The first two posts of this series focused on the origin and technology behind CoreMedia Content Cloud. In this post, I want to analyze the strategic business benefits of sophisticated content and experience management for global brands. Because when combined, these can have a major impact on a brand’s ability to compete effectively.

I’ll cover the following five competitive advantages that CoreMedia Content Cloud offers:

1. Lower costs through higher efficiency

2. Faster turnaround through automation

3. Greater agility

4. Higher quality and consistency

5. The power to differentiate

Lower Costs Through Higher Efficiency

As with most advanced technologies, CoreMedia Content Cloud drives efficiencies by automating (or partially automating) repetitive tasks. For example, instead of having to create dozens of different versions of each image for various devices, aspect ratios, and image resolutions, marketers can manage just one . With a single click in CoreMedia Studio, they can adjust all crops for all aspect sizes. This all happens completely behind the scenes and can be fully automated with an algorithm. It works like magic.

The same is true for combining text and images to create banners for different channels and regions. Instead of forcing photo editors do these tasks manually, CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers marketers to do it themselves in a single step.

The cost savings here are huge. Some of our clients had dedicated teams just to edit images and banners. Others were paying high monthly fees to digital agencies to handle these tasks. With CoreMedia Content Cloud, they’ve found a much more economical way.

Consider the challenge for global brands. For each additional language, marketers must create another full set of banners with translated texts. Many of our customers localize their services and offer up to 30 different languages, so instead of perhaps 50 different files per banner it’s more like 1,500. Plus with any change of any text, a new round of editing in Photoshop is needed. It’s just not efficient.

With CoreMedia Content Cloud, the entire translation process and the creation of each translated banner can be fully automated. So the cost savings for just this one feature are already significant. And there are many more.

Faster Turnaround Through Automation

Automation has more benefits than just cost savings. Brands are under constant time pressure, so minimizing the gap between initial idea and global roll-out is critical. An ability to move faster frees up resources and enables organizations to achieve more in less time. It also increases the pressure on the competition.

The previous use case of rolling out a new banner across hundreds of countries, in dozens of languages, and optimized for many different touchpoints is a good illustration of this benefit. Because creating a thousand variations of a single banner in Photoshop isn’t just expensive, it’s extremely time consuming. Even if a photo editor could partially automate their work and edit 100 images an hour, it would still mean something like 15 hours of uninterrupted work. And when there are changes, the whole arduous process would have to start from scratch. This is completely impractical for most companies.

Compare that with CoreMedia Content Cloud, which is designed for the fastest turnaround times. It actually shrinks the whole process down to just seconds. Whenever an image, crop, text or translation is changed, all variations of the banner are updated instantly and displayed live within the preview pane.

Greater Agility

Faster turnaround times provide another powerful benefit for brands: it enables them to become more agile. In a world defined by the increasing rate of change, agility is the key to survival.

CoreMedia Content Cloud enables brands to experiment and iterate at a much faster pace, leading to deeper insights and a more effective overall strategy.

But there’s more to agility than just speed; it also provides greater freedom, because it’s not useful to learn quickly if you’re stuck in a straitjacket. CoreMedia Content Cloud is a strategic platform for global brands because it empowers them to adjust their strategy freely to achieve results faster.

In other words, CoreMedia Content Cloud opens up more options to brands and empowers them to be much more competitive. That matters.

Higher Quality and Greater Consistency

The ability to maintain higher quality without incurring higher costs is a key strategic advantage. Because brands need to maintain consistency of their messaging and imagery across the entire customer journey; they need to make sure content is fresh and relevant for each customer; and they need to create beautiful and compelling experiences. This requires mastery of many different aspects in a complex global setting.

CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers brands to improve customer experiences via smart automation and supporting processes. Instead of managing multiple image files (and therefore increasing the likelihood of mistakes), CoreMedia Content Cloud generates them automatically as needed. Instead of relying on Excel files and manual processes to manage translations, CoreMedia Content Cloud automates the process and provides robust tools to manage translations every step of the way.

By establishing CoreMedia Content Cloud as the system of record for any type of content on any channel, it becomes easier for brands to maintain consistency across the entire customer journey: mobile apps offer the same micro-experiences as in-store terminals; digital signage is consistent with online campaigns; outdoor advertisements are in sync with printed materials and mobile stores; customer self-care portals provide the same content and experience as call centers and stores.

The upshot is that CoreMedia Content Cloud enables brands to meaningfully increase the quality, relevance, and consistency of their content across all touchpoints at global scale.

The Power to Differentiate

One of the most powerful competitive advantages is a superior customer experience. In fact, this is something that has become mission critical for all brands. In the words of Alex Alexander, former CIO of the Yoox Net-a-Porter Group and now CIO of The Emirates Group, “It’s all about the experience.”

But providing a compelling customer experience requires brands to innovate in entirely new ways. This means brands need the power to be able to experiment and learn fast. So commerce or marketing platforms that don’t empower marketers to do this are limiting a brand’s future.

CoreMedia Content Cloud does exactly this: it empowers brands and marketers instead of restricting them. It gives them the ability to achieve more, faster, with fewer resources and with a higher return. It enables innovation.

The Goal: To Be Iconic

Because the ultimate goal for a brand is to tell a powerful story that resonates around the world. Nike and Apple have achieved this to an astounding degree. Their storytelling skills allow customers to experience their message wherever and whenever they interact with it. It’s amazingly powerful.

Global brands will always need to create their own powerful stories. But the capability to tell it consistently and in compelling ways is now within the reach of every company – with the right tools. CoreMedia Content Cloud empowers marketers to do things that previously were nearly impossible without massive resources. It enables brands to stand out. It ensures the highest quality customer experience, and it guarantees consistency across all channels. It facilitates creativity and allows for constant innovation.

CoreMedia Content Cloud enables brands to be iconic.

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