• The Consumer
• Less data is used to deliver streamed creative assets; firstly the whole ad file is not downloaded to the consumers divide; once the creative is in-view we begin streaming 2-4 seconds of video at a time, if the consumer watches half the video only around half of the total creative file is transferred to the consumer’s device. If the consumer scrolls straight past the ad then little data is transferred.
• The Website
• Publishers websites have to load a substantial amount of data when loading a page, this is exacerbated by the advertising they carry - streamed ads from SeenThis only transfer data when the creative is in-view therefore our ads do not disproportionately impact page-load times. Oftentimes a streamed video creative can be less impactful on page load than a static creative due to file sizes; SeenThis uses adaptive bitrate and as such we deliver smaller data packets sequentially so many small data packets rather than one large data packet, this lessens the overall data that needs to laid for a publisher page to be rendered fully for a consumer.
• The Brand
• Brands are able to deliver high quality video creatives into Display as never before; without compressing and lowering the quality of the creatives brands are able to match the fidelity of the ads with the origins; creative or TVC to ensure brand guidelines are never compromised to make a creative small enough to to be delivered in-App or open-web; generally every media performance KPI increases with streaming due to the speed with which streaming is able to deliver a creative to a consumer - as is widely known & reported, blank ad slots do not drive consumer engagement - streaming guarantees every video ad will start playing as soon as it is in-view. Brands also enjoy the data-saving generated by streaming versus download-tech video activations, and often reference the data they have saved in their own Case Studies, proving their own commitment to lowering the CO2e footprint for video & Outcome-based buying activations.
• The Agency
• Agencies are able to activate streamed video creatives via their programmatic teams, or directly with publishers. Our technology is tag-based so it does not impact buying methodologies leveraged by all agencies. Agencies are also able to deploy their extensive technology & experience in audience targeting with streamed videos, rather than outsource them to a video ad network where they can not control where, when, and to whom ads are shown; returning the sovereignty of video activations back to agencies is seen by many as a great use case on its own for working with SeenThis.
• The Environment
• Our technology is used by many of our clients as their own initiative to lower their overall emissions position; SeenThis measures data transfer at a very granular level, we provide dashboards for estimated savings for our clients and encourage them to use our data (exported and ingested by their measurement platforms) to enable them to define their own CO2e emissions to their own standards & measurement guidelines.

1. Can you share some of the key strategies you have implemented to grow world-class technology organizations over your 25+ year career?

A few key principles critical to highly successful technology organizations include:

• An unwavering focus on technology as a means for solving real-world business problems.
• Understanding that people and processes matter more than technology. Technology solutions must work for people and make their experience better, easier, and more efficient; allowing them to focus on their work rather than the technology. A technically brilliant solution will otherwise fail.
• Ensuring flexibility with the ability to constantly evolve and bring new and different technologies into the fold – paired with a constant eye on and a measured, thoughtful approach to emerging technology.
• Constant, ongoing development of technology assets and capabilities that can be leveraged to make future efforts faster and more efficient ¬– modular, capabilities, components and systems that can be reused and recombined.
• Speed to market is critical. Get something into market that solves a core problem or provides a key benefit quickly, then iterate and refine. 

Two core strategies that VShift employs to help clients break through their go-to-market issues, which arise directly from these principles, are:

a. Decoupling: Clients typically struggle to get digital experiences launched quickly – or at all. Companies are commonly organized in diverse functional groups, while their legacy technology is monolithic, often provided by a single third-party vendor that is aligned to the needs of only one of those groups – typically the IT team. Decoupling the user experience layer from “as-a-service” platform components has been effective at providing product, marketing, and customer-facing digital team members with autonomy over the creating and managing the experience. These experiences can be launched and updated with minimal dependencies on shared services groups while still adhering to the needs and guidelines of IT and compliance groups, all without the vendor “lock-in” that is typical of monolithic technologies.

b. Accelerator Kits: Composable, modular solutions can be difficult to understand, can seem complex or unapproachable, and are difficult for non-technical, often skeptical, stakeholders to envision. VShift has leveraged our extensive experience to develop and utilize pre-built digital experience accelerators comprised of fully implemented frameworks, technologies, and components. These accelerators provide a means for aligning all the diverse team members and allow full feature digital products to be delivered in a third or less of the time and effort of a more traditional, “legacy” approach.

2. How does the VShift AEM Digital Experience Accelerator expedite website project timelines compared to traditional methods?

Teams looking to utilize AEM headless capabilities to realize the advantages of a decoupled, composable architecture are often overwhelmed by their expectation of the required effort and investment. They assume that the adoption of a headless AEM digital experience will take the same amount of time (or more) than it took to originally implement the Adobe stack. 
The Accelerator shifts control to the business stakeholder and away from the vendor or systems integrator allowing the business to progressively adopt the new model without having to wait for upgrades, new software purchases or lengthy engagements. Once the scope is set, the Accelerator allows projects to progress far more quickly via a ready-to-deploy composable solution stack with prebuilt components, workflow, and integrations, ready at kick-off. The Accelerator gives teams a massive “head start” placing them far closer to the finish line by the time they complete the first or second sprint.

3. Can you explain the historical development of the AEM Digital Experience Accelerator and its integration with Adobe’s Universal Editor?

AEM has historically been called out by “MACH-native,” composable technology providers as a prime example of a monolithic, rigid technology stack that requires a significant, ongoing investment in specialized vendor certified consultants. This situation, in our view, is changing as Adobe continues to focus on expanding and enhancing headless capabilities. The AEM Digital Experience Accelerator was born out of our experience leveraging these growing capabilities in a way that maximizes the benefits while reducing vendor “lock-in” and bringing best of breed technologies, frameworks, and solution components into the mix. 
The AEM Universal Editor is a good example Adobe’s focus on headless and the growing suite of supporting capabilities. The Universal Editor provides an efficient, intuitive interface for managing content while at the same time allowing for reduced vendor “lock-in” via flexible content integration capabilities. VShift is continually evolving and enhancing the Accelerator to take advantage of these capabilities as they become available. 

4. Why might organizations choose to use a visual content editor interface, and what benefits does it offer?

Organizations tend to choose a visual content editor “add-on” to a composable content management system based on the experiences and preferences of their product owners and content management teams. If they have historically used an advanced WYSIWYG CMS interface, they will want to retain comparable features that a visual editor can provide including drag and drop content creation and live editing and previewing. A visual editor paired with a well-structured content model offers the best of both worlds – users focused on layout and page construction will typically prefer the visual editor whereas those focused on content creation and management, especially for multi-platform, multi-channel use, will often prefer the more structured, streamlined content editing interface.

5. How does the AEM Digital Experience Accelerator ensure compliance and security in highly regulated environments such as financial services and healthcare?

Companies in financial services, healthcare and other regulated industry sectors have historically purchased and implemented Adobe technologies. We have developed the Accelerator with an understanding and focus on the type of security and compliance requirements common in these sectors. The Accelerator, implemented with connectivity to legacy content sources, allows for enhanced capabilities for content versioning, workflow, and business rules. As part of any engagement, we work closely with clients to ensure a thorough understanding of their compliance and security needs. 

6. What advice would you give to organizations looking to adopt emerging technologies to stay competitive in their industry?

My advice is to start and end with a business sponsor and the organization’s business goals. Far too often, emerging technology programs are relegated to a lab or to an IT team not well aligned to what the market is looking for. It is critical to focus initially on projects that can be delivered to market quickly with meaningful impact to demonstrate viability and real-world benefits, and to build support and consensus. Having a program sponsor, a budget, and the right type of project with measurable objectives, in our experience, is the best ways of ensuring success.

1. Welcome, Anders. What factors do you consider most critical when developing business models for tech and SaaS solutions in the media industry?

First and foremost, the unit you’re being paid for (e.g. CPM), and weighing it up against the risks involved. The alternative model would be an unlimited licence for a defined period that does not shift with volume. 

The former model - i.e. paying for ads or cloud services based on CPM - has vast potential to deliver in terms of revenue but represents arguably greater risk, because it is susceptible to varying usage and seasonality. 

The latter option, which we tend to favour, is the more typical SaaS licence model. It is a far lower-risk approach but revenue growth depends on being able to attract new customers. There is a trade-off to be made and this will always require striking the right balance specific to your company or brand.

2. What are the main challenges you face in product development for SaaS solutions in the media industry?

If only it were possible to distil this into a few - there are just so many. 

However, to be successful in our industry, the principle we come back to at every turn is to remain focused on solving for one part of the client project at a time. If we try to address all the issues at once, we will end up not fixing any of them - our efforts and intentions would just get diluted to a point where there is no meaningful progress.  

In terms of product development, first we need to ask ourselves what one problem we are attempting to solve, and second, whether our product represents a valid solution. Brand Metrics has been around since 2018, and we are proud to be continually iterating, and successfully fixing one really significant problem.

3. Do you sell your services differently to large media companies and entrepreneurial ventures? 

Most of the time there does not need to be a significant shift in approach from our side. We value working with both types of client, and fundamentally we know that we can help either to make money by leveraging the brand uplift data we provide. Smaller ventures usually have less budget available, but equally, they tend to require less time input to implement our solutions. 

4. How do you approach building and managing international sales teams?

The complexity of the product we are offering means successful teams need in-depth industry knowledge, advanced sales skills and a strong existing network. Our clients and prospects are innovative and progressive, and we are able to offer nuanced data solutions that deliver actionable insights to a wide variety of businesses.

Our sales team needs to be fully equipped with the experience to build these partnerships. We also need to build teams based on the geographical spread and evolution of our business, so while we're operational globally, we have regional sales representation in a number of markets and rising. 

5. How do you foster collaboration between sales and product development teams?

It’s inevitable to see some friction between these teams. After all, while the product team wants the sales team to sell what has been built, the sales team wants the product team to build what has been sold. 

To overcome this, the sales team needs to have a degree of flexibility in their prospecting conversations, and the product team needs to be agile enough to deliver against the long-term road map. Therefore, it is important to make sure there's mutual understanding of one another’s perspectives - and a recognition that the different perspectives that come with these different roles is what makes a top-class tech solution possible. 

Regular meeting time and interactions are key to building this rapport and harnessing these collaborations.

6. What trends do you see shaping the future of tech and SaaS solutions in the media industry?

There is always some trend or other that we fixate on, that gradually becomes embedded in our working lives, or not, before the furore dies down. So we need to be conscious not to overcommit our efforts or resources, but adapt to them as we go. 

If there is one long-term trend, I would say it is improved quality. While we are not yet at the point where every ad dollar spent is maximised in terms of what it can do for the advertiser, we are getting there. Advertising is becoming more and more effective. 

In contrast, one trend which fails to materialise in many ways is the effective use of data, especially when it comes to targeting. There are too many instances of working with the wrong data or optimisation strategies, and ending up with the wrong outcomes, which therefore are not delivering brand uplift. An example of this is using data to optimise for clicks, which, without meaningful evaluation of the brand uplift, or lack thereof, results time and again in wasted impressions and ad spend. 

Our product is predicated on the belief that you need to employ this type of evaluation - that brand uplift is a key metric to ensure data is being used to inform advertising practice and deliver ROI. And the more you use it, the more you learn what is working - and what is not.

1. What does your role as Senior Education Manager at Boulevard involve?