Basics guide to personalized video

The Basics Guide to Personalized Video

for Marketers, Productmanagers, Procurement staff, Videomanagers, Projectmanagers, Senior management and others who are involved in ordering and managing Personalized Video.

© 2016 - All rights reserved by Eclipse Videomanagent - Thijs Viguurs http://eclipse.video

CONTENTS

▸  What is Personalized Video?

▸  What kind of information can be communicated with Personalized Video?

▸  What is the difference between Rendered and Layered Personalized video?

▸  What are the four most common pitfalls; and how do you avoid them?

▸  About the author.

in this guide:

Image: courtesy of Animen.nl

All rights reserved - © 2016 Thijs Viguurs

WHAT IS PERSONALIZED VIDEO?


Personalized video is video in which personalized data is presented. ▸ This data can be text-data, but also images, audio or other video is possible. ▸ Based on personal (segmentation)data it’s also possible to ‘play’ with scenarios.


WHAT INFORMATION CAN BE SHARED?AND HOW?


DIRECT DATA

▸  Name, Address, City▸  Hi Thijs…

▸  Gender▸  Dear Mr. Viguurs…

▸  Segmentation data▸  Your bill is made up by the direct electricity costs of

£ 87 and 17% local taxes on behalf of the municipality of Antwerp…

▸  Ordered Products/Services▸  Your new iPhone 8 will be delivered next Saturday…

▸  Consumption data▸  You’ve used 2,745 gallons of water in 2015...

▸  Monthly Fees▸  Starting next october, your new car-insurance-bill

will be lowered to € 74 a month...

Examples


SCENARIOs BASED ON PROFILES AND DATA

▸  Rural vs. urban scenes▸  The wide open fields of Michigan vs.

Skyscrapers of Chicago

▸  CRM-data▸  Translate the specific product-matrix of a

customer into a separate Journey: You also have an extended warranty on your Sony Television…

▸  Your electricity-bill is amongst the highest in your neighborhood…

▸  Online Profile data▸  What about these suggestions for a new

Holiday-trip? ▸  This is your personal shopping news for the

Holiday-season.

Examples

SEGMENT A SEGMENT B SEGMENT C

VIEWER A VIEWER B VIEWER C

CONCLUSION/END

INTRODUCTION/START


LAYERED?RENDERED?


LAYERED PERSONALIZED VIDEO

▸  Video in cloud; customer data ‘easily’ local.▸  This can be important for companies that want to serve personalized

video, but don’t allow their clients data to be migrated to other servers.

▸  Nice-looking on a functional level.▸  Images, sounds and different fonts can be handled, and tweaking of

those visual elements is possible. But it will stay a flat layer on top of the video.

▸  ‘Cheaper’ ▸  Because videos don’t have to be rendered – the layer is real-time

‘projected’- it is cheaper to generate (generally spoken of course) and there is no serious impact on hosting & needed processor power.

▸  Real-time data (<1 second)▸  The layer can be literally real-time generated without any needed

processing time.

▸  A special HTML5-videoplayer is crucial▸  It enables the layering of personalized data.

▸  Advantage: in-video-CTA’s are often also possible: ‘Click now’▸  Disadvantage: (social) sharing is not without hassle for end-users

Characteristics

Image: courtesy of PingMedia.nl

What’s it: Customer data is projected over the video on the clients side(in his browser) as a layer. Viewers see the same video (or several versions) and only the personal layer is unique.

Screenshot of images (Map) and text (address) in Layered Personalized Video


RENDERED PERSONALIZED VIDEO What’s it: The customer data is programmed to be in the video itself. So it’s possible to show very advanced and realistic looking effects. Every individual video is especially rendered, so every viewer gets to see an unique video file.

▸  Video & customer data in cloud.▸  The customer data and the video are merged in one video. Some

suppliers offer the possibility to store the videos on local servers of their clients (the companies) for security-reasons.

▸  Übercool▸  Rendered video can be near-Hollywood quality in terms of visual

effects.

▸  ‘More expensive’ ▸  There is a serious impact in terms of needed processor-power and

storage-space, especially if the number of videos is large.

▸  Near real-time ▸  Many suppliers are able to render extreme fast, so within seconds a

video can be generated to be viewed by a customer. Nonetheless: rendering always takes time.

▸  No player requirements▸  A video can be stored and/or saved by the viewer for later.▸  Uploading to Facebook or other Social Networks can be done without

any hassle.▸  Guaranteed Quality of Service on Mobile devices.

Characteristics

Screenshot Rendered Personalized Video: photos on the mirror and in the woman’s hand.

Image: courtesy of Storymail.nl


PITFALLS TOP 4


▸  Increase in costs due to the complexity and mistakes that are being made in the process and by people.

Overspending of budgets

▸  Campaigns that need to be postponed; Ad-hoc printed letters that are being send to customers. Just two examples that illustrate the possible impact if ideas take more time than there is available to execute them.

Exceeding deadlines

PITFALLS LEAD TO PAIN ON TWO LEVELS All rights reserved - © 2016 Thijs Viguurs

4: DATA UNDERESTIMATION

▸  Imagine a kick-off with some stakeholders.▸  Everyone is full of enthusiasm ▸  The outline of the personalized video is

quickly drawn in a Powerpoint.

▸  The needed data is being identified.▸  The videoproducer starts making video.

▸  3 weeks before the launch… a discovery:▸  Many records are not complete. ▸  This means that half of the videos offer

half of the precisely composed stories.▸  This hurts.

▸  A significant percentage of all marketers suffer from the data-underestimation-disease. Yes, also in your organization!

Situation Advice▸  Get data-analysts/scientists aboard.

▸  From day two, not from day three.

▸  Analyze real data before you start composing scenario’s and scenes.

▸  You will minimize the chance of useless scenarios

▸  You might find new storylines as well

▸  Spend a significant time on composing incomplete storylines.

▸  Holes in your data can be bypassed if your use your creativity


3: UNDERESTIMATION OF SECURITY

▸  Is your customerdata allowed to leave your servers?

▸  And what if it’s isolated in a full encrypted ‘bubble’?

▸  If so: under what conditions?

▸  Is it allowed to (temporarily) store your customerdata on servers that are owned/managed under a different jurisdiction than your own?

▸  As in: you are in the European Union, the cloud-platform where all the videos are stored is owned by an American company.

▸  This might be an interesting article to discuss in your organization; although the chances that a personalized video is of interest of the NSA are small.

Situation Advice▸  Get security-officers and/or privacy-

officers aboard.▸  From day three, not from day four.

▸  Realize: In most jurisdictions it doesn’t matter whether the data of the customer is high-profile (this is your mortgage a month) or low-profile (dear Thijs). It’s all personal customer data, and therefore sensitive information.

▸  If your in an RFP-stage with several suppliers:

▸  Involve your security-people in the vendor-selection.

▸  Be prepared for long-lasting audits that might put your deadlines under pressure.


2: PROGRESSIVE INSIGHTS

▸  Imagine this: the number one irritation of many video-producers:

▸  The video is finished and approved, and then suddenly someone at their clients organization (often with a title like director of something) has an opinion.

▸  The video needs to be re-edited.▸  because it’s a personalized video this is

generally more complex than ‘repairing’ an ordinary video.

▸  This costs money: from your budget if there are clear agreements on this, or the video producer eats into his profits if he’s too nice for you.

▸  This costs time.▸  This costs internal reputation at least for

someone: the person who couldn’t handle the intervention of the director involved.

Situation Advice▸  Video is sexy, processes a bit less, but to make

a real compelling personalized video a good process is a make-or-break.

▸  Focus on this process▸  Put a lot of energy in reviewing scripts,

storyboards and flowcharts.▸  Double this energy one more time.

▸  There is a difference between a dominant spoken but noncommittal opinion and a weighty order.

▸  Make sure you notice the difference while getting feedback amongst stakeholders.

▸  Not everyone is entitled to have an opinion.▸  If one stakeholder tells you: turn right,

while the other says: turn left, then discuss this internally and never make the mistake to just pass both remarks directly to your producer.

▸  Agree with stakeholders a list of who’s opinions matter and who’s don’t.


1: Hyper-PERSONALIZATION

▸  Let’s make this clear with some calculations. Think of a bank that changing it’s portfolio and wants to send personalized video to it’s customers.

▸  Let’s assume this (image A): ▸  the current portfolio has 3

propositions; the new one: 4 propositions.

▸  They want to use two different tone-of-voices, like Dear Mr. Viguurs vs Hi Thijs.

▸  They have segmented their customers also in two groups based on the activation of their customer dashboard.

▸  This leads to 48 different storylines (B): ▸  Maybe a few less, because it’s unlikely

that the current proposition C will be matched to the new proposition A, but: nonetheless.

Situation Advice▸  Look at Image C, as a virtual example.

▸  For every video there is an optimum in terms of scenarios. Don’t ever forget this!

▸  In this example: ▸  It makes sense to tell a story with 8 scenarios

instead of 4 scenarios: the ROI is higher, while the costs are just slighly more.

▸  But: why tell a story with 32 different scenarios if the ROI is just about the same as with 16 scenarios?

▸  And: if you would use more than 128 scenarios you even lose money.

▸  Therefore: be very careful with the amount of scenarios that you want to show. Hyperpersonalization sounds interesting, but it doesn’t guarantee hyper-revenues.

▸  Start carefully and optimize then for your second run/campaign/year.

Image A

Image B

Image C


FINAL REMARKS

▸  If you want to see real video examples from many different suppliers.

▸  If you want to get conversion insights from several markets: ▸  Energy, Telco, Retail, Banking

▸  If you want to discuss personalized video or need other help.

▸  [email protected] / +31-626-214 574

Contact us…▸  Produced video in Amsterdam & New York.

▸  as Editor in Chief & Executive Producer▸  worked in News & Entertainment, Live and tape-on-desk.▸  great knowledge on both Preproduction & Postproduction

▸  Experience in Journalism & Branded Content▸  Worked several years in corporate organizations.

▸  Professionalized video for companies like KPN, Maersk, Vodafone, Intergamma, Graydon.▸  Internal & external communications

▸  Product & Service videos▸  Smart video: Interactive/Personalized

▸  Initiated the first serious online video-platform in the Netherlands based on interactive video for pre-sales and customer service.

▸  Works nowadays as principal consultant, project manager, strategist and coach for mid-size and large companies that want to get better results, lower costs and less headache with the instrumental use of video.

About Thijs ViguursAll rights reserved - © 2016 Thijs Viguurs

Thijs Viguurs 0626 -214 [email protected]

Marketing

Basics guide to personalized video