For as long as they’ve existed, the media and entertainment industries have been about telling stories through a growing number of mediums. However, no matter the focus—news, sports, fashion, health, music, or film—the stories rely heavily on visuals to convey nuances. Today, visual experiences are driving the economy.

The experience economy evolved from the 1990s, when the product-focused economy shifted to one that centered the customer experience. When the mid 2000s ushered in a digital-first emphasis, high-quality visuals became the key driving factor of brand success.

In the times ahead, the only brands that will thrive will be those that deliver exceptional visual experiences that are fast, highly relevant, and consistent in quality. To that end, many brands must reassess their content-management workflow and related technologies.

As digital advertising trends, so too, does the content

To establish a solid foundation for building effective ad campaigns, brands must evaluate their processes for creating and maintaining visual assets, as well as the feasibility of personalizing the viewer experience at all touchpoints. In particular:

• Content creation and management, which starts with sourcing the content, whether it be from photoshoots, a catalog of product imagery, previous campaigns, or even user-generated content (UGC) on social media. Related management tasks include versioning, organizing, and maintaining one source of truth for all users who work with the content.
• Experience personalization and delivery, which refers to the requirement of generating variations for the contexts in which consumers will interact with the content: video, display, search, and social. It is essential to transform visual assets for fast performance and optimize them for delivery to all browsers or viewing devices. Subsequent to delivery, brands must measure and analyze the results as a basis for developing iterations or adjustments to boost conversions.

Managing visual media requires intentionality with technology

A mandatory layer of a brand’s tech stack is one for managing visuals—to handle the sheer volume of assets required for an outstanding user experience and expedite the delivery of these assets to all touchpoints. Such a task being humanly impossible, automation is the clear path forward.

Before brands adopt a cloud-based media solution—one that seamlessly integrates into their tech stack—they must ensure that the solution is purpose-built for rich media and that it does the following:

• Supports lightweight, cutting-edge, and emerging formats like augmented reality (AR), 3D, and 360-degree display.
• Provides flexibility through an API-first approach paired with prebuilt applications that cater to both developers and marketers.
• Fosters even the most ambitious omnichannel strategies with content-aware and industry-specific intelligence.
• Automates all stages of the visual media lifecycle, smartly powering efficient workflows and high-performance delivery.

Many of today’s largest brands in media and entertainment count on Cloudinary as their difference-maker in the visual economy. As an essential and scalable layer for the technology stack, the Cloudinary media experience platform enables brands to unleash the full potential of their visual assets. It can do the same for you, too.

For tips on how to evaluate your tech stack for success, click here.

—Sanjay Sarathy, Vice President of Developer Experience, Cloudinary