This month, Demand Metric released a Brightcove-sponsored report on interactive video, with participation from our interactive video partners and customers. This report offers a high-level overview of the current definitions, adoption, applications, and effectiveness of interactive video. The following blog post from one of the participating partners shares deeper insight into topics discussed in the report.
Interactive video has been typically thought of, and most often used, as a consumer-facing tool. More and more media, retail, and entertainment brands are turning to interactive content as a means of driving engagement with digitally savvy consumers who are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with static, one-size-fits-all content that doesn’t speak to their unique needs or interests.
And interactive content has turned out to be an incredibly effective strategy for reaching consumers by creating a customizable and relevant experience and for driving both meaningful engagement and actionable insights.
But in addition to reaching consumer audiences, businesses are taking note of the use of interactive video to drive e-learning.
A New Tool for Businesses
Driving better engagement and e-learning/customer training are the top two applications or use cases for interactive video, according to a recent Brightcove-sponsored Demand Metric report on the adoption, applications, and effectiveness of interactive video. This points to a larger trend in content engagement and opens the door wider for interactive content use cases.
Interactivity is becoming a key determinant of media consumption, especially as choice has become fundamental to how we interact with nearly all content today. Consumers expect to be able to touch, swipe, and tap to make choices with content — a trend that has only accelerated with the growth of mobile and “anytime, anywhere” content. In fact, our recent research found that 64 percent of consumers are more likely to spend more time watching video if they’re given the option to interact with it.
One of the top benefits of interactive content is that it offers businesses the ability to become storytellers with the power to draw viewers into participating in their content experience. When audiences interact with content, not only does it drive engagement, it also allows viewers to better retain information. This trend is now transforming the way both B2B and B2C businesses approach e-learning and training videos. Businesses across all industries are recognizing that interaction is the key to e-learning by boosting information comprehension and retention.
Streamlining HR Training
Through applying interactive content technology, HR departments are able to reinvent outdated corporate training, ethics, and compliance videos, giving their audiences the ability to click to explore content and work through different scenarios.
The result? Businesses are able to simultaneously reduce the amount of HR staff required for training, while boosting the retention rates of training content. It’s now possible to present information to viewers based on their specific situation or level of knowledge. In the case of employee education, it’s also easy to integrate interactive videos with backend HR systems to track employee compliance and training progress.
This capability is important when it comes to connecting with an increasingly digital-focused society, and this technology means that companies are now able to communicate complex information to workforces and other audiences through content that can be tailored to specific users.
A great example of this can be seen with the Learning Care Group, a company that effectively used interactive video to educate its current employees and new hires on the Affordable Care Act. The Learning Care Group was able to create a customized experience for over 16,000 employees, and saw a 50 percent reduction rate in training hours which saved valuable resources while boosting both productivity and retention.
Powering E-learning
Businesses are also using interactive content for e-learning and training videos for customers, through how-to videos and video tutorials designed to educate and turn viewers into engaged, loyal consumers and brand advocates. People largely prefer this video format for retaining information — with 60 percent of people preferring to watch video over reading text — and it’s leading to dramatically increased video marketing effectiveness.
This example is even more important with the growing millennial population. This demographic, which makes up a growing percentage of both today’s consumer base and corporate workforce, views nearly twice as much video as other generations. Digital media was a larger part of millennial’s formative years and education, and, as a result, they process information differently and expect to be able to interact with content in ways previous generations couldn't.
The ability to interact, explore, customize, and ultimately determine or influence the outcome of a storyline is more natural for millennials, and it’s an invaluable learning and training tool for modern brands and organizations. Interactive content not only provides deeper learning and retention but also provides organizations with a great way to gain insight into their audience’s values and decision-making process at the same time.
The content landscape is one that’s constantly changing, and more and more brands and businesses are paying attention to what really matters: engagement and retention. Whether it’s consumers interacting with brands or business interacting with their employees, choice is what is powering meaningful learning, and we’re only going to see interactive content grow from here.
Erika Trautman is the CEO and co-founder of Rapt Media, a creative platform for interactive enterprise video that drives deeper engagement and enables marketers to measure viewer metrics, gaining powerful audience insights. Click here to view the “Power of Choice” report, Rapt Media’s recent online consumer behavior study.
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