Personalizing online videos

Lately, at Orange Juice, we've been heavily involved in the technology behind personalizing various elements in a video. This initiative began with a project for Ster, but we are now continuing it independently. Curious about our current progress and the developments you can expect? We'd love to share more about it. 

123 Media Blog

Ster and NPO Start

Orange Juice recently developed a web application for Ster in collaboration with the video production company NOBS. The goal of this project? To give smaller businesses the opportunity to advertise locally in pre-roll ads on NPO Start (formerly Uitzending Gemist). A pre-roll ad is a short video shown before the main program. 

To bring this idea to life, Ster conceived the following: a web application with video templates that can be personalized with a logo, images, and text. As a business owner, you choose a template, upload some files, and type the desired texts. The commercial is created online instantly. Then, you can precisely choose when the video will be shown. By targeting locally in relevant cities, the costs for the entrepreneur are kept low. 

Creating a pre-roll commercial becomes very easy this way. The web application provides a solution for entrepreneurs who do not have a large marketing budget but still want to advertise online. 

More than just pre-roll

For Ster, the web application serves a specific purpose: creating and rolling out pre-roll ads locally. However, we see more opportunities. Orange Juice aims to use video personalization for broader purposes. We are doing this with 123media.nl, an online platform for creating promotional videos. We are once again collaborating with NOBS. 

The target audience? Smaller businesses that do not have the budget to have a commercial made but still want to get started with video advertising. 

For 123media.nl, we are developing our own video templates, offering a varied range to suit every type of business. Content can be added to the template, which we then use to render the personalized video. In a short time, the MP4 file with the promotional video is ready. It can be freely used, with many possibilities for deploying the promotional film. 

The video can, for example, be used for the following applications: 

  • Publishing on the website 

  • Sharing on social media channels 

  • Publishing on YouTube and Vimeo 

  • Using as a ‘promoted video’ (video advertising) on platforms like Facebook and YouTube 

  • Using as a pre-roll (video advertising) on platforms like YouTube, Adwords, Uitzendinggemist.nl, Periscope, etc. 

  • Deploying as cinema advertising (local) 

  • Using as in-store video/narrowcasting 

  • Using in a waiting room or at a reception desk 

  • Including as extra content in an email newsletter, blog, or whitepaper 

  • Using as a promotional video in a recruitment campaign 

 

Web-based technology

Personalizing video content has been possible for some time, usually with offline software. There are also numerous apps available, but their capabilities are quite limited. For instance, you can select a few photos to create a video, resulting in a sort of slideshow. 

For 123media.nl, we are working on something new: online video personalization. The technology is entirely web-based. No software needs to be installed; all the actions for creating a promotional video are performed on the website. 

This is how the video editor works!

Developments

We are starting this project using the technology we developed for Ster, and we will build from there. Currently, the video templates can be personalized with a logo, images, and text. We aim to expand these possibilities further. Our goal is to personalize as many elements in a video as possible. The ability to choose the number of photos and the amount of text is the first on our list. Following that, options for selecting audio and colors... Eventually, we aim to add more advanced features, such as customizing a van shown in the video with a logo.