In case you missed it, we’re closing out a milestone week here. Not specifically for SundaySky, but for the overall personalized video engagement (PVE) category.
On Tuesday, Conversant launched its own personalized video solution to the market, made possible by its 2014 acquisition of SET Media. The next day, Vidyard announced its acquisition of Switch Merge, adding a personalized solution to its existing video content marketing platform. (This is not the first market purchase we’ve seen; over the summer, Pitney Bowes acquired Real-Time Content.) And while the PVE market got a little deeper in North America, it also got a bit wider across the globe as one of our insurance customers overseas in Japan introduced personalized video experiences to its customer base to support and improve the automobile policy renewal process. (OK, so there was a small SundaySky promotional nod.)
It is interesting to see this PVE market news coming from both sides. On one hand, we have a personalization technology company adding video to its digital marketing suite, and on the other, a video platform adding personalization to its offering. Additionally, one solution lives in the adtech space, focused on targeting anonymous consumers, further building out a consumer’s profile via additional Epsilon data sets and serving personalized videos via paid media across devices. The other, more a CRM and automation play, merging data from third-party integrations such as Salesforce.
But what does this news all mean? No doubt, one constant between the two announcements is to more effectively engage audiences on an individual, 1-to-1 level. We continue to see the varied definitions of what personalization means to marketers and technology providers, and its execution in video. For some, an overlay text of the consumer’s first name in the first frame is enough personalization. For others, a message personalized to a segment of customers, such as their geo-location, is relevance. For us, telling stories and delivering messages that are completely unique to one individual is where we set our bar of personalization.
As our space matures even further, it will be very telling to see just how deep personalization in video can go, and what are the optimal levels of personalization consumers want and brands can deliver on. Welcome to the emerging category of PVE, more solid than ever!