Recently we entered a new age of communication which will again challenge our thinking, and use of video as a medium.
Welcome to the era of personalised mass video, is your bank ready?
No longer will video messaging need to be confined to a linear script, designed (often in hope) to appeal to a collective conscious in a mass audience. Now, digital communicators will be able to converse directly with a single audience member, framing the content around them, whilst still speaking to a broader objective in a mass communication.
One of the first bank's to take up the challenge of personalised mass video was Barclays in the UK. Initially offering personalised video to Premier customers, the bank sought to leverage its awareness of the customer's profile and spending habits to truly individualise video communications with them, as seen in the video below.
(N.b. In this video, the customer is the Barclays Corporate and Retail Banking CEO, Mr Ashok Vaswani, around whom a 'dummy' profile has been created):
As you have seen, the video includes varied and extensive personalisation such as:
- The use of the customer's name in the audio track.
- The use of the customer's name in various signage, screens and products throughout the video.
- The presentation of the bank's retail partners (e.g. Debenhams, Expedia etc) that the customer is known to have shopped with.
- A specific offer to the customer regarding their local coffee shop (Patisserie Valerie) which the bank knows they regularly frequent and is located close to their home.
- Verbalisation and visualisation of a number of different restaurants the customer is known to have visited.
- A recap of the products and services the customer currently accesses with the bank, including notification that text alerts and e-statements have been setup.
Barclays has produced and disseminated other personalised video, including the content below which was sent via email to recipients (excluding the introductory and explanatory notes that accompany footage). Again, there are a large number of individual 'touch points' in the video which has been generated for 'Clare'.
The technology behind the production of these videos is both advanced, and incredibly simple, relying on the typical storyboarding that would be used in other video production - with a slight variation. Where typical film or video would follow a linear path, designed for a mass audience - and not personalised, the videos above rely on more a of 'choose your own adventure' format, where the variables are generated by the customer data and profiles that are fed into the production system.
The example below shows how these variables might operate in a hypothetical video around engaging customers on a bill payment.
BBVA in Spain are another bank that have sought to use personalised mass video to connect with customers regarding retirement savings. The two videos below demonstrate how the storyboard is able to adapt depending on the customer profile, in which a man and a woman of differing ages have been used to generate the content.
This week at The Asian Banker Summit 2016 in Hanoi, respected digital banking and communications expert Mr Matt Dooley spoke about the challenges of social and digital media myopia.
Focusing on emerging industry trends, such as new pathways to product purchasing, integrated social banking and new business models, Dooley discussed ways in which banks were currently engaging customers through social and digital media, successfully and sometimes spectacularly unsuccessfully.
iSky Researchers caught up with Matt after his presentation to talk further about personalised mass video and what it means for banking communicators. Here is some of what he had to say:
"There is no doubt that personalised video is going to be a game changer for banks, as we are already seeing with early adaptors like Barclays. The power of personalised video relies heavily on the data a content producer has on the recipient - and banks hold some of the most in depth customer data of any industry in the world".
"How banks adapt to and use this digital tool will be very interesting to watch. The application for personalised video is so extensive, and can be used in so many different ways - I doubt we have even seen the tip of the iceberg yet".
"It is a very exciting time to be in banking and digital communications .
If you'd like to know more about personalised mass video, how it can improve your relationship with customers, and how to access it, contact iSky Research today.