DPAA-sponsored feature. Exclusive interview with John Malec, CEO of Visible Spectrum (VSI), a new member of the Digital Place Based Advertising Association (DPAA). Founded in 2011, VSI provides a web-based cloud platform for creating custom, professional quality, HD video for any digital platform – Internet, TV, Digital Signage or Mobile. VSI’s platform uses data to create unlimited customizations of master creative with minimal manual input. With web-based tools and a seamless tie to a cloud of over 225 million stock assets, VSI’s intuitive use and professional tools enable easy and affordable creation of full motion vector graphics.
Mel Stott: Tell us a bit about Visible Spectrum’s business model.
John Malec: Visible Spectrum (“VSI”) provides a super-fast, low cost way to create professional quality HD videos for any digital format. The web-based platform supports all user types including small business owners, digital sign operators, ad agencies and huge enterprise customers.
VSI users create videos for their own benefit and/or for their clients and customers. Users select from over 1,000 artist-created, full motion templates or create their own template in minutes with a tool so easy to use it requires no special training. Templates are customized by dragging and dropping images, stock video clips, or assets the user uploads – into the template. In real time they view the composition as they create it.
VSI provides a seamless real-time link to a massive 250+ million stock assets sourced from most of the large stock providers on the web . . . enabling you to see any stock asset right in your composition before you purchase it. Stock assets are available, without mark-up, for a small, up-front one-time licensing fee.
VSI has announced a custom content subscription model for digital signage customers. For a low monthly cost of $25 per finished minute, one receives their choice from a menu of monthly content . . . customized to include their logo and custom messages automatically added via a form-based database the customer easily maintains online. New content is “pushed” to the customer each month without the need for manual input.
Enterprise users requiring a high volume of content may license the platform, reaping all the above benefits plus enterprise features such as account control, branding, project sharing, variable data video automation, ecommerce, and auto-delivery to their Content Management System.
John Malec, CEO of Visible Spectrum (VSI)
Have you worked with any digital place-based networks?
Yes, multiple digital place-based networks and DPAA members have licensed VSI’s platform, and most operated under their own branding.
Do you also work with advertising agencies?
Increasingly the ad world is moving toward targeted ads and hyper-local content. Manual production of the many versions of an ad now required takes time, costs a great deal of money, and requires lots of manual checking for brand compliance. This entire process can be automated via a license to VSI’s platform and use of our patent-pending Variable Data Video (VDV) automation. Using the platform, they can make hundreds of versions of a master creative theme, freeing up creative talent for other projects. Under a VSI License, the Licensee determines the price they charge their clients. Saving cost and time makes a license a win-win situation.
What are your targeting capabilities?
Targeting takes place in the distribution of media, typically done by Content Management Systems. However, to distribute targeted content one must first create all the many custom versions required. VSI’s VDV technology does this, and passes along Meta data via an API allowing automatic delivery of the right ad to the right location.
A very easy-to-use interface allows the user to direct any image or text layer in a creative project to be “filled” from a database as opposed to manually entered. This allows automatic substitution, for example, of individual dealer images or store-fronts for dealer or franchise purposes. The database powering the customization may be a spreadsheet created for this purpose, or an xml or html database such as an Associated Press feed, provided by a third party.
The association of the data structure to the template layers takes place once, in minutes. Then hundreds or tens of thousands of customized copies are automatically produced.
VDV insures brand compliant custom versions within existing budgets – without sacrificing production values. Video is created in minutes, customized automatically; and at a price point that’s a small fraction of manual production. Creating multiple targeted messages, where before you could only afford to create one, dramatically increases the power of marketing messages.
Can you walk us through the process of how a company would create a video by using Visible Spectrum’s platform?
Much of VSI’s business comes through licensing the platform or subscribing to monthly content feeds. But, we also provide three options for ad hoc custom video creation without ongoing obligation:
1. Create My Own:
User selects a designer template or creates a template using the built-in template maker. Step two is customizing template layers by typing text and dragging and dropping uploaded visual assets or finding them via the media browser. The built-in content editor includes the ability to select font type, adjust size, color and spacing; and depending on the template, position, customize placement and set transitions of images and video clips. The media browser gives users access to 250+ million third party images, video clips and audio mp3s. Without leaving the platform, the user searches and selects assets . . . trying as many as they like and viewing them in the actual composition before checking out. All templates allow for up to two audio tracks. The key VSI patent is allowing the user to view all of this “as a video” in real time, without having to first render a video file. What you see is always what you get (“WYSIWYG”); and, after an initial run-through, it typically takes well under one hour to complete a video. Cost is $39 paid by credit card.
2. Quick Ads:
If one is willing to sacrifice a small degree of flexibility in output, he or she may simply enter their business name and zip code and have VSI’s system auto create most of an ad, leaving areas where the users may “tweak” the ad by adding custom text or image replacement. Using business name and zip code, the system finds your business name, address, URL, phone, etc. It classifies your type of business (so that it may pre-populate the ad with, for example, furniture images if you are a furniture store), and automatically scrapes your logo and other web images for use in the ad. The user selects from among choices on style, length, and color – then instantly sees a custom ad magically created. Icons provide areas when you may tweak images or text. The result is a professional quality, full video ad with turnaround in minutes and a price of $49 paid by credit card.
3. Use VSI Artists:
The third way to use VSI is an online project submission to our designers. The users provide contact information and some basic information about their video needs. Our designers then create a custom video for the user, with a preview available within 24 hours. The user can even tweak the ad using our platform as well as update it and use it over and over again, as desired. Cost is $159 paid by credit card.
What prompted you to join the DPAA?
The DPAA exists to maximize the advertising value of digital screens placed outside the home. Each of these screens is individually targetable, with playlists able to respond by time of day or to external conditions. However, to maximize the value of what is now billions of dollars in DPB infrastructure, targeted and hyper-local content must be able to be created quickly and affordably. VSI exists to fulfill the role of fast, low cost creation of custom content which, nonetheless, provides the highest industry standards of production value. The DPAA fosters collaboration between agencies and digital place based networks; promoting the effectiveness of digital place based advertising. As such, we must be part of the many conversations that are occurring.
Visible Spectrum breaks down time and cost barriers to utilizing targeted and hyper-local content, enabling more effective ads and higher CPM’s for network operators.