Five Minutes With… Steve Rotter, VP Digital Marketing, Brightcove

What are some of the benefits of online video over other mediums?

There are three main benefits that marketers care most about, and these are awareness, engagement and conversion. Firstly, video is a very powerful way to increase awareness and has been proved to improve overall SEO. Additionally, it drives a 157 per cent increase in findability and discoverability which helps to stand out in a crowded market.

Secondly, we are now bombarded with content all the time, and video has the ability to cut through the clutter and grab people’s attention. It is increasingly difficult to get people to stick around on site as we have become more attention deficit, with the increase popularity of mobile devices and content availability. We have had multiple customers that have doubled time on site by using video.

Finally, there is conversation. Brightcove recently launched a global case study with Aberdeen Research that found that video drives a 100 per cent increase in conversion rates compared to sites that are not using video. Marketers are trying to drive the next steps in a buyer journey or customer lifecycle. In some cases this is to purchase something, such as ‘buy now’ or ‘add to card,’ however for B2B clients this may just be getting consumers to take the next step of the journey to better brand awareness and understanding – a process that can be over days, weeks or months. Across the board, these three benefits are really the cornerstones of why people are turning to video for their marketing.

How can video drive consumer engagement?

There are a number of ways that video can drive consumer engagement, but ultimately it is an active media that has the ability to capture attention and emotions. This is possible with images and text, but it is difficult to communicate with the ease or effectiveness the way it is with video. The popularity of video has been proved with the popularity of TV. For over 80 years television has been the medium of choice, with hours and hours being consumed daily by people all over the world. It is not surprising that transferring this concept to online desktops and mobile devices has been so effective.

Can video be monetised more easily than other forms of online content?

Absolutely. Video has a couple of attributes that make it more attractive to monetise than other forms of content. Video can get people to stick around and stay longer, and the more content that is consumed, the more opportunities there are to monetise the content. The emotional connection makes it more likely that people will continue watching the video because they want to see what’s next. If you place a couple of seconds of a mystery murder clip, it gets people to engage and all of a sudden they want to stick around to see what will happen. Furthermore, they will most probably sit through an advertisement in order to enjoy the video.

What business models can companies adopt to generate money through video?

There are two main ways that organisations generate money through video, but there are really unlimited variations in each of these. Firstly, there are media companies that are using video to sell content, and that is by either promoting or selling ads on top of content, selling subscription services to that content or monetising that content allowing people to purchase it.

However, there’s a broader spectrum of activity that includes innovative work by marketers essentially monetising content by using it to guide people through a buyer journey. As previously mentioned, for B2C companies that may just be simply guiding them through process in the hopes that purchase is made. Clients are using Brightcove technology to create shoppable videos, in which views can add things to their shopping carts while they are being demonstrated and communicated in the video. We also have a client that is a global bank, using video as a way to have a surrogate sales person guiding people through the consumer lifecycle. Due to the convenience of the internet, customers of the bank will go online rather than go into the bank. This doesn’t mean that experience has to be text-based. The bank has developed sales person videos that will play and guide the person through their options and choices. This creates an interactive experience and allows an extension of the bank to come alive via a computer or smart device.

How are businesses and news organisations adapting to the rise of online video?

Organisations are really changing the way that they structure their teams in an aim to accommodate a more video-centric experience. I recently hosted a panel discussion on our global customer tour and two of the panel participants were working in large banks and technology companies, but were previously employed with the BBC and the media industry. We are now seeing video and media industry expertise transitioning into corporations and supporting them with video strategy.

On top of this, the technology itself is changing. Some organisations are not only scaling up their video expertise but starting to embrace professional grade video platforms such as Brightcove. This shift represents the growth in video and the increasing reliance on it as a marketing tool. Between insuring content is reaching all devices, managing security, large video libraries and dispatching content to users, it has become increasingly difficult for organisations to manage their video content by themselves

Ultimately, organisations are expanding their vision for video and integrating this with a number of existing marketing tools. We recently announced our partnership with Oracle Eloqua, which links Brightcove’s video capabilities with Eloqua, one of the industry’s leading marketing automation platforms. We believe that these things don’t work solely by themselves, rather as a group of marketing tools. When used together, they help to drive content delivery and discovery, while supporting an orchestrated buying journey.

How is mobile impacting the market?

Mobile video has changed the user experience It has created new ways to reach your audience and produced experiences that didn’t exist before.

Mobile allows immediate access to content that people have never seen and they are consuming it all the time. To put mobile content consumption into perspective, global video growth YOY on desktops increased by 30 to 40 per cent, compared with mobile growth which increased by 350 per cent.

But it must be remembered that mobile video comes with its own set of challenges. You are dealing with differing internet connections, infinite screen sizes and a range of operating systems. Many people overlook multiple platforms and this does cause an issue for marketers when sharing content.

Does Brightcove have any expansion plans in the Middle East?

Brightcove believes the Middle East’s technological infrastructure – in conjunction with local consumers’ internet usage and consumption preferences – represents growth and opportunity for a company that offers cloud services for video, and thus launched its Middle Eastern presence in February 2014 by opening an office in Dubai Internet City. As a company, we are continuing to invest in the region, with our aim to enable both media companies and marketers based in the Middle East to deliver broadcast-quality video to viewers on every type of screen.

Will you be hiring this year?

Absolutely, we are hiring across all sub divisions including engineering, account management and sales and marketing.

What is your leadership style?

My leadership style fits with Brightcove’s company goal which is to build a large company that focuses on solving challenges around video, while maintaining an open and engaging culture. We have developed a leadership style that allows people to grow, challenges them and gives everyone the tools and resources to thrive. This structure resonates throughout the company, allowing us to be innovative with video marketing landscapes.

What makes the perfect employee?

1. High integrity
2. Smart
3. Nice

Define success in five words…

I’m going to borrow an extra word – Doing what you love with excellence

Three tips for becoming the boss…

1. Meet customer and market expectations
2. Treat everyone with fairness and integrity because you might end up working for them one day or vice versa
3. Never stop learning and never think you have it all figured out

In my spare time I like to…

I have four kids so my spare time is spent doing fun things with my family which includes skiing, fishing or other outdoor activities. This is my favourite way to spend my spare time.