Using martech to secure your content creation strategy
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Content creators are under more pressure than ever to create more with less, says Patricio Cummins. A connected supply chain is key to competitive advantage in the content creation game.
If there’s one sector that’s undeniably in uber-growth mode, it’s the content creation industry.
In response to consumer demand for a greater choice of content delivered across a broader array of media, networks and production companies in Australia and elsewhere in the world are churning it out in volume.
Ooyala saw its top customers increase their long-form content output by 189% in the first of quarter of 2018 – compared with the same period in 2017.
Medium form content supplies were up 171% during the same period and short form supplies increased 179%.
But while production volumes have amped up enormously, production budgets have failed to keep pace. The cost of developing high quality content is rising and creators are being asked to make much more with less and find new ways to wring revenue from existing content.
This is becoming more of an imperative as audiences continue to segment and fragment into more specialised groupings. Mobile and online subscribers are overtaking traditional television audiences and content creators must target their output at multiple media, geographies and demographics.
Increased competition for content and eyeballs has prompted traditional media companies to launch direct-to-consumer services and keenly priced ‘content packages’ to complement their traditional offerings.
Joining the dots
In this rapidly evolving new landscape, a connected supply chain can help content creators ramp up their output without compromising on quality or experiencing unsustainable cost blow-outs.
With numerous disparate and traditional systems in use, what’s needed is a platform which can pull them together to form a unified solution which links every stage of the production process – from commissioning and production through to syndications and digital play out.
Historically, supply chains in the content creation market have been anything but connected. Implementation of different systems at different stages of the process has seen interoperability reduced to a minimum. Information is highly siloed and data, productivity and revenue could be lost at every stage along the way.
Building a brand new and interoperable supply chain from scratch is a mammoth undertaking and one that’s unlikely to be a priority for content creators on tight margins and time schedules.
Instead, having a content supply chain platform connect the different systems, orchestrate workflows and automate processes throughout the content life cycle, is a far more productive and economical exercise, achieving the desired outcome – to deliver content faster, at a lower cost.
Once the connection is in place, manual errors will be reduced and metadata can be entered once and shared for the entire asset journey, allowing for better content targeting and ad serving.
Extracting insights
Every stage of production on the content supply chain generates a wealth of data which can then provide deep insights into the content return on investment.
Having a single source of truth provides a complete understanding of an asset’s journey through the entire production and distribution process. Together with the multi-dimensional analysis of viewing and engagement patterns, this data helps executives make more informed decisions regarding the creation and funding of new content, in a timely fashion.
Enabling what was previously a siloed, linear supply chain to function as a closed feedback loop is the key to gleaning data and insights.
It’s a promising answer to the perennial poser about how media companies can continue to do more with less. By connecting their systems and automating workflows and processes, they can not only create and exploit content more efficiently, but do so without employing additional staff or adding onerous new processes to the production cycle.
Patricio Cummins is JPAC vice president of sales at Ooyala
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Image credit:Kelly Sikkema
