PLAY 2019 is less than two weeks away! While you’re in Boston for this can’t-miss event, we hope you have a chance to take advantage of all this city has to offer. From historic sites to delicious eats, there’s so much to do and explore in Boston during this time of year. Here are some ideas on fun things to do while you’re in town for PLAY.

Guide to Boston

PLAY 2019 will take place at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, located in Back Bay—and there are a variety of nearby, easy-to-get-to attractions.

If you’re in the mood for some shopping, head over to the Prudential Center or take a stroll down Newbury Street . And while you’re at the Prudential Center, be sure to check out the Skywalk Observatory for an amazing 360-degree view of Boston.

For some delicious Italian food, consider making your way to the North End , and don’t miss out on your opportunity to get a delicious cannoli at Mike’s Pastry . While you’re in the area, check out Christopher Columbus Park for beautiful waterfront views.

If you’re interested in taking in some of Boston’s historic sights, check out the Freedom Trail and Faneuil Hall . Or consider taking a Boston Duck Tour to see even more of what the city has to offer.

For some fresh air, take a stroll down the Boston Harborwalk —and explore the Innovation District while you’re in the seaport. If you’re looking for the perfect spot to have a picnic and take in some sun, head over to the Public Garden or the Boston Common .

Interested in checking out some museums while you’re in town? Consider spending a few hours at the Museum of Fine Arts , the Institute of Contemporary Art , or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum .

What to expect at PLAY 2019

But let’s not forget about the reason you’ll be in town in the first place: PLAY 2019, a can’t-miss event for industry leaders and innovators. So, what can you expect at this year’s conference?

The theme of PLAY 2019 is break through . In a world where technology is constantly shifting, audiences are demanding, and competition is fierce, it can be hard to find inspiration. At PLAY 2019 , you’ll have the opportunity to hear from exciting, motivating speakers about how to immerse yourself in what’s new and what’s next in the world of video. Our content will focus on topics like how to create videos that stand out in the monsoon of online content, and how to safely distribute your content across channels, audiences, and geographies.

And for the first time ever, PLAY will include a full day of hands-on workshops ! On Tuesday, May 14, attendees who pay a small additional cost will have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of workshops , including the Tech-a-Thon , Designing the Right OTT Model from A to Z , and Corporate Video Production Boot Camp: Practical Tips and Techniques from the Trenches.

This year’s PLAY is shaping up to be one of our best yet, and I know I speak for the entire Brightcove team when I say that I hope you join us! We’d love this opportunity to connect with you on all things video.

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When launching an OTT service , one of the first major decisions you must make involves determining how you will monetize your content. While some older, more established revenue models continue to be popular choices for OTT content providers , a few newer options are becoming increasingly prominent.

By leveraging a multi-tiered OTT revenue model, you can leave this decision up to your audience—and give them the flexibility to choose how they want to pay for your content. Read on to learn more about different monetization models, and the benefits of the multi-tiered approach.

AVOD, SVOD, and Hybrid

Ad-supported video on demand (AVOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD), and the Hybrid model are some of the primary revenue models commonly used by OTT content providers today. Here’s a brief explanation of how these models differ:

• AVOD: Within this model, viewers receive access to free content in exchange for watching ads.

  • Among some of the best-known ad-supported video services are YouTube, Pluto TV, Crackle, and many publisher sites, such as Conde Nast and Vice Media.

• SVOD: Within this model, viewers pay a subscription fee in order to watch content.

  • Subscriber-supported video services make up the largest segment of the OTT universe and include some very big players, like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now, and Showtime. But SVOD also is home to hundreds of other providers, like Hallmark Movies Now and WWE Network—as well as a plethora of very small, niche providers, such as Curiosity Stream and Crunchyroll.   

• Hybrid: Some OTT services have begun to adopt a hybrid approach—providing both a free, ad-supported service and a premium subscription offering. This creates a soft transition for converting an audience over to a subscription model. Providers can take this strategy a step further by offering tiered subscription models and gating certain content so that only users who are willing to pay a premium can access it.

  • Hybrid offerings are getting a lot of attention as the cost of content continues to soar, with smaller services looking to programmatic advertising as a potential incremental revenue stream. In APAC, telco PCCW has had success with its Vie OTT service, offering consumers a large selection of lower-value content that’s ad-supported, as well as more premium content on a paid subscription basis. In The United States, CBS All-Access and Hulu are good examples of a truncated hybrid model—offering a service based on a subscription PLUS advertising, or a higher priced subscription package with no advertising. As the name suggests, hybrid models can be quite flexible.

Both AVOD and SVOD come with their own unique benefits and challenges. For those viewers who cannot or will not pay to consume video content, the traditional AVOD option remains a popular and successful monetization model. AVOD allows for precise user-level targeting based on a wide array of attributes and online behaviors—making it an increasingly attractive option for advertisers. AVOD is also a good option to drive audience acquisition and combat subscription fatigue. For services with more established audiences, SVOD offers a more linear, predictable stream of income. SVOD is also an ideal business model for smaller services with tightly focused content and a willingness to gradually build their audience over time.

Other business models

Today’s OTT service providers seek flexibility in their go-to-market approaches, and want to experiment with additional revenue models, including:

• Transactional Video on Demand (TVOD): This model allows users to sign up for or download the service at no cost, but requires the purchase of content on a per-title basis. TVOD is popular for long-form movie content or live pay-per-view (PPV) content, such as sporting events and other live events, like concerts. Apple and Amazon, for example, offer customers the option to buy or rent titles, while WWE, UFC, and professional boxing are all using PPV extensively.

• Authenticated VOD (AuthVOD): This model often requires users to log in using credentials from another platform, service, cable (TVE), or cellular subscription in order to access content. For this reason, AuthVOD is valuable when coordinating with partnerships or managing multiple properties or branded services. However, AuthVOD can also refer to a free, ad-supported service that requires a viewer to create a login to view. The benefit to the end viewer is the ability to do things like make “watchlists” of content and “pause and resume” across devices. The benefit to the service provider is the ability to know more about the end viewer for marketing and advertising purposes.

The benefits of a multi-tiered pricing model

Offering a multi-tiered pricing model lets content owners give audiences the flexibility to choose which package works best for their viewing needs and cost limitations. By providing your audience with the power to decide how they want to pay for your content (and how much), you can make your OTT service engage more viewers—and optimize your revenue by leveraging more points along the demand curve.

This evolution from the high-priced, stacked-with-channels model into more custom-build viewing seems quite natural—as we’re currently witnessing the golden age of video entertainment. Today’s viewer has a lot of options to choose from, is more price sensitive , and is willing to pay for the content that he or she is passionate about. Many of the most popular channels are major networks; however, the bulk of the paid services consumers are willing to pay the most for are niche. Therefore, multi-tiered pricing will give more freedom and flexibility to the modern viewer in choosing a video service.

Brightcove’s new feature

At Brightcove, we see the value of a content owner being able to price and package their content in different SVOD tiers. In partnership with Accedo and Cleeng , we’ve added our new Multiple Package SVOD offering to OTT Flow , which empowers our customers to provide varied levels of access to their content through different subscriptions. These multi-tier subscription capabilities add sophistication to our market-leading solution at no additional cost for our customers.

With this feature, Brightcove customers will be able to offer vertical or horizontal subscription tiers. Vertical tiers allow customers to sell separate subscriptions for different types of content, which they can bundle as they wish. For example, they can offer one bundle for movies and one for sports content. Horizontal tiers are broken out by volume of content—often referred to as Gold, Silver, or Bronze packages.

If viewers do not have access to a particular asset, they will receive a message that they aren’t entitled to that content and be prompted to click through to the associated purchase page for the asset in question—driving upsell opportunities.

In today’s crowded OTT marketplace, content providers must build and scale their offerings with their target viewer’s interests in mind. As today’s viewers value choice and seek an attractive, relevant value proposition, the multi-tiered OTT revenue model is an exciting new option for service providers to consider.

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Today, more video is being consumed online than ever before. In fact, according to the findings from our 2018 Global Consumer Streaming Habits Survey , 58 percent of global consumers stream content at least once a week via a connected TV—while 51 percent stream at least once a week on a mobile device, and 50 percent do so on a computer or laptop.

In order to thrive in this increasingly crowded OTT landscape, you must understand your audience well enough to deliver the ideal user experience—with an attractive, relevant value proposition.

Are you ready to be a leader in the OTT space? Download our first OTT Essentials whitepaper, the ultimate guide to launching and growing an OTT service. Read on for a preview of what the whitepaper covers; then download the asset for more insights and inspiration on how to provide the optimal user experience—and keep viewers coming back for more.

Launch with confidence

When launching an OTT service, you must establish your own compelling content and distribution strategy.

Ask yourself the following types of questions to define your strategy—and determine how you will execute on it to achieve the best results:

• Which genre(s) of content will you offer?

• Who is your target audience?

• What is your budget?

• How will you program an efficient, scalable screen experience on connected TVs, smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers?

• How will you get your content in front of your target audience?

Once you define your overall strategy, you’ll need to determine how you will monetize your content. Some of the most popular business models used by OTT content owners are ad-supported video on demand (AVOD), subscription video on demand (SVOD), and the Hybrid approach, which involves providing both a premium subscription offering and a free, ad-supported service. When deciding which model works best for your business, you should consider factors such as your content catalog, audience’s location, and marketing budget.

Drive audience growth and profitability

Once you have an established network of viewers, you’ll need to continually work to grow your audience. And, in order to do so, you must understand different OTT churn metrics and how to reduce your churn rate. After all, it doesn’t matter how many new users you acquire if they churn early or often. As a best practice, you should compare your churn rate with your conversion rate on a monthly basis. Using this data, you can determine where to focus your efforts: acquiring new users or retaining current ones.

As audiences around the world become increasingly accustomed to a premium, TV-like viewing experience, it’s also crucial that you incorporate new functionality into your service on a regular basis. By doing so, you can keep your viewers engaged—empowering you to drive revenue and profitability. Whether you decide to enable advanced casting or incorporate live channels into your service, be sure to conduct regular A/B testing to develop a solid understanding of what is and isn’t working when it comes to your viewer’s experience.

Are you ready to be a leader in the OTT space? Download our OTT Essentials whitepaper for more tips and best practices.

To view our Partner blog, click here

Interactive video has always been a hot tech topic. Wondering what all the hype is about? When you boil it down, interactivity gives viewers the ultimate control over the content they’re watching—empowering you to transform how you connect with your audience. Here’s an overview of interactive video capabilities, and some best practices for incorporating this technology into your organization.

What are the benefits of interactivity?

From interactive quizzes to shoppable videos, interactivity enables organizations to create increasingly engaging content for a variety of audiences and mediums. By leveraging polling, branching, and chaptering, you can let your audience choose their own adventure—providing a personalized journey that will keep them engaged from the start.

When it comes to corporate communications, you can create a more dynamic experience by adding slide syncs and quizzes to ensure team members are retaining the content. Within the ecommerce space, you can convert viewers at warp speed by incorporating add-to-cart functionality and powerful calls-to-action.

Interactive video can also be a powerful way to ask your prospects questions that contribute to lead scoring or help with persona identification. And, if your organization offers a full suite of products, you can create interactive product overview videos to help viewers find and select the product that best fits their specific needs.

If you’re running an ABM campaign , you can also incorporate interactivity to add a level of dynamic personalization to your videos. For instance, you can use this technology to call out your target’s name, account name, or industry. Doing so can make it seem like your team created this content specifically for this target account.

What are some interactivity best practices?

When launching an interactive video campaign, be sure to focus on relevance. Tailoring your content to where your prospect or customer is in their buying journey is crucial to your success. After all, your audience has a wide array of content options available to them—and they’ll choose to consume the assets that best meet their specific interests and needs.

If your content doesn’t resonate well with your audience, they’ll abandon it instantly. Thankfully, interactive video empowers you to create hyper-relevant, personalized content that makes it even easier for you to follow up with more relevant material if, for example, a prospect answers a trigger question.

Another best practice is to consider the value exchange. All of the interactive videos you create should simultaneously benefit the viewer (by giving them with valuable insights) and your organization (through providing you with important viewer data). By leveraging this technology to its fullest, you should be able to convert more leads—and gather better data about your customers’ needs with every conversion. Doing so will empower you to provide more targeted nurture content and arm your sales team with specialized information that can guide their conversations with prospects.

Want to discover which interactive tools align best with your video strategy? Check out our quiz: What’s your interactivity style?

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Online video is a big deal, and we’re not just saying that. Currently, 78 percent of people watch online videos every week, and 55 percent do so on a daily basis. By 2022, online video will make up 82 percent of internet traffic . So, how does ecommerce video fit into the equation?

It’s simple: Videos pique consumers’ interest and help drive revenue for ecommerce retailers. In Brightcove’s 2018 Video Marketing Survey , 76 percent of consumers reported that they’ve purchased a product or service after viewing a video. That number is too significant to go unnoticed, and it shows just how impactful online video can be.

Video marketing is already a powerful tool for ecommerce brands, and creating accessible videos proves to offer even greater benefits.

Accessibility helps everyone, not just people with disabilities

Have you ever heard of the “curb cut effect ?”

The “curb cut effect” is the idea that things which were initially designed for people with disabilities can also benefit everyone. This concept inspired the field of universal design. The goal of universal design is to make objects and places as usable as possible for everyone, regardless of ability. Though universal design originally applied to the physical realm, it’s now used just as often in the digital world.

For instance, closed captions were created to make television accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but we now know that captioned television shows, movies, and online videos provide value to all people.

With captions, online videos are more accessible to those with learning disorders, neurological disabilities, and learners of English as a second language. Captions also help improve focus, comprehension, brand recall, and behavioral intent—all of which are highly sought after in the ecommerce world.

The “curb cut effect” is an excellent reminder that providing accessible ecommerce video can benefit anyone, whether they have a disability or not.

Closed captions and transcripts contribute to better SEO

Search engines are unable to watch videos in the same way humans can, and therefore they must index videos by their metadata. However, metadata doesn’t typically paint a complete picture of the content. Fortunately, making your ecommerce video accessible is a great way to address this dilemma.

Captions provide a text version of videos and allow search engine bots to read and index the content more accurately. However, it’s crucial that your captions are correct. Inaccurate captions devalue the viewing experience and could ultimately get your videos marked as spam.

Ecommerce videos are a powerful marketing tool; and when these assets are accurately captioned, they’ll experience a boost in search engine visibility and ranking.

Accessible videos vastly improve the user experience

A study by the University of Iowa showed that people can recall information better after both seeing and hearing it. Part of the reason why videos are beloved by so many is that they provide excellent auditory and visual stimulation, but making video accessible appeals to viewers’ senses even further.

For example, with closed captions, people can simultaneously watch, listen to, and read the content of a video. Not only does this enhance the user experience, but it also improves brand recall and awareness and behavioral intent . This is critical in the ecommerce space, where brands use video to show their products in action .

Closed captions provide viewing flexibility

Today, internet traffic is largely mobile , which is good news since viewers can watch ecommerce video in any environment—including public transportation, libraries, gyms, and any other place you can imagine.

If there’s one thing that mobile users don’t appreciate, though, it’s when videos autoplay with the sound on. It turns out that 85 percent of Facebook videos are viewed with the sound off . But without any audio, how will viewers get the message from your videos?

Captions are the best way to combat silent autoplay because they allow users to view videos in sound-sensitive environments—without ever having to listen to the video’s audio. But captions aren’t the only way to make videos more watchable.

Audio description , which is “the verbal depiction of key visual elements in media and live productions,” also allows a flexible viewing experience. While its primary purpose is to make videos accessible to people who are blind or low vision, audio description also enhances the viewing experience for all viewers by making it easier to multitask while watching videos.

Translated closed captions make reaching a global audience possible

In 2018, 1.8 billion people around the world made online purchases, and global e-retail sales reached 2.8 trillion US dollars. With that number expected to grow immensely in the coming years, online brands are looking for ways to reach customers across the globe.

There’s no question that ecommerce video is a great way to showcase your brand, products, and services to a global audience—and by translating these videos into multiple languages, you can make your content accessible to a broader range of international consumers.

When a video is already captioned, it makes translation an easy next step. Additionally, captions help those who speak English as a second language (or those who are learning English) to absorb the information better.

By prioritizing captioning, you can make translating your videos more straightforward—ensuring that your ecommerce content is available to more people around the world.

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Trying to create an engaging training experience can seem like an uphill battle. Your audience has already seen dozens of training videos—most of them dry—and expects more of the same. But if you want viewers to retain the knowledge you’re sharing with them, you need to engage them. It may take a little extra planning, but here are a few tips on how to create training videos that your employees might actually look forward to.

1.     Show, don’t tell

We’ve already told you why video is the best medium for internal communications and training—because it’s a visual medium, and that lets you demonstrate what you’re explaining in real time! Not only can you use b-roll to show your message in action, you also have animation at your disposal. See how a killer combination of voice-over, b-roll, and animation can bring abstract concepts to life in the video below.

2.     Start with a concept, not a script

The first step in creating an awesome training video is to take a step back. Don’t write your entire script word for word; instead, align on the goal—”what do we want our viewers to learn?”—and draw up a series of bullet points that must be covered. That gives your video team room to brainstorm creative concepts that still inform, teach, and engage.

3.     Align with brand

Align the video’s tone with your brand’s personality and culture. That way, while people are being trained on a particular topic, they are also becoming familiar with your brand as a whole. Don’t use stock video or paid voice-over talent the way you might on an external-facing video—authenticity is key here, and you should feel free to inject your video with humor and humanity. Don’t be afraid to keep it casual, like we did for the “Video Vocab” series of training videos.

4.     Use the right talent

If you have an internal expert who’s personable, passionate, and knowledgeable about your video’s concept—put them on camera. Some of the best training videos start with talent in mind and build from there (“Hey, Nathan’s really passionate about video gear . Let’s have him do an explainer video.”).

5.     Use interactivity

These days, you can literally engage your audience with your video using interactivity. Break up a long video into chapters, include a quiz to test attention and knowledge, or add a call-to-action. Build the interactivity into your video from the script-writing stage so that it feels natural. For example, have the talent “interact” with on-screen elements like quiz questions. You can see how it works by taking the quiz in this video:

6.     Include complementary text

Not everybody learns the same way. Make it easy for your audience to digest the information by giving them multiple ways to do so. Include a transcript or written text on the page where viewers see your video, so that everyone can find the information they need.

7.     Keep it simple

Sometimes the simplest video is the right one. Shooting an expert at a whiteboard takes no production value, and can be just as good as something much more complicated to produce. This format works when your talent is naturally a good teacher, when the subject is complicated, or when a concept needs to be demonstrated in real time.

No matter what you’re training people to do, informative doesn’t have to mean boring. Follow these steps and you’ll be well on your way to creating employee training videos that engage your entire workforce.

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