Video Intelligence Trends 2020 & 2019 Year in Review

All of these trends point towards more personalized, data driven videos that not only drive alpha performance in the short term, but invaluable brand intelligence for the long haul. TONIK+ is excited to be part of such a dynamic ecosystem, and we hope you’ll join us on the journey to better content, writes,Chris Graham,CPO/GM,TONIK+.

All of these trends point towards more personalized, data driven videos that not only drive alpha performance in the short term, but invaluable brand intelligence for the long haul. TONIK+ is excited to be part of such a dynamic ecosystem, and we hope you’ll join us on the journey to better content.

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Video Intelligence isn’t just a buzzword anymore: the best advertisers know that flat metrics for their videos won’t get the job done any longer, and they’re looking for the best-in-class tools that will give them a leg up. Let’s take a brief look back at what trends surfaced in 2019 and follow those through to next year, discovering what we can expect the bleeding edge to look like.

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A number of new technologies have both emerged and been iterated upon, allowing for previously unthinkable video analysis that’s automated, scalable, and actionable.

• Enhanced Object Detection via Google’s video intelligence tools has substantial new features, including celebrity detection and object tracking (source here) 
• Content detection and contextual analysis is easier than ever via IBM and Watson (source here) 
• Driverless cars are pushing the future of innovation in the space, with best in class tech for real time analysis making its way into media (source here)

2020

Next year we’ll see a radical shift in how creative and media teams interact, how video is personalized, and what insights are derived. While these changes will be driven by new technologies, many of the shifts will be focused on a change in workflows for day to day operators on media and creative teams. Insights need to flow faster and more freely, allowing for better iterations and ultimately substantially improved performance.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the trends you can expect in 2020:

Technology

While there aren’t likely to be any landscape-altering technologies coming to market, the adoption curve is so far behind where it should be that simple iteration on existing tech is more than enough to continue pushing video intelligence for media forward. Be sure to expect:

• Self driving cars, CCTV tech, over-the-air and real time encoding driving the future of object recognition, classification, and labeling in video
• Measurement platforms and tools continuing to enhance cross-device and platform measurement for optimal media allocation
• First party networks like Google and Facebook will continue to provide media tools for optimizing creative, both directly and via partners, but the siloed nature will make them less effective than third party counterparts
   

Processing and Media Creation

Most of the value that video intelligence can provide media in 2020 will be at the processing and media creation stage, allowing advertisers to better understand performance and create videos that resonate with hyper-specific segments of their customers. Technologies and processes that assist in providing maximum value, such as this, include:

• Preemptively processing videos into individual scenes and labeling all of those scenes with relevant topics, including recognition of specific characters, objects, and themes
  • This allows us to understand what scenes resonate best across all users, along with resonance by audience and performance by interest and platform
     
• Remixing videos based on that performance, not just speculation. These videos typically outperform human driven cuts by 20-50% in terms of View Through Rate and over 100% in terms of Click Through Rate. Some of the factors we can remix by include:
  • Duration, i.e. cutting to 6, 10, or 30 second durations
  • Content, or cutting to include specific characters or themes that resonate
  • Audience specific cuts that focus on scenes that resonate most with age and gender groups
     
• Measurement and Analytics tools that know what’s working within your recut assets and tracks that across a variety of axes, including:
  • Scene performance, which can be measured by platform, video duration, and audience
  • Topic performance, which can be measured by the same dimensions as scenes
  • Duration and platform specific insights
    
     

Learn More: How E-Commerce Businesses Can Master the Video Content Game This Holiday Season

Management and Delivery

None of this works if the humans that touch these campaigns every day aren’t on board with changes to their existing workflows. While none of these should be daunting, they’re a change to the status quo, and the best organizations are in the process of making sure their teams and processes are updated to succeed in the new landscape.

• Assets can’t just flow downhill from creatives to media teams with no reciprocity. Media teams will increasingly need to feed intelligence back to media for rapid iterations, not setting for cuts delivered before performance data was available.
• Media planning needs to account for mid-flight creative tweaks, not top down planning. While many companies pay lip service to this, the reality is most of the time they’re running a set of assets from the outset and seeing what works, not being dynamic or iterating on content.
• Crossfunctional, not siloed teams are necessary to make this happen. Software teams have done this for years; it’s time media caught up.