Australia – Technology PR and marketing agency AZK Media has launched a pure play video-content business called ‘Customer Catalyst’ as demand for premium video content continues to surge.

With the effectiveness of quality video marketing content no longer subject to any debate, AZK Media has created said standalone business aimed at a wide range of businesses that just want video content.

Research shows 64% of businesses see an increase in website conversions from having a customer testimonial video as part of their marketing mix, and 93% of businesses report winning customers as a direct result of video content.

Azadeh Williams, co-founder and managing director at AZK Media, said, “Video content has always been a big part of what AZK Media offers and will continue to be. But rather than having to sign on for a package of PR services for a set period, businesses that just need fantastic video content can access that easily by partnering with Customer Catalyst.”

Meanwhile, Wayne Williams, co-founder and business director at AZK Media–and also at the helm of the Customer Catalyst team, commented, “We’ve created this video production facility to target a wide range of businesses and industry sectors that might not usually seek a partnership with AZK Media.”

For Wayne, marketers are still only scratching the surface when leveraging video content to generate demand and drive leads.

“The next generation of digitally native business decision-makers are highly visual and video-led. Content that showcases customer testimonials, case studies, and genuine thought leadership discussions is crucial to humanise a brand and provide the social proof businesses increasingly need to attract new prospects,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Azadeh noted that the ‘Customer Catalyst’ forms a natural extension of AZK Media’s capability to drive successful customer advocacy marketing campaigns.

“The businesses that are succeeding are those putting their customer at the heart of everything they do,” she says. “This includes their marketing and PR strategy. If brands and businesses want to drive demand, championing their customers in highly engaging video content forms a crucial component of owned, earned and paid content,” she stated.

Billy Loizou, Amperity’s Area Vice President APAC, said, “We’re very pleased with Amperity’s customer testimonial video, which will be a great asset for us as we look to continue our growth across APAC. It features the key benefits of our platform and exceptional results achieved by one of our APAC customers, one of the leading car dealers in the region. This asset continues to be leveraged across our PR, social media and inbound campaigns.”

Singapore – Digital media platform in SEA, RICE Media, has partnered with Falcon Media, an Out-Of-Home (OOH) media company specialising in large format outdoor advertising billboards across Singapore, with the aim to display its impactful storytelling and insightful journalism in a much wider reach across Singapore. 

Through the partnership, RICE Media will be showcasing its video content on multiple digital screens outdoors, including Fortune Centre, Wilkie Edge, and Sim Lim Tower, as well as KINEX. It will be rotating its slate of video content on Falcon Media’s digital billboards for a period of one year. The campaign kicks off with a story about Ammar, a Singaporean dancer, filmmaker, and actor, whose deafness never got in the way of his dreams. 

Moreover, the partnership provides opportunities for the Singaporean publication to establish its commitment to telling stories, perspectives and insights from across SEA. It is also Falcon Media’s first-ever partnership with a publication. 

Khai Asyraf, RICE Media’s managing director, initiated the collaboration to offer RICE’s partners a 360-marketing solution by utilising multiple channels and touchpoints beyond the online realm. He noted that in this ever-changing digital era, strategic partnerships are essential for media companies to attain sustainable growth. 

“With this partnership in place, RICE wants to uphold our brand credibility while maintaining our edge and competitiveness in the media market. Falcon Media has enabled and accelerated this mission as we pursue audience growth and expansion across Southeast Asia,” said Asyraf. 

Meanwhile, Bernice Heng, Falcon Media’s managing director, commented that she is excited to kick off the partnership after finding immense synergy and potential in working with RICE.

“With RICE Media’s content creation offerings and digital media advertising options, they are an excellent fit for us to delve into the online realm. This partnership offers our clients the ability to reach out to their audience outdoors on both a macro and personal level,” said Heng.

In July 2022, RICE Media, has announced two leadership promotions, which include Asyraf, former client services director, being its new managing director, and Ilyas Sholihyn, former branded content strategist, being its new editor-in-chief.

Singapore – Brightcove, a global software company catered to providing video for business, has announced a new partnership with e-commerce giant Alibaba to enable video content delivery to businesses in China, now made possible through the Brightcove Cloud Delivery.

Powered by Alibaba Cloud, said solution will be the first video provider to enable on-demand video streaming into the nation. The launch caters to the long-time problem businesses in China have dealt with in regards to video content streaming. With the nation’s strict blockade from outside media, some companies have suffered video loading or analytics failures; others have been blacklisted for lack of an in-country domain and license. 

Furthermore, Brightcove China Delivery via Alibaba Cloud enables customers to execute a single video distribution strategy worldwide. As they do for other countries, Brightcove content owners can use a simple checkbox interface to start distributing video in China and analyze its performance.

“We’re pleased to finally enable customers to stream video within China. No longer is there a separate, complex, and disappointing process for attempting video-driven business in China. We are opening the country for business for our customers securely and reliably,” said Namita Dhallan, chief product officer at Brightcove.

Brightcove’s expansion into the Chinese market, as market research by eMarketer shows that the country is projected to have an e-commerce ‘boom’, valued at US$2.8t, which at the same time entails corporate communications divisions to continue to engage employees with more video.

“Our solution allows you to easily create a single video strategy and workflow that works around the world, including China. And it’s all backed by the reliability, scalability, and security of the Brightcove platform to bring you the extraordinary growth opportunities the Chinese market offers,” the company said in a press statement.

Manila, Philippines – Top technology-related unboxing and review YouTube channels in the Philippines are seen to be able to earn a YouTuber on average ₱522K per month, new statistics from e-commerce aggregator iPrice.

Individual tech vloggers Unbox Diaries and Mary Bautista earn ₱522K and ₱351K per month respectively, despite the fact that Unbox Diaries has fewer subscribers (1.25M) than Bautista (1.42M).

Meanwhile, tech blogs like YugaTech and GadgetMatch earn less compared to individual creators, as these competitor sites earned ₱119K and ₱65K per month respectively. However, this is best supported by the smaller subscriber size they have, as YugaTech has only 453K subscribers, while GadgetMatch has 631K subscribers.

Moreover, individual vloggers like Liz Tech and Poy Reviews are both estimated to earn above ₱100K a month, which are more than the estimated amount of authoritative blogs with Youtube reviews like Unbox PH (₱52K/month) and Manila Shaker (₱17K/month).

“iPrice hypothesizes that consumers like watching content that is more personal and relatable. Thus, this is why individual vloggers that review in Filipino seem to have an affinity with the country’s market,” the company said in a press statement.

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Despite the high earnings these YouTubers get, new regulations by YouTube may change their earnings, as the company announced that any amount earned from US viewers through Youtube Premium, ad views, Super Chat, Super Stickers, and Channel membership will now be taxable. Creators may be taxable up to 24% of their total earnings if they aren’t able to submit their tax information to AdSense before May 31, 2021.

“That said, Filipino tech vloggers may not be as affected, especially for the individuals that review in the Filipino language. However, this doesn’t discount their Filipino-American audience. With this new rule in place, we will have to wait and see how much this will affect the country’s tech vloggers,” the company added.

The survey was conducted with manual shortlisting done by Nox Influncer, and data is collected based on the channel’s analytics shown on the metric platform SocialBlade. Rates are determined based on a low click-per-minute (CPM) value ($0.25 USD) and a high CPM value ($4.00 USD), numbers that were found to be common from their partners, and multiply them by the number of views the channel gets per day.

Singapore – Video advertising solutions Aniview has partnered with global cybersecurity company White Ops to protect its client’s ad inventory through White Ops’ ad verification feature.

Through the partnership, Aniview will integrate the White Ops Advertising Integrity solution to help optimize protection and ensure its customers’ safety from malicious and sophisticated cybersecurity risks. As a result, publishers and advertising networks have another avenue by which they can access White Ops protection for their inventory. 

Furthermore, Aniview and its customers can leverage White Ops’ privacy-sensitive detection technology to identify threats and automated fraud attempts, ensuring their advertising inventory can be trusted and fraud-free. This then allows Aniview to provide its clients an effective solution to identify and prevent malicious video-bot traffic. The partnership represents the next step in Aniview’s mission to provide verified traffic and protection against video ad fraud. 

“The most common types of video fraud occur when malicious fraudsters misrepresent their display units as video inventory in programmatic exchanges. These sophisticated bots are deployed through malware embedded in software, essentially performing device-hijacking on a mass, organized scale. With the significant dangers ad fraud poses to the video supply chain, safety has become an increasingly critical issue and, as such, dangers are being met with innovative solutions,” White Ops said in a press statement.

White Ops operates two key features for video advertisers to use: White Ops Advertising Integrity, where platforms can tap into comprehensive pre-bid prevention and post-bid detection capabilities to verify the validity of advertising efforts across all channels, and the White Ops Fraud Mitigation Platform, which spots and stop sophisticated bots and fraud by using technical evidence, continuous adaptation, machine learning, and threat intelligence. 

“We’re excited to join together with Aniview in the optimization of fraud-free video advertising solutions. This partnership strengthens our presence in digital video while providing easier access to our platform for publishers and networks. The more partners that we have in this fight, the bigger our knowledge base grows and the better we can optimize our tactics against potential new threats from bad actors,” said Ellie Windle, vice president, global strategic partnerships and alliances at White Ops.

Meanwhile, Roy Cohen, CTO of Aniview commented that the recent partnership with White Ops responds to the greater need for protection against ad fraud as online video content is booming.

“Working with White Ops and our internal fraud detection tools, we will develop greater application integrity by identifying and blocking bot traffic with the highest degree of accuracy and speed to stay ahead of adversaries,” Cohen added.

Singapore – Global creative agency AnalogFolk has announced its recent investment to Untold Fable, a newly-launched global content production company founded by entrepreneur Kate Tancred, who also serves as Untold Fable’s CEO.

AnalogFolk Group will become a majority shareholder of Untold Fable, and it will be running its specialist brands – AnalogFolk, Untold Fable and Serum (UK) – as stand-alone businesses.

Through the investment, Untold Fable will offer clients the added value of tapping into on-demand digital agency services from AnalogFolk. This joint offering is designed to provide one entry point for clients into the creativity and efficiencies of a tech-powered production offering and the strategic precision of on demand creative digital agency services.

Untold Fable was founded on a greater need for video and audio content across entertainment and advertising, to which the company aims to cater to by creating a platform that houses studios, sound designers, sound engineers, composers and voice talent from around the world, assisting brands with their audio identity while communicating with consumers via one of the fastest-growing ad formats in the world.

Furthermore, Untold Fable allows brands, publishers and agencies to also have the option to measure their diversity and inclusion (D&I) statistics across their productions throughout the year, empowering them to put the issue front and center by giving them the data when it comes time to commission talent. 

According to data from branding and design company IMPACT, 70% of consumers have shared a brand’s video, with 52% saying watching product videos makes them more confident in online purchase decisions. About 72% of businesses, meanwhile, stated video has improved their conversion rate. 

“It is the first community-based production model to be built with diversity at its heart, promising to ensure the makeup of the network reflects the world we live in as well as launching technology features that make connecting with traditionally underrepresented talent from the creative industry much more accessible to clients,” the company said in a press statement.

With the existing footprint of AnalogFolk globally, Untold Fable will offer clients on-the-ground teams in London, New York, Sydney, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Singapore from day one. 

“I spent the last 10 years driving the efficiencies and creativity of a tech powered production offering. Untold Fable expands on that model by connecting clients with a curated network of diverse, award-winning talent and layering over digital creative services from one of the most celebrated independent digital agencies in the world. Combining these offerings enables us to produce audio and video content in a way that the industry is yet to experience,” Tancred said.

Meanwhile, for AnalogFolk founder and chief client officer Bill Brock, their recent investment in Untold Fable speaks to the agency’s mission of using “digital to make the analog world better.”

“With the launch of Untold Fable, we not only diversify the group’s offering, we break exciting new ground on this enduring mission. We’re leveraging the power of technology to make it easier than ever before for brands and publishers to work with a more diverse talent pool,” Brock stated.

Hong Kong – Travel and leisure booking platform Klook officially unveils the newest feature on its app, an interactive livestream called Klook Live!.

While users on Klook have only been enticed of new food and travel offerings via images and text on the app, users will now be able to view up-close the offerings through interactive and instant video content on Klook Live!. 

The feature has been formally launched in August in five APAC markets Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines.

During this period, Klook released a series of hyper-localized content on Klook Live!, featuring offerings from food and dining to hotel staycation packages, where the five markets have reported a 4 times average uplift in conversion rates. This is compared to in-app conversion rates on an average day.

According to the brand’s data, in Thailand, a staycation surprise deal has been sold out in just eight minutes, while in Singapore, two out of three staycation bookings made within 24 hours were direct conversions as a result of the livestream. Both countries also experienced about a two times uplift in revenue compared to an average day. 

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a number of food and dining exclusive deals were snapped up in less than five minutes. 

With the new feature, the brand aims to introduce traveltainment, to which it refers to as a new form of immersive content that elevates users’ ways of discovering and booking both local and overseas hospitality offerings.

“The pandemic has made users even more critical and discerning when making a purchase. With Klook Live!, we enable users to gain a more authentic look at our offerings, as well as directly ask questions in real-time before buying,” said Marcus Yong, vice president of APAC marketing

“Our early success demonstrates that users are increasingly demanding a new way to discover things-to-do, starting from their backyard. It also signals that users prefer a more entertaining, social, and personalized customer experience,” added Yong. 

During the livestream on Klook Live!, customers can interact directly with merchants, express their feelings through emoji and polls, redeem exclusive promo codes and check-out; all while watching a live episode.

According to the company, Klook Live! is designed to cater to the region’s growing demand for online video content on mobile devices. It refers to a study by digital research brand eMarketer, that over 1.2 billion Asia-Pacific users consume video content on their mobile devices in 2019, and that this is expected to increase by over 75% to 1.6 billion by 2023. 

The company also looks to leverage the forecast that video content is expected to be a norm post-pandemic as people consume more video content. According to a study by market research firm Globalwebindex, Gen Z respondents said that they expect their increased levels of consumption of social media, videos, and streaming services to continue even after the outbreak. 

On the merchant side, Klook is confident that the new feature will aid vendors in targeting their audience reach which has proven trickier amid the pandemic. 

“With international travel restrictions in place, merchants require creative platforms to showcase their offerings to local audiences and encourage them to support local businesses that depend on tourism. With Klook Live!, merchants of all sizes can bridge that gap and build stronger connections with local users, boosting brand awareness and sales,” the company said in a press statement.

In the coming weeks, Klook Live! will be rolling out more content and products, including episodic programs to unveil a new local carnival in Taiwan and indoor recreational parks in Malaysia among others

Klook Live! can be accessed by downloading the Klook app on Google Play or the App Store.