It’s an exciting time to be involved in the digital world; only recently we were still developing .mobi websites, now it’s an annoyance when we get forced to a .mobi on a smartphone browser. We were sending each other MMS messages, now we just email them directly from our email account. Our number one reason to upgrade a phone was for more mega pixels from the built-in camera, now it’s less about the hardware and more about software.
Such rapid changes in technology force the online space to adapt and change to suit how the user wants to access content, one area that has maintained a steady evolution is online video technology.
Despite confusion around how internet protocol television (IPTV) would evolve, issues around IPTV advertising and how it might be funded, the BBC i-Player ploughed its own furrow. Channels and websites soon began to follow, and this evolved quickly as pocket technology demanded faster download and streaming capabilities.
This not only led to dramatic improvements in how video is served up, but also the compression of video files and file sizes had to decrease in order to be utilised across these platforms, especially as affordable cameras began to introduce HDD technology.
Up until recently this technology did not match, so if you shot on a prosumer Hard Disc camera, then your only option would have been to roughly edit on the camera and burn the files to DVD for playback. It has recently become easier to convert these files (.vod or .mts) or drag them directly into an edit suite.
During these times of change it became evident that market and business intelligence can be delivered quicker and in a more impactful way. It’s been fascinating to see how quickly video has been adopted as an important medium to communicate data, research and insight across global businesses. In the work we do at GfK NOP video is now used at more stages of a research project than you could imagine 3-4 years ago.
At its most basic, video offers a personal touch, and validates data and research findings by offering feedback direct from a business’s customers. Examples of these are vox pops and extracts from focus groups embedded in a final report or presentation. Today’s technology means that vox pops can be cleverly incorporated into reports to produce powerful ‘voice of the consumer’ insights and the standard of video and clarity of audio have vastly improved.
However we are delivering far more of our knowledge and insight via video – from short films starring market experts at pitches, through to five minute report summaries encompassing animated text, graphical representations of reports with voice-over and an engaging sound track that holds the attention of the viewer.
The popularity of video in the business world is increasing over time as clients begin demanding more efficient ways of communicating and digesting information. A great example of this is the development of client video portals, a sort of a corporate YouTube platform, to combat the problem of large video files and improve the sharing of information by circulating hyperlinks.
The illustration below shows at how widely GfK NOP is using video across the lifecycle of a research study:
Looking to the future we see the use of video having far more impact than merely what you see in front of the lens as software technology improves; screen capture, Voice Over IP and bandwidth improvements all open up new video-in-research opportunities, adding multiple dimensions to usability testing, remote interviewing and focus groups, more personal online qual research and much more.
