Streams of consciousness

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Corporate marketing has finally reached the video age. Everyone, it seems, is either streaming video content or believing that some time soon they really should be. In 2013, a Nielsen study revealed that almost two thirds of brand marketers (64%) expect video to become the central plank of their marketing strategies in the years to come. Cisco predicts that, by 2017, video will account for more than 69% of all consumer internet traffic. And with YouTube already attracting more than a billion users every month, it’s hard to disagree.

It’s therefore no surprise that video has gone beyond a ‘stream’ of consciousness, it’s now emphatically embedded at the centre of corporate marketing. But the ways in which many organisations are set up to optimise it are inefficient and unwieldy. What’s more, they fail to unlock the true value of video and limit the significant ROI that investment in high quality rich media can deliver.

Managing video assets is complex and challenging. File sizes are huge and even the smallest clips present challenges for storage, bandwidth and shareability. To counter this, companies have invested in asset management systems to house large-scale video files. Too often, however, these systems are deployed in fixed locations.

Moreover, many companies make the understandable mistake of assuming the asset management system naturally belongs where the ‘video people’ – the technical teams that make the footage – live. But the vast majority of people that will use that video are not the technicians – they’re the internal and indeed external marketing teams whose job it is to ensure high-value content attracts customers’ eyeballs at the right time and in the right place.

Unfortunately, video content can often be locked in the silo of the local asset management system and inaccessible to the teams that need it most. With traditional delivery mechanisms like email incompatible with large file sizes, and VPN transfers a known data security risk, sharing video quickly and responsively is virtually impossible. As a result, the value of that content depreciates and ROI suffers.

Video is no longer a peripheral luxury, it sits at the heart of marketing. As such, to maximise investment in video production, any system designed to manage high-value assets should similarly sit at the centre of operations. In the fast-paced business environment, collaboration is king. Companies need a secure and reliable way to collaborate internally and externally around video content so that it can be managed and shared across multiple locations. And it’s not just video; modern marketing also depends on high resolution photography, audio and multi-media documentation, all of which organisations need to leverage effectively to deliver marketing ROI

By adopting a single, centralised system that is accessible across departmental and external business boundaries, organisations can truly optimise their media content and allow it to be shared, repurposed and ultimately seen by relevant audiences, agilely and effectively. With a robust and secure media collaboration platform that protects brand IP, companies can finally optimise the opportunity of video. And bring compelling streams of consciousness to all their audiences.

About Author

David Peto

David Peto, chief executive and founder, Aframe

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