No matter your business focus—public service, B2B integration, recruitment—multimedia, in particular video, is remarkably effective in communicating with the audience. Before, making video accessible to diverse viewers involved tasks galore, such as eliciting the service of production studios to manually dub, transcribe, and add subtitles. Those operations were costly and slow, especially for globally destined content.
This time of year always brings with it a heavy dose of reflection.
We set big goals for ourselves in 2021 as we continued to navigate our post-pandemic reality—one that hangs on with each new variant. As Cloudinarians, we remained mindful of the effects the pandemic continued to have on us and our customers.
While facing the pandemic-induced setbacks to its live-events business in the past two years, our customer and event innovator Bizzabo decided to reshape its offering into a digital-first Event Experience OS that fosters human connections and generates excitement. Toward that end, Bizzabo turned to Cloudinary for support of high-performance, visual events for large audiences to replace or augment live shows.
“Holistic accessibility … provide[s] people with disabilities the best chance to achieve equality.” — Sheri Byrne-Haber
As digital technology advances, video is gaining popularity across industries, replete with entertaining, engaging, and coherent content. All too often, however, not everyone can access it for various reasons.
We recently released our 2021 State of Visual Media report, which offers a view into how visual media content is produced, managed, viewed, and consumed. For this third annual report, we analyzed a massive amount of visual-related data, looking at billions of image and video assets across 670 enterprise customers and 10 vertical industries, to reveal key trends in visual engagement, particularly those accelerated by the pandemic. We also take a look at what’s needed to raise the bar on these visual-first experiences as we continue on in a world in which fast, flawless visual content will remain critically important to the user experience.
A brick-and-mortar store’s ability to connect with shoppers is a main draw of shopping in person. On the other hand, e-commerce requires an understanding that online shopping differs from physical retailing, calling for proactive steps that mimic in-person experience as much as possible through sight and sound. Since the in-store experience extends beyond merchandise to ambiance, decor, and lighting, let alone the presence of sales associates, it makes sense that retailers are leveraging imagery, video, and other graphical elements to make shopping online similar to buying in store.
Since the restaurant industry hinges on human connection, the quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and fast casual eateries that came out ahead during the COVID-19 pandemic-induced lockdowns were the ones that built integrated and immersive interactions with video and other technologies for delivery in store, at the drive-through, and online. At the virtual event on Marketing Innovation hosted by Brand Innovators on September 28, Scott Schnaars, vice president of sales, Americas, at Cloudinary moderated a “fireside chat” with Casey Terrell, senior director of marketing at Focus Brands and acting CMO at Schlotzsky's, a franchise chain with over 330 locations.
To capture audience attention, content creators produce videos with compelling imagery to tell engaging stories. However, many miss one of the most important aspects of video: audio. Not only does riveting audio immerse viewers in the experience, it also enhances visuals with sound effects, commentary, mood music, and such. Inferior audio quickly ruins the ambiance.
With the digital world brimming with content, opportunities abound for brands and retailers to capitalize on it. Complexities have emerged, however. The ultimate question to answer is how to monetize and personalize digital content while also staying ahead of the competition.
Most business buyers prefer to research purchase options online, as do many shoppers. No wonder online retail sales in the U.S. rose by 32.4% in 2020—an impressive gain of $105 billion.
For B2B and B2C businesses, text-heavy websites are no longer adequate in attracting shoppers. Instead, engaging visual media—spin images, videos, 3D models, augmented reality—are becoming a must for conveying eye-catching details and differentiators about products or services.