Online video becomes available everywhere and is embraced by internet users: how can b2b and b2c marketing take advantage of how online video platforms enhance marketing performance

Experten Interview Title / Topic of the Online video becomes available E-Interview: everywhere and is embraced by internet users: b2b and b2c marketing can take advantage of that and Brightcove´s leading online video platform enhances marketing performance? Name: Jeff Whatcott Position & Department: Senior Vice President of Marketing Company : Brightcove Inc. Despite of the challenging economical situation which puts pressure on companies of all industries to save costs in marketing as well as in other departments, the online media are still expanding with a growth rate of 9,4% for online advertisements in 2008. The internet is the most rapidly growing medium in Germany. Online video combines the strength of the established advertisment media TV and video with the internet. That brings about a lot of potential for the advertising industr. In this context Brightcove - with innovative ideas - does convert online video into significant business success for its customers. As a result Brightcove is expanding internationally with great speed and success. In which way will online video transform content reception and advertisment in the internet? What are the drivers of this new market and are the rules the same for b2c and b2b marketing? What makes Brightcove different to other online video platforms? What is the main strategic vision of Brightcove and with special focus concerning the European market? Which strategies does Brightcove deploy to serve Business-2- Business and Business-2-Consumer video streaming requirements? We are happy to present you a discussion of these and furthermore questions with Mr. Jeff Whatcott, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Brightcove and proven thought leader in web platform technology strategy and community centered marketing. Please enjoy the Interview ! Your NetSkill Team www.competence-site.de Seite 1 Experten Interview Dear Mr. Whatcott, Question 1: We´d like to focus on the b2b aspects of the Brightcove business model. What is the main strategic vision of Brightcove and with special focus concerning the European market? Answer: Brightcove´s main vision is to publish the world´s professional digital media and to help organizations that have professional quality media to get it online as fast and comfortable as possible. We also help organisation to make money with quality media directly as well as to fold it into other marketing activities to drive business advantage. We´d like to expand that vision from video to audio and other types of media, but for now our focus is on video. The goal is to establish Brightcove as THE online demand media platform for all video media. Question 2: So Brightcove´s business model is an on-demand model. How does it work for the customer in real life? Answer: Yes, it is basically an on-demand model where the customer pays for the volume he´s using. At first there is a subscription customers have to buy into from Brightcove. This subscription gives them a certain capacity of usage in terms of both the number of streams as well as the bandwith that is consumed. We also have different features of our platform and different editions of the product which then define the price customers have to pay. Its is a win-win constellation: if the customer succeeds then Brightcove succeeds. Question 3: Do you differentiate between Business-2-Business and Business-2-Consumer video streaming? Or is it just bits & bytes to you? Answer: Well, we do offer several sets of features that are of interest for different type of customers. The way we look at the market is: on one side the ad-supported media which comprises publishers, broadcasters, newspapers, magazines – so businesses that are about monetizing content. On the other side we serve the markets which are using video in the context of a marketing strategy. Some of these types of marketing applications employ a B2B business model, others focus on B2X. The B2C model is basically the e-commerce scenario which you can see with one of our customer’s lifestyle company Gaiam Life (http://life.gaiam.com/) They are using video to show lifestyle products to potential customer audiences, describe the product to then sell it more easily online. www.competence-site.de Seite 2 Experten Interview The B2B model is exploited by our customer SUN Microsystems. They are using the Brightcove product to communicate with their customers about their products and educate their channel partners and their own sales teams. Actually it´s about educating people about a complex B2B product and service. A different model in B2C marketing we see at partners like General Motors who are using video for brand marketing. They use Brightcove to brand campaigns to promote the product. They will have video-laden microsites which describe and show the product and then run campaigns which direct audiences towards these microsites. There are a lot of other business examples we could talk about – but these examples basically show the way we look at the market. Question 4: According to recent market studies European viewers do access generally much longer streams of video, hence different types of content then audiences in the US do? What does this mean for Brightcove´s market approach in Europe vs. in the US or other parts of the world? Answer: First we have to look at the different drivers for video consumption in these markets. One is the availability to broadband internet; driver two is the content that is mainly available or presented to the internet users. And there are other cultural differences that come into focus here, so what is the attention span or acceptance of the viewers concerning the length of the videos accessed. Question 5: Where do you expect the most growth in your central European activities? Is it with the media houses – like the Zeit Online deal you just fixed – or with more conservative publishers / broadcasters using their content enrichment strategies? Answer: I think what we initially see in Germany is that the early adopters of online video business are the publishing houses who have vast libraries of content, or are building them, and want to deliver online to monetize the content or to build up their brands online. That will continue to be a main driver for the online video market and so we will try to succeed here. However, we also see a significant opportunity in Europe and in Germany in particular for industrial companies outside the publishing industry to use video as part of their marketing strategy. And B2B is a very compelling part of the video story. There are a lot of companies that are selling complex services and products. B2B products by their very nature are more difficult to explain and have a longer sales cycle, and so education plays a very important role in the marketing strategy. Also for enhancing personal contact with potential or actual customers video plays a very important role. Video is a superior media for communicating ideas and information. www.competence-site.de Seite 3 Experten Interview What we see worldwide – and Germany is no exception here – is that marketers more and more see that investing in a illustration of how a products actually works or how a service is being. delivered makes up for a far better return than writing a long and boring whitepaper which seldom gets read completely by target groups. Question 6: So video is also challenging or enriching the various forms of internal company television and the e-learning models already in place as a new on demand B2B communication channel? Answer: I think that´s right. If you look at what SUN Microsystems does with its “Channel Sun” site it´s very interesting. A lot of the video content there I would certainly classify as educational; it´s hands on demonstrations of complex hardware devices. And you have the product manager or engineer who created the product giving a tour on how it works in reality. This really brings a product into life in a way you couldn´t do with another media. It ist partially marketing and partially education. But in the end it´s closing the gap between the customers´ needs and the solution the B2B product has to offer. The video closes this gap. Question 7: Aren´t business fairs and trade shows natural partners for Brightcove? The fairs themselves offer virtual experience with enriched content and multimedia formats throughout the year. Did you think about that? Answer: That´s a good idea, in fact we are in contact with companies that offer to tape product presentations on trade shows and sell these videos to the companies which then can publish the videos online. Question 8 What services in the field of SEO and market intelligence does Brightcove offer today – and is planning to offer in the nearby future – as the host of so many videos? Answer: The Brightcove platform incorporates a number of API Development tools that allow programmers to build integrations with their web content management system and Brightcove online video platform. Those capabilities make it possible to do a really good job in terms of search engine optimization of your website.