in this context, video can be a way to retain that personal feel.
Of course, you can also use this to deliver important information and prompt action to upsell or cross-sell products. See this example for an airline sending flight boarding details:
Or simply, power your loyalty card communications through the simple, but effective use of the information we have about clients. See the following example:
To date I have found two companies that are doing a good job in this front: idomoo and sundaysky.
So if you are considering how you can spice up your day-to-day communications with your customers, look for this innovative approach and as I always say "Test & Learn".
Today I want to reveal to you a little known secret about successful YouTube Content Creators.
Most of them have signed up to a new breed of networks: Multi Channel Networks. The XXIst century version of record labels, but adapted to video, so we could call them "video labels".
These new networks approach rising or established YouTube stars, wherever they might be in the world, with a simple proposition: you dedicate your time to creating cool stuff, and we take care of everything else. Now, this everything else can be different depending on the multi channel network (MCN) as I will cover later on.
According to the best analysis I have seen on MCNs developed by Enders Analysis, "MCNs provide production, traffic, monetisation and rights management services to content creators and brands"...and ..."are a key element in the professionalisation of YouTube".
I wanted to share a video from Techcrunch dedicated to Fullscreen, one of the top MCNs, where they describe what is their business, and how they go about servicing their partners. Interestingly, one way they do so is by providing a Creator Platform, a dashboard and user interface where partners can monitor their performance and gather crispy insights that enable them to create better contents and make more money.
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MCN's have proven successful at aggregating top content from YouTube,
and creating networks segmented by content, thus enhancing the
opportunities for audience to find hot videos in any topic. Also, has
made it easier for advertisers to connect to relevant passion
communities. In fact, some MCNs have even got their own sales force with which they can sell advertising inventory direct to clients, thus helping their partners get a higher fill rate of ads in front of their content.
MCNs make money by taking a share of the advertising revenues YouTube pays out to the content creators that are under their influence.
These networks, which are mostly US based, have attracted a lot of interest in the past 24 months, specially by venture capital firms and established multimedia groups that see in them the future of how these huge online video ecosystem might operate, and a potential source of great profit.
Going back to Enders Analysis report, they segment MCNs in basically two big groups with diverging models:
Aggregators
Studios
"This general distinction between Aggregator and Studio MCNs is based on the services they offer to the majority of their channels. Aggregator MCNs tend to have thousands of channels in their network, while Studio MCNs tend to have only up to a few hundred channels. With regard to their entire network, Aggregator MCNs are hence more focused on scale and less on individual channels and premium development than Studio MCNs. Aggregators are sometimes compared to ad networks while Studio MCNs resemble content development platforms."
Aggregators try to help out with copyright infringement, royalty clearance, advertising dollars etc. While Studios focus more on helping YouTube creators in improving their capacity to ship great content. And while some focus on YouTube native content, others are working hard to monetize better traditional content uploaded to the web.
Most recently, some MCNs are starting to help advertisers integrate their brands within their partners' content, and thus have brought to YouTube the typical product placement that has been working in TV and movies for ages. This said, they are doing so with an elegant twist as YouTube creators are not as easy to manage as the typical production houses of the TV world.
Take notice of some of these names because you are probably going to hear a lot more about them in the coming years: Machinima, Base79, Maker Studios, Stylehaul, AwesomenessTV, Big Frame, Channelflip and host of traditional players such as Endemol, or BoomerangTV, which are just learning the ropes of the new model.
Or how the age of big consumer data will transform Branding into Brandformance.
As technology costs (devices, connectivity and memory) drops, more consumer signals will be tracked, and stored. Not only signals collected online from watching ads or clicking on them, but anything from visiting a store, reading a magazine offline, trying a product, walking down the street, etc. Surely, many of you have seen a surge in the amount of data available in your company.
This is also occurring on typical branding sacred cows such as online video, where I can effortlessly collect remarketing lists from the videos viewed in my brand's channel or see all sorts of analytics data based on what people have decided to watch and why. The sort of info, we as marketers would have loved to have in the past, and never had.
Slowly, but surely Branding will be pushed from all sides (specially the CEO and the CFO) to be much more performance driven (aka the Brandformance buzz word), and to be able to leverage to the max the big amount of data collected.
This will imply important organizational changes, as well as new job descriptions and profiles. Uncovering powerful actionable insights will require people that are able to establish the right econometric models to identify the right causalities and help define the right marketing actions to drive business growth. Also, new companies specialized in data management - along with the usual consulting suspects - will pop out to help out big corporations. Marketing research will be ruthlessly transformed and overworked, gaining new status and respect. And as a result of all this data driven activity, we will have to change many accepted rules of thumb to how brands are created or business models work.
And our ecosystem of advertising, media, social agencies will need to be prepared to be greatly challenged by data, and be empowered by it to create better content, in video, photos or your name it.
This will probably also alter the way in which we develop our advertising campaigns. Instead of adapting TV to the rest (taking the 20 second commercial to YouTube), smart brands will first win in the digital space, try out what works best and put their bets with more confidence on the winning creatives.
If you are an old school marketer you better start working on it, because - guess what - it ain't going to be easy: New rules, new agencies, new profiles, new brands, new limits and new uncertainties...But also a much more respected status within the organization, broader capacity to stop arbitrary marketing budget cuts, defend your bold propositions with solid numbers, and find the levers that are really driving your business.
And if this not sufficient incentive, creative guys will still be much needed. They will have many more inputs to drive their creativity in the right direction and to focus on what really makes the difference.
Welcome to a new marketing world, welcome to BrandFormance.
