Five Ways Technology Can Drive Content Velocity

As part of Adobe’s Expe­ri­ence Fes­ti­val event, I spoke about the ways tech­nol­o­gy can be har­nessed to devel­op con­tent quick­er and more strate­gi­cal­ly. You might think of con­tent cre­ation as a rel­a­tive­ly cre­ative endeav­our, and of course imag­i­na­tion and emo­tion­al intel­li­gence will always be key to pro­duc­ing impact­ful and mem­o­rable cus­tomer com­mu­ni­ca­tion. But nowa­days it’s just as impor­tant to deliv­er con­tent that can be per­son­alised to indi­vid­ual cus­tomers, and adapt­able across dif­fer­ent chan­nels and devices. In order for brands to be suc­cess­ful, they need to com­bine the art of con­tent with the sci­ence of data. They need to deliv­er cus­tomer expe­ri­ences based on data and insights at scale, to get to the right peo­ple at the right time with the right mes­sage. This rais­es the bar – and increas­es the work­load – for con­tent creators.

That’s why we’re see­ing a pro­lif­er­a­tion of tech­nol­o­gy designed to help con­tent cre­ators mod­i­fy and iter­ate at-speed, to deliv­er con­tent that cre­ates an excel­lent cus­tomer expe­ri­ence with­out exhaust­ing their resources or divert­ing their atten­tion from their core capa­bil­i­ties. Here are the five areas where I’m see­ing the excit­ing poten­tial of tech­nol­o­gy in the con­tent cre­ation space:

1. Tag­ging

When it comes to Dig­i­tal Asset Man­age­ment (DAM), one of the biggest headaches for cre­ators is dif­fi­cul­ty in find­ing assets. If files aren’t stored in a log­i­cal and con­sis­tent man­ner, DAM por­tals quick­ly become a grave­yard for assets. That’s why smart tag­ging – the abil­i­ty to auto­mat­i­cal­ly tag assets based on object recog­ni­tion – is so exciting.

For exam­ple, Adobe’s own Expe­ri­ence Cloud uses Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI) to intel­li­gent­ly sug­gest tag key­word based on the objects it per­ceives with­in an asset. It can also auto­mat­i­cal­ly trans­late these key­words into oth­er lan­guages, which helps main­tain tag­ging con­sis­ten­cy across geo­gra­phies. Smart tag­ging, pow­ered by Adobe Sen­sei, saves time in man­u­al entry, but it also helps cre­ators locate assets quick­ly and eas­i­ly, which is essen­tial to con­tent velocity.

2. Image Manip­u­la­tion and Cropping

It can take a lot of man­u­al effort to adjust the dimen­sions and res­o­lu­tion of images to suit the mul­ti­tude of dif­fer­ent devices that are impor­tant for con­nect­ing with today’s cus­tomer. How­ev­er, smart crop­ping is help­ing sim­pli­fy the process. With­in the Expe­ri­ence Cloud plat­form, smart crop works by using AI to detect the image’s focal point and auto­mat­i­cal­ly crop­ping around it. Not only does this elim­i­nate hours of work­load, it allows con­tent cre­ators to focus their ener­gy on their core com­pe­tence: cre­at­ing cap­ti­vat­ing content.

3. Imag­ing and video resizing

Once again, cre­ative teams spend a lot of time and ener­gy resiz­ing images and videos for use across dif­fer­ent devices. This is all the more impor­tant for mobile, where heavy for­mats can reduce load-time and dam­age the over­all expe­ri­ence. How­ev­er, con­tent cre­ators can now look to smart resiz­ing tech­nol­o­gy to alle­vi­ate this workload.

The Cre­ative Cloud’s own smart resiz­ing fea­ture can auto­mat­i­cal­ly adjust file size in line with avail­able band­width, reduc­ing size by up to 70% with­out com­pro­mis­ing visu­al fideli­ty. This con­tributes to quick-load­ing expe­ri­ences that dri­ve conversions.

4. Report­ing

Report­ing is per­haps not the most excit­ing tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ty in the domain of con­tent cre­ation, but it is cer­tain­ly one of the most impor­tant. Good con­tent man­age­ment isn’t just about pro­duc­ing great assets, it’s also about cre­at­ing con­tent that’s tai­lored to delight spe­cif­ic audi­ences, and under­stand­ing whether or not this is the case. That’s why the lat­est DAM solu­tions track per­for­mance and usage in addi­tion to stor­ing assets. This helps cre­ators deter­mine ROI (return on invest­ment) on their assets and devel­op more com­pelling con­tent over time.

5. Dis­tri­b­u­tion

Anoth­er impor­tant aspect of con­tent man­age­ment is the abil­i­ty to share assets effi­cient­ly with those who need them most, like part­ners, agen­cies or cre­ative pro­fes­sion­als. Through Adobe Expe­ri­ence Man­ag­er, third-par­ties can access assets via a brand­ed self-ser­vice por­tal via a login mech­a­nism. Brands also have the abil­i­ty to man­age the licens­es of assets on this plat­form, as well as down­loads and inter­ac­tions with assets. Effi­cient dis­tri­b­u­tion of assets is yet anoth­er way to bring agili­ty to the process of con­tent gen­er­a­tion, and get expe­ri­ences online faster.

The abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate and mod­i­fy con­tent quick­ly allows brands to keep their com­mu­ni­ca­tion per­son­alised, adapt­ing swift­ly as a cus­tomer pro­gress­es along the fun­nel. Con­tent veloc­i­ty is not just about improv­ing expe­ri­ences and dri­ving sales – it can also help brands get their prod­ucts to mar­ket quick­er, and cap­i­talise swift­ly on busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties. Using Adobe Expe­ri­ence Man­ag­er, Tumi, an inter­na­tion­al lug­gage and bag man­u­fac­tur­er, has been able launch prod­ucts to mar­ket up to four weeks faster, whilst cut­ting the time to prep and post dig­i­tal images by us much as 40%. The best brands under­stand the impor­tance of a nim­ble and strate­gic con­tent func­tion, and they are look­ing to tech­nol­o­gy to help them achieve it. Luck­i­ly tech­nol­o­gy is evolv­ing rapid­ly in this space, and there are many excit­ing capa­bil­i­ties already on the mar­ket today that can help brands make this happen.

You can lis­ten to the full pre­sen­ta­tion here.