Brightcove’s Jennifer Griffin Smith: Why Every Company Should Act Like a Media Company

I am sure you can relate to the frustration of being bombarded with information online. There are distractions everywhere. The thing is, if you’re frustrated as a customer, you’re certainly frustrated as a marketer trying to break through.

What’s a solution? Jennifer Griffin Smith the CMO at video communications platform Brightcove said in her presentation at INBOUND 2022 that thinking as a media company we can more effectively connect with customers. Just look at Netflix for example. They don’t renew a show unless the content performs. They think very specifically about the audiences they’re trying to serve and optimize programming and the content experience accordingly.

We’ve all heard “content is king”, but with 4.6 billion pieces of content consumed on a daily basis (eMarketer), there’s simply too much content.

Traditional marketing measurement follows a model of:
> Awareness
> Interest
> Consideration
> Purchase

The new media company centric marketing measurement model focuses on:
> Identify
> Expand
> Engage
> Advocate

Why? Because what worked in the past, simply isn’t working today. The digital landscape & the way people
consume content has changed. We need to look to the future, especially future buyers. People 18-25 years old are spending an average of 10.5 hours a week on TikTok and 6.9 hours a week on YouTube. (eMarketer) Brands need to be where their customers are.

To further explore consumer content behaviors, Brightcove undertook a study focused on B2B, B2C and employees. Their findings included:

B2B Audiences

97% are more receptive to sales communication from a business after consuming their video content.
81% prefer video over written content when learning how to use a product or service.

They also found that video helps with purchase decisions. When asked in what ways video was helpful for making purchase decisions, respondents said:

58% Learning about a product or service
40% Learning how to solve a problem
36% Understanding a problem
36% Hearing what other customers think

Employees Audiences

83% agree that if their organization used more video content, they would have a better overall experience as an employee.
80% prefer internal CEO announcement through video, either live or on demand.

But here’s the thing: organizations are not communicating in the ways that employees prefer:

31% say their organizations use video for corporate communication.
38% say their organizations use video for training.
36% say their organizations use video for corporate events.

To close this gap for B2B and employee audiences (as well as B2C not covered here) Jennifer suggested viewing content the way a media company views their content. Obviously companies are at various stages in their adoption of video and video platforms. Luckily there is a maturity model to help brands understand where they are and how they might evolve.