When we launched our inaugural State of Visual Media four years ago, we did so in part to better understand how brands were harnessing the power of visual media. We were seeing successes first hand across our customer and user base but the report would offer a data-first view into which trends were truly bubbling to the top and which might be waning.
To say that a lot has changed since that first report would be an understatement. We saw a pandemic that brought about big shifts including an accelerated demand for all things video and a related explosion of video-centric social channels like TikTok and Instagram Reels. We’ve also seen an emergence of next-gen technologies and approaches, like MACH, that help companies deliver the fast and flawless digital experiences today’s consumers expect. Developer and digital marketing tools once viewed as nice-to-haves are now critical for success.
For this year’s report, our data science team analyzed more than 219 billion transactions per month generated by 375 of the world’s top brands across 13 vertical industries.
As the appetite for visual media continues to grow, so too do our expectations around online experience. As consumers, we have come to expect fast and flawless images and videos whether we’re consuming the news or shopping online, and we’ll abandon a site if it's not living up to our expectations.
The big question for brands is this: will the breakneck pace of visual media’s growth be a business catalyst or tech bottleneck? The glaring conclusion from our study is that brands must look to automation to harness visual media’s power as a catalyst. And those that do are reaping a wide range of benefits.
Let’s start with revenue. Brands like Dune London report bringing new products to online markets faster by using automation to manage the entire visual media lifecycle on an ‘epic scale.’ This keeps customers engaged and coming back for more, leading to higher conversion rates, and healthier profit margins.
Another notable automation-related gain, brands using automation are reaping productivity and efficiency gains. A crucial piece of this is freeing up scarce and valuable IT and creative talent in a tight and competitive labor market. Brands are also slashing IT resources like cloud storage, lowering their costs, and carbon footprints. A top international sports apparel brand featured in this report was able to reduce bandwidth consumption by 40% from 6.8 TB per day to 4.05 TB per day. Annualized, this was equivalent to taking more than 400 gas-powered cars from the road!
The report also takes a look at how what Gartner calls the ‘no normal’ economy is impacting brands and why they must be nimble enough to act and react, fast., how social networks peak and trough, how global influencers can instigate massive viral buying trends, and how Millennials and Gen Z shoppers rely on video-first when making buying decisions. It also highlights leading brands like Paul Smith, which decided that they couldn’t afford to be locked into inflexible technology and migrated to a composable MACH architecture. A move that has helped the iconic fashion brand see big gains including a dramatic rise in online video-related sales.
We believe this year’s State of Visual Media Report will help anyone looking to fine-tune their web strategy to ensure that visual media is a catalyst for growth, not a bottleneck. In these turbulent economic times, ensuring that you’re driving internal efficiencies at a reduced cost while also supporting a faster-go-market is a win-win for any brand looking to build successful connections with today’s digitally savvy consumer.
