Personalization Comes to Video Content

Have you ever seen that chair you just looked at online pop up in your Instagram feed? Or been welcomed at your hotel with your favorite newspaper and preferred type of pillow? If so, chances are you’ve experienced the rising trend of personalization firsthand.

More and more industries – from retail to hospitality to digital entertainment – are leveraging insights from big data and machine learning to provide offers, products and experiences that are tailored and relevant to the individual. And research indicates that this type of personalization can be incredibly powerful for businesses. According to McKinsey and Associates, personalization reduces acquisition costs as much as 50%, lifts revenues by 5-15%, and increases the efficiency of marketing spend by 10-30%.

Personalization can also be incredibly powerful in learning. Personalized learning – or tailoring the learning experience to the needs of each individual learner – has been tied to achievement growth and improved performances. Additionally, a recent study byBrandon Hall Group found that:

• 90% of companies agree that personalized learning supports continuous development, and
• 93% of companies agree that personalized learning helps employees reach their goals more efficiently.

In our own experience, we’ve found that personalizing learning is the key to building content and programs that engage and motivate learners. (You can see more about how our platform personalizes learning here.) That’s why we’re so pleased to see this week’s news from one of our video partners, Kaltura.

Kaltura just announced its acquisition of Rapt Media – a tool that personalizes video content by allowing users to interact with video content choose what’s relevant to them.

“What happens when viewers are invited to participate and make active choices, and the content is more relevant to them, is that they become invested. And when they’re invested, they’re more likely to retain the meaning of the content they consume.”  – Erica Troutman, Rapt Media founder and CEO

With a tool that’s traditionally very static (rather than interactive), this new capability that can respond to the individual viewer will be a revelation. And, with more than 73% of companies already leveraging video as part of their training mix, the ability to personalize video content, and in turn deliver more engaging, effective training, could have a significant impact on L&D.

Over the next few weeks and months, we’ll be evaluating how Kaltura’s enhanced ability to personalize videos might improve our client’s content – the videos already in use within our platform and those still in the queue for development. We’ll also be developing strategies to help new customers transition their existing videos into this new “personalized” format and think through the impact of video branching on the way we make recommendations and provide hints.

In the meantime, read about our other video partner, onQ, learn more about how Fulcrum Labs currently approaches video creation, the business impacts of personalized learning, or the importance of “self-directed” learning opportunities. Or, as always, contact us directly to set up a demo of our platform.