After spending a week in Las Vegas at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show it’s clear that the demand for managing video – often referred to as “Media Asset Management” (MAM) and for managing all kinds of digital files “Digital Asset Management” (DAM) — has grown substantially in the past year.

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Sports Illustrated will be launching a revamped site later this afternoon moving ad-supported video into the forefront with up to 15 clips added daily. Why the big push into video? Well it turns out that SI.com served up 70 million video streams connected to this year’s swimsuit edition. I of course, as part of my research, took a look and well let’s just say Lindsey Vonn is a woman of many talents.
SI is shooting and producing 100% of the swimsuit video, gathering content from SI contributors and its syndicated programming. In a recent interview Managing Editor Paul Fichtenbaum describes video as the “last piece of content strategy that was missing. This was the one thing we wanted to add.” Fichtenbaum further adds. “We want people to enjoy the content wherever they are.” Clearly SI will need to reconsider how it manages and archives all forms of digital media…perhaps I should give Paul a call.

When I started my career in television it was simple. We had a show, the promo that told you watch the show and the commercial that paid for it, all on a single distribution platform…That’s how we made money.

Today, that same network has to deliver that show in multiple versions, formats and distribution platforms in near real-time to get as many people as possible to watch it or run the risk of losing an audience.  That’s when you need to look to a digital asset managemet (DAM) system that can support content creation, transcoding and distribution (something native to North Plains’ TeleScope) to streamline the process, because the value of a customer who doesn’t watch your show is $0.

As Ford describes their ONE Ford initiative it reminds me of the “day and date” projects we have done with our entertainment customers. The idea being that the product (a car or movie) should be ready for a global launch on the same day. To meet this requirement it means that core creative assets needs to be shared and distributed in a controlled but fast way. The hub and spoke model for DAM (something core to TeleScope) makes this all possible without redundant systems and costs. Going global doesn’t just mean “big” it means dealing with remote offices of just a few people still tied to a dial-up connection. For it all to work, you need to cover the weakest links in your global DAM projects.

A recent study released by eMarketer indicates that consumer products companies are turning to online video as a “tent pole” of their digital marketing strategies.

The summary of the study, posted here, is indicative of the growing trend of the use of video across not just the CPG segment and retail in general, but across a growing number of industries including all segments of manufacturing, banking, high-technology, hospitality and franchising.

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