Centralized Video Platform for the Corporate Enterprise

Transcription

1 Centralized Video Platform for the Corporate Enterprise

2 Buying behavior is undergoing rapid change and businesses need to be open to new ways of working to remain agile and competitive. Video plays a greater and more important role in supporting this evolution and teams are challenged to shift more of their content onto video media and scale their video operations. Managing complex media assets presents a number of difficulties as operations scale and teams can be held back by existing technologies, consumer tools, unskilled resources or out of date business processes. It s important that companies invest in purpose-designed technology, appropriate skillsets and adopt more modern, streamlined collaborative workflows. A cloud platform is integral to this transition, extending content to functional areas across the company and to a wide ecosystem of external production companies, agencies, and business partners. Content is secured centrally but facilitates access for anyone with a browser, no matter where they are working. Both of the corporates in this solutions edigest have successfully applied Aframe as a central media asset management platform. UNICEF centralized their video assets on Aframe so that content could be held securely and international stakeholders had immediate visibility of the media, replacing multiple redundant hard drives and RAID drives. TELUS International uses Aframe s cloud-based video collaboration to centralize locally captured production assets and for review & approval. This allows footage to be immediately accessible via a browser to their remotely located editors and reviewers who can make rough cuts, add timecode feedback logged and visible centrally. Aframe was designed from the ground up to be the central hub into which high resolution video flows. Whether you are in distribution, reversioning, marketing or sales, Aframe streamlines your processes, saves cost and helps you achieve more value from your content. Once-distinct phases of content acquisition, media asset management, content creation and delivery are now linked. Effective collaboration between internal stakeholders and external partners, affiliates and suppliers can happen seamlessly in Aframe s simple yet powerful cloud platform. Find out more about Aframe s solutions at aframe.com/solutions

3 1. Upload Accelerated file transfer Automated upload Large file sizes and mixed formats Encrypted AES transfer 3. Manage 5. Approve Centralized repository of assets Full review and approval Easy to use self serve portal Global collaboration Universal access No additional costs on demand Powerful media library search Centralized repository of assets Multiple disparate collaborators 7. Deliver Broadcast Web play 2. Transcode Automated transcode to web proxy Standardize versions Universally viewable 4. Store Private cloud storage Disaster recovery 3x backup Global accessibility 6. Share Centralized control Granular permission structures Trackable HTML5 Player or flash fallback

4 Creating a Collaborative Video Ecosystem The United Nations International Children s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was founded in 1946 to help children in the aftermath of World War II. Now operating in more than 190 countries, it has saved more children than any other humanitarian organization. UNICEF advocates for the protection of children s rights and provides services to help meet their basic needs. UNICEF is not funded by the UN. Instead, it relies on voluntary donations to fund its work for children worldwide. Unicef UK raises funds for these programmes through donations, the sale of gifts, partnerships with companies and special events such as Soccer Aid. Unicef UK creates and manages a wide variety of video footage including promotional content and corporate films. The videos are designed to educate as well as deliver powerful messages in aid of supporting fundraising campaigns.

5 Challenge A typical video project will include multiple formats, high volumes of data and multiple project stakeholders working remotely in various different locations. Pretty much all of these people need to see the content, and many need to access it locally. This leads to the same manual processes being carried out time and time again whether that s FTP ing a file to somebody, or copying data to drives and having it couriered to another location. These manual actions eat up time that could be put to better use elsewhere, so a vendor that could unify their workflow for all partners and freelancers was essential. When storing video Unicef UK relied on multiple external hard drives and RAID drives which meant there was no way to collaborate or share footage remotely. Adding further complexity - storage on these drives was at full capacity. To future proof content from any failure or corruption, Unicef UK looked to secure cloud storage alternatives. Solution Before we engaged Aframe, if we wanted to innovate or embrace new technologies we would have to replace the equipment we already had in place. Now we can innovate with Aframe and embrace the new functionality as and when it is rolled out. The cloud makes this so much easier for us. By collapsing the process of delivering files to multiple locations into one simple drag and drop action, Aframe offered Unicef UK the ability to streamline their workflow, allowing them to focus on the quality of the end product. The team began by ingesting clips into Aframe s secure cloud storage facility through Aframe s automated UDP uploader - the team were able to centralize their video assets on a secure workspace that enabled visibility of the media for all of the international stakeholders - no dedicated hardware was required. This isn t just point-to-point media movement, though. All files are stored and made available within an online content library - so if another project stakeholder needed to access the files at UNICEF, they could do so independently by browsing the content online and pulling down the clips they needed as required.

6 All video metadata is included at ingest and is carried with the footage throughout the Aframe lifecycle and into editing, with the ability to add frame-accurate metadata to the timeline within Aframe s web interface. This makes all of the footage discoverable and streamlines the editing process by displaying the team s feedback as markers in the editing system. Benefiting from Aframe s scalable storage plan, Unicef UK didn t have to worry about capacity after ingest had finished as Aframe is designed to scale up as much as you need all automatically backed up in two separate locations ensuring maximum security. By overhauling the traditional complex world of sending and storing large creative files Unicef UK saved capital on costly physical backups and storage media. The use of Aframe has provided us with the ability to work more collaboratively with our external freelancers and video teams, as well as providing a lot more visibility for our internal teams. It has allowed us to remove the reliance we had on RAID drives and instead use the cloud to effectively store the footage that we need, continued Ian. Aframe s intuitive functionality assisted Unicef UK to easily manage external contributors through dedicated permissions inside a project with a unique set of credentials. Freelancers are given upload only rights, while external agencies are restricted only to the content they require. This is all managed by a couple of administrators at Unicef UK - ensuring they had complete control over their IP. The whole team were able to gain access to the footage far quicker than before resulting in a faster and lessstressful video project. The time savings this delivered enabled the team to focus on delivering creative, engaging content. Collaboration is really important within the team and for me that is the main benefit of using Aframe. The platform is making our processes more efficient, which will save time and money; but it s also about giving us more time to produce interesting, innovative content that will support our fundraising and campaigning efforts.

7 Efficiency Boost for a Globally Dispersed Marketing Team TELUS International, the global arm of TELUS, one of Canada s top national telecommunications companies, is a contact center and information technology outsourcing business with about 17,000 employees in multiple countries. With service centers located around the world, and a lot of pre-conceived perceptions, outsourcing can be a tough business to promote, as TELUS International s Senior Marketing and Communications Manager Jeff Gangemi explains: As an industry, contact center outsourcing is somewhat commoditized. There are hundreds of players, and most look at it as a cost-saving service which is not at all how we approach the business. If you ask people to tell you what they think a contact center in Central America or the Philippines looks like, they tend to have a certain mental picture in mind, which is not always positive. What people see at TELUS International, which values employee engagement and loyalty above all else, is not what they typically expect gorgeously designed, vibrant working environments equipped to the hilt with highend amenities and bustling with enthusiastic, happy employees. Our approach is to build strong communities in the areas we do business, and to create great environments for our employees, which leads to a much higher service level, Gangemi noted. When we get people to visit and actually see the quality of our operations, they re many times more likely to work with us. As the head of TELUS International s global video marketing team, Gangemi s task was to recreate that successful experience of being there with a video series of virtual site tours of TELUS International s awesome facilities around the world.

8 Challenge The first video tours in the series focused on operational centers in Central America, Europe and the Philippines. Gangemi needed to produce them with a small, virtual, consultant-based team. For cost and convenience, he preferred to use local crews to shoot instead of flying a crew around the globe for each location. And for brand continuity and consistent quality, he preferred to work with a single editor, a virtual team member based in Bucharest, Romania. Gangemi himself is based in Vermont, with other marketing colleagues on the project based in TI s global operational centers. In the past, we had hired local teams to shoot, edit and deliver the final product end to end, but there was a real variance in the quality of shooting and brand presentation from region to region. We wanted this series to have the same look and feel, Gangemi noted. He also wanted to eliminate delays and risks of having each crew copy media to drives and ship them internationally to the editor - and simplifying the review process was also critical. We knew we needed to be able to centralize everything and work in the cloud not just for this project, but as a way to globalize our workflow overall, Gangemi said. TELUS International s learning and development team, another virtual team within the company that regularly creates video materials, suggested that together they investigate Aframe. It turned out to be exactly what we needed. Solution Aframe s cloud-based video collaboration platform enables TELUS International s marketing department and learning & development teams to upload, store, share and collaborate on large-scale video projects, with browser-based access by team members around the world. For the virtual site tour series, Gangemi was the overall project manager and set up the Aframe project administratively. As each local crew completed its shoot (logging approximately four to five hours of footage per location for each four to five minute piece), a marketing team member uploaded the footage to Aframe where Gangemi and his Bucharest, Romania-based editor, Stefan Leu, could review it and make selects. Leu was able to create rough cuts immediately, without waiting for drives to ship and clear customs, and/or media copying. Stefan and I worked closely together during the edit process and used Collections in Aframe to keep everything organized. Having all footage in one central location is a huge improvement over how we used to work. It s immediate, and everyone can get to what they need to keep the project moving.

9 For review, executives and team members across TELUS International in all regions were able to access cuts from a PC, Mac or mobile device and provide context-specific feedback. Gangemi noted, All of the initial reviewers gave direction by entering time-coded comments in Aframe. Stefan could just go through them and do everything at once. That s a big deal. It simplifies the workflow so he doesn t have to pull up or spreadsheets to look at everyone s comments. They re all in one place. And it s much easier for international stakeholders to interact with the project and the process overall. The virtual tour video series was TELUS International s first significant Aframe project and is an anchor of a re-launch of the company s web presence. In addition to posting the series on the site, Gangemi is also delivering the videos through a targeted campaign to key prospects that has so far delivered a 25% success rate. Our strategy is to create high-quality pieces and maximize the use of them, he explained. Aframe also helps on that front, enabling Gangemi s team and their colleagues in learning and development to make better use of finished pieces and the wealth of footage they shoot, and share it across teams. When we work on any new video projects, we can now easily grab footage from past shoots and work it in. I just create a few Collections for the editor, and they can access them and make decisions remotely. It gives them much more creative control. Before Aframe, I would have to make all the decisions about shot selection, select all of the clips, upload them to an FTP server, have the editor download them and live with my choices. Aframe makes repurposing easier and more effective. Gangemi explained that, to his corporate marketing team, the key value of Aframe is the improvement in their workflow and the fact that it has enabled them to work globally much more effectively. Aframe centralizes everything, and because it s designed specifically for video, it gives us a more efficient process overall, with the ability to create Collections and keep comments tied to timecode. Storage is reliable and accessible. Working in the cloud means that we can work with any editor or crew, anywhere in the world, and they can all interact with projects throughout the process. Overall, having footage centrally accessible immediately, to everyone who needs to be involved, has totally transformed the way we work.

10 Why Aframe? Aframe is a cloud platform that gives you one central location for organizing and managing large volumes of multi-format video. By reducing complexity and making it easy for colleagues, clients and partners to find, access and collaborate on video assets, Aframe saves cost, increases usage of assets and helps organizations achieve a higher return on their content investment. Aframe meets the most demanding standards and is trusted by the world s leading broadcast, enterprise and new media organizations. Central Video Platform Aframe is a cloud collaboration platform that provides one central location for global teams and international partners to access and manage high resolution video. Trusted by the world s largest organizations, Aframe is the only solution to combine fast UDP upload, transcoding, metadata support, video player, dynamic search, online review and approval, and analytics. Asset Monetization Commercial teams can create online catalogs, sales kits and screeners to improve professionalism and customer service. The central cloud platform overcomes the commercial and technical challenges of securely managing and distributing assets to improve partner communications, streamline the sales process, broaden sales reach and ultimately increase revenue. Media Management & Collaboration Aframe s central platform helps marketing, promos and reversioning groups take control of their assets and manage them more effectively. With less time spent wrestling with technical issues, teams can be more productive and make more use of assets. Production Aframe reduces the complexity of managing media across all types of production. Cloudpowered workflows means everyone, wherever they are based, has instant access to the content they need from one central place. By reducing the barriers of production, teams can focus on creating the highest quality content and complete productions in record time. Request a personalized demo for your team aframe.com/demo