63 HAPPENING Future Of Video Summit
IMAGEN LOOKS
Imagen’s Future Of Video Summit in London offered an easy breakfast and hard looks at the future
ast month, video library specialist Imagen held its Future of Video Summit at London’s OXO Tower, in a venue with a spectacular
represents online influencers, now part of the Endemol Shine Group. Chivers shared his experience of going from YouTuber fan to YouTuber partner, meeting a gamer he had been following for Call Of Duty tips at E3. The young YouTuber needed to meet people and Chivers decided to help. Seven years later the agency manages dozens of top influencers. Chivers outlined the power a lot of online influencers have. With a pre-curated, loyal audience, they become especially useful to brands and advertisers looking for an enthusiastic, digital active audience. If it wasn’t clear already, Chivers made it clear that the online video space is now the first and best platform for content providers. His clients are sometimes offered jobs solely on linear TV. They’re frequent response is: “What would I want to be on TV for?” FEED editor Neal Romanek closed the talks with a provocative presentation on “Rescuing the customer relationship”. Romanek said that the raft of new technologies employed by video content owners need to be used with the end viewer in mind. In particular, customer privacy, an improved advertising model and new standards around AI and algorithms need to be addressed if media companies are to avoid a customer backlash, which could cost them subscribers, or result in greater government controls. A white paper covering come of the material in Romanek’s talk can be found at the Imagen website (www.imagen.com). A portion of the white paper was published in the February 2019 issue of FEED . A panel discussion followed which covered topics as diverse as GDPR and how media companies should deal with issues around online terrorist content, like the attack livestreamed by the terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand.
view of The Thames. A packed house from across the UK media industry enjoyed networking, breakfast and hot drinks in the two-hour media tech confab. Imagen’s specialty is large-scale content management systems for video businesses. It offers tools for b2b browser- based viewing and distribution of content with clients that have included major online media companies, industry and film archives. In common with a growing number of conferences like these, Imagen was happy to play the corporate host, but tried to leave its sales pitches at the door, giving the floor to three invited speakers who delivered presentations on unfolding trends in the video sector. After a short introduction by Imagen CEO Charlie Horrell, Mark Harrison of the DPP (Digital Production Partnership) took the stage to present what has become his annual ritual of media tech industry analysis and forecast. The DPP is a trade body representing the major UK broadcasters and their vendors and Harrison’s annual report is based on polling from that group on what trends are important each year, and a fascinating look at how trends have developed over previous years. This year the theme that floated to the top of Harrison’s presentation – and was a topic brought up in every presentation in the morning – was partnership. It’s becoming clear to broadcasters that
HOST WITH THE MOST\ Imagen was the brains behind the summit, but sales pitches were ditched in favour of engaging speakers
business goals can’t be accomplished in a vacuum. The age of the self-made man (or company) is over. Long-term collaborations among multiple stakeholders will be the way forward for businesses that want to thrive – or even just survive – in the rapidly changing landscape of video content production and delivery. The second speaker was Liam Chivers, founder of OP Talent, a talent agency that
THE AGE OF THE SELF-MADEMAN (ORCOMPANY) ISOVER
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