Personalized Video: The Next Media in New Media

Written by Larry Zusman
GM, XMPie Video Personalization Business Team
XMPie, A Xerox Company
With the holiday season freshly behind us, you may have seen “them”. In fact, we featured one of “them” just last week in a very special holiday blog post. What is this mysterious subject we speak of?
Whether it’s a movie showing a Santa Claus “Naughty and Nice” list with your name on it (you know which one you were on), targeted auto marketing videos displaying your exact car preference (Bond aficionados can enjoy Aston Martin DB5 footage), or maybe even something as inventive as a MTV-like college recruitment movie with images and audio targeted right to your 17 year-old (think Thriller for Pre-Meds), the world of video marketing is becoming a lot more — personal. The reason is because in the past year the marketing nirvana of easily and affordably changing text, images, graphics and even movie clips for each customer inside of cinematic quality videos destined for any device has finally arrived.

Lots of marketers are interested in developing personalized videos. They increase attention, response and most importantly sales. How do we know? Because we have data showing that static videos are markedly more effective over other media (Web Video Marketing Council and Flimp Media study, 2012) and we also have numerous studies demonstrating that variable media generates higher response versus static (www.podi.org). So video will surely follow suit. In fact, many marketing service providers, video production houses and creative agencies are exploring adding this specialized service offering to their portfolio. The reasons for this in addition to their effectiveness is the ability to extend 1:1 cross-media campaigns to 1:1 videos using the same database and content; use of affordable templates; and opportunities for new revenue and profit.
Videos directed to each person —individually— are created in different ways. However, in today’s rich media landscape the challenge is to generate high quality (HD), cinematic movies with a wide variety of variable content that can be displayed on everything from desktops to tablets and smartphones. A solution from XMPie meeting these requirements uses the Adobe® After Effects™ platform, which is commonly used for cinematic visual effects and motion graphics, and a plug-in from XMPie that links a database of text, images, graphics, and movie clips to the After Effects movie template. The end result is highly targeted MP4 movies containing specific content directed to segments or individuals.
For those of you who still have little idea of what I am blogging about, check out this link and you will experience this new media for yourself. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a fad. Video is here to stay as a powerful marketing tool perfect for the new tablets and smartphones. And personalized videos will exponentially increase in usage with improved demographic, geographic and psychographic targeting. By jumping into it now, either through a software investment or partnering with a professional service provider, you will have a leg up on your competitors and take full advantage of a new market with unlimited revenue potential.
For more information on how you can use XMPie video personalization for exciting, new business opportunities, contact your XMPie sales representative or Larry Zusman, GM, XMPie Video Personalization Business Team, larry.zusman@us.xmpie.com.
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