The Basics Guide to Personalized Video
for Marketers, Productmanagers, Procurement staff, Videomanagers, Projectmanagers, Senior
management and others who are involved in ordering and managing Personalized Video.
© 2016 - All rights reserved by Eclipse Videomanagent - Thijs Viguurs http://eclipse.video

CONTENTS
▸ What is Personalized Video?
▸ What kind of information can be communicated with
Personalized Video?
▸ What is the difference between Rendered and Layered
Personalized video?
▸ What are the four most common pitfalls; and how do you
avoid them?
▸ About the author.
in this guide:
Image: courtesy of Animen.nl
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WHAT IS
PERSONALIZED VIDEO?
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Personalized video is video in which personalized data
is presented.
▸ This data can be text-data, but also images, audio
or other video is possible.
▸ Based on personal (segmentation)data it’s also
possible to ‘play’ with scenarios.
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WHAT INFORMATION
CAN BE SHARED?
AND HOW?
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DIRECT DATA
▸ Name, Address, City
▸ Hi Thijs…
▸ Gender
▸ Dear Mr. Viguurs…
▸ Segmentation data
▸ Your bill is made up by the direct electricity costs of
£ 87 and 17% local taxes on behalf of the
municipality of Antwerp…
▸ Ordered Products/Services
▸ Your new iPhone 8 will be delivered next Saturday…
▸ Consumption data
▸ You’ve used 2,745 gallons of water in 2015...
▸ Monthly Fees
▸ Starting next october, your new car-insurance-bill
will be lowered to € 74 a month...
Examples
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SCENARIOs BASED ON PROFILES AND DATA
▸ Rural vs. urban scenes
▸ The wide open fields of Michigan vs.
Skyscrapers of Chicago
▸ CRM-data
▸ Translate the specific product-matrix of a
customer into a separate Journey: You also have
an extended warranty on your Sony Television…
▸ Your electricity-bill is amongst the highest in
your neighborhood…
▸ Online Profile data
▸ What about these suggestions for a new
Holiday-trip?
▸ This is your personal shopping news for the
Holiday-season.
Examples
SEGMENT A SEGMENT B SEGMENT C
VIEWER A VIEWER B VIEWER C
CONCLUSION/END
INTRODUCTION/START
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LAYERED?
RENDERED?
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LAYERED PERSONALIZED VIDEO
▸ Video in cloud; customer data ‘easily’ local.
▸ This can be important for companies that want to serve personalized
video, but don’t allow their clients data to be migrated to other servers.
▸ Nice-looking on a functional level.
▸ Images, sounds and different fonts can be handled, and tweaking of
those visual elements is possible. But it will stay a flat layer on top of the
video.
▸ ‘Cheaper’
▸ Because videos don’t have to be rendered – the layer is real-time
‘projected’- it is cheaper to generate (generally spoken of course) and
there is no serious impact on hosting & needed processor power.
▸ Real-time data (<1 second)
▸ The layer can be literally real-time generated without any needed
processing time.
▸ A special HTML5-videoplayer is crucial
▸ It enables the layering of personalized data.
▸ Advantage: in-video-CTA’s are often also possible: ‘Click now’
▸ Disadvantage: (social) sharing is not without hassle for end-users
Characteristics
Image: courtesy of PingMedia.nl
What’s it: Customer data is projected over the video on the clients side(in his
browser) as a layer. Viewers see the same video (or several versions) and only
the personal layer is unique.
Screenshot of images (Map) and text (address) in Layered Personalized Video
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RENDERED PERSONALIZED VIDEO
What’s it: The customer data is programmed to be in the video itself. So it’s
possible to show very advanced and realistic looking effects. Every individual
video is especially rendered, so every viewer gets to see an unique video file.
▸ Video & customer data in cloud.
▸ The customer data and the video are merged in one video. Some
suppliers offer the possibility to store the videos on local servers of their
clients (the companies) for security-reasons.
▸ Übercool
▸ Rendered video can be near-Hollywood quality in terms of visual
effects.
▸ ‘More expensive’
▸ There is a serious impact in terms of needed processor-power and
storage-space, especially if the number of videos is large.
▸ Near real-time
▸ Many suppliers are able to render extreme fast, so within seconds a
video can be generated to be viewed by a customer. Nonetheless:
rendering always takes time.
▸ No player requirements
▸ A video can be stored and/or saved by the viewer for later.
▸ Uploading to Facebook or other Social Networks can be done without
any hassle.
▸ Guaranteed Quality of Service on Mobile devices.
Characteristics
Screenshot Rendered Personalized Video: photos on the mirror and in the woman’s hand.
Image: courtesy of Storymail.nl
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PITFALLS TOP 4
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▸ Increase in costs due to the complexity and mistakes
that are being made in the process and by people.
Overspending of budgets
▸ Campaigns that need to be postponed; Ad-hoc printed
letters that are being send to customers. Just two
examples that illustrate the possible impact if ideas
take more time than there is available to execute them.
Exceeding deadlines
PITFALLS LEAD TO PAIN ON TWO LEVELS
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4: DATA UNDERESTIMATION
▸ Imagine a kick-off with some stakeholders.
▸ Everyone is full of enthusiasm
▸ The outline of the personalized video is
quickly drawn in a Powerpoint.
▸ The needed data is being identified.
▸ The videoproducer starts making video.
▸ 3 weeks before the launch… a discovery:
▸ Many records are not complete.
▸ This means that half of the videos offer
half of the precisely composed stories.
▸ This hurts.
▸ A significant percentage of all marketers
suffer from the data-underestimation-
disease. Yes, also in your organization!
Situation Advice
▸ Get data-analysts/scientists aboard.
▸ From day two, not from day
three.
▸ Analyze real data before you start
composing scenario’s and scenes.
▸ You will minimize the chance of
useless scenarios
▸ You might find new storylines as
well
▸ Spend a significant time on
composing incomplete storylines.
▸ Holes in your data can be
bypassed if your use your
creativity
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3: UNDERESTIMATION OF SECURITY
▸ Is your customerdata allowed to leave
your servers?
▸ And what if it’s isolated in a full
encrypted ‘bubble’?
▸ If so: under what conditions?
▸ Is it allowed to (temporarily) store your
customerdata on servers that are
owned/managed under a different
jurisdiction than your own?
▸ As in: you are in the European
Union, the cloud-platform where all
the videos are stored is owned by an
American company.
▸ This might be an interesting article to
discuss in your organization;
although the chances that a
personalized video is of interest of the
NSA are small.
Situation Advice
▸ Get security-officers and/or privacy-
officers aboard.
▸ From day three, not from day four.
▸ Realize: In most jurisdictions it doesn’t
matter whether the data of the
customer is high-profile (this is your
mortgage a month) or low-profile
(dear Thijs). It’s all personal customer
data, and therefore sensitive
information.
▸ If your in an RFP-stage with several
suppliers:
▸ Involve your security-people in the
vendor-selection.
▸ Be prepared for long-lasting audits
that might put your deadlines under
pressure.
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2: PROGRESSIVE INSIGHTS
▸ Imagine this: the number one irritation of
many video-producers:
▸ The video is finished and approved, and
then suddenly someone at their clients
organization (often with a title like
director of something) has an opinion.
▸ The video needs to be re-edited.
▸ because it’s a personalized video this is
generally more complex than
‘repairing’ an ordinary video.
▸ This costs money: from your budget if there
are clear agreements on this, or the video
producer eats into his profits if he’s too nice
for you.
▸ This costs time.
▸ This costs internal reputation at least for
someone: the person who couldn’t handle the
intervention of the director involved.
Situation Advice
▸ Video is sexy, processes a bit less, but to make
a real compelling personalized video a good
process is a make-or-break.
▸ Focus on this process
▸ Put a lot of energy in reviewing scripts,
storyboards and flowcharts.
▸ Double this energy one more time.
▸ There is a difference between a dominant
spoken but noncommittal opinion and a
weighty order.
▸ Make sure you notice the difference while
getting feedback amongst stakeholders.
▸ Not everyone is entitled to have an opinion.
▸ If one stakeholder tells you: turn right,
while the other says: turn left, then discuss
this internally and never make the mistake
to just pass both remarks directly to your
producer.
▸ Agree with stakeholders a list of who’s
opinions matter and who’s don’t.
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1: Hyper-PERSONALIZATION
▸ Let’s make this clear with some
calculations. Think of a bank that
changing it’s portfolio and wants to send
personalized video to it’s customers.
▸ Let’s assume this (image A):
▸ the current portfolio has 3
propositions; the new one: 4
propositions.
▸ They want to use two different tone-of-
voices, like Dear Mr. Viguurs vs Hi
Thijs.
▸ They have segmented their customers
also in two groups based on the
activation of their customer
dashboard.
▸ This leads to 48 different storylines (B):
▸ Maybe a few less, because it’s unlikely
that the current proposition C will be
matched to the new proposition A,
but: nonetheless.
Situation Advice
▸ Look at Image C, as a virtual example.
▸ For every video there is an optimum in terms of
scenarios. Don’t ever forget this!
▸ In this example:
▸ It makes sense to tell a story with 8 scenarios
instead of 4 scenarios: the ROI is higher,
while the costs are just slighly more.
▸ But: why tell a story with 32 different
scenarios if the ROI is just about the same as
with 16 scenarios?
▸ And: if you would use more than 128
scenarios you even lose money.
▸ Therefore: be very careful with the amount of
scenarios that you want to show.
Hyperpersonalization sounds interesting, but it
doesn’t guarantee hyper-revenues.
▸ Start carefully and optimize then for your
second run/campaign/year.
Image A
Image B
Image C
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FINAL REMARKS
▸ If you want to see real video examples from many different
suppliers.
▸ If you want to get conversion insights from several markets:
▸ Energy, Telco, Retail, Banking
▸ If you want to discuss personalized video or need other help.
▸ thijs@eclipse.video / +31-626-214 574
Contact us…
▸ Produced video in Amsterdam & New York.
▸ as Editor in Chief & Executive Producer
▸ worked in News & Entertainment, Live and tape-on-desk.
▸ great knowledge on both Preproduction & Postproduction
▸ Experience in Journalism & Branded Content
▸ Worked several years in corporate organizations.
▸ Professionalized video for companies like KPN, Maersk, Vodafone,
Intergamma, Graydon.
▸ Internal & external communications
▸ Product & Service videos
▸ Smart video: Interactive/Personalized
▸ Initiated the first serious online video-platform in the Netherlands based
on interactive video for pre-sales and customer service.
▸ Works nowadays as principal consultant, project manager, strategist and
coach for mid-size and large companies that want to get better results,
lower costs and less headache with the instrumental use of video.
About Thijs Viguurs
All rights reserved - © 2016 Thijs Viguurs

Thijs Viguurs 0626 -214 574
thijs@eclipse.video