MarTech Interview with Christopher Bo Shields, Co-Founder at Binumi Pro

Tell us about your role and the team you handle at Binumi Pro.

I am the co-founder and Chief Creative Office at Binumi Pro. Having started my career in AV engineering, I have led video production agencies for 20 years then launched Binumi Pro with my partner Alex Hughes. My first love was theatre and that’s how I first started down this path.

What is Binumi Pro, and how does it help users create engaging content?

Using the cameras in smartphones, Binumi Pro enables users to shoot and deliver professional on-brand content at a fraction of the cost of traditional video production.

After over 20 years in the event filming and production business, we noticed that clients were increasingly asking us to integrate their self-shot smartphone footage into videos. We knew that the tech in smartphone cameras was able to deliver footage close to as high quality as professional video kit, but with the added opportunity of capturing the moment in a way never previously possible.

With stabilisation, better lighting and professional editing, using the cloud to share video between clients and our editors, we came up with the idea of putting video production, as well as being able to share the content instantly, into the hands of the people most suited to creating that content – the client.

We are seeing a rising fear among most companies about the need to secure their WebOps infrastructure. How does BinumiPro help alleviate such fears?

Our App was first aimed at blue chips, so data security was incredibly important and we sell the proposition on that basis. Binumi Pro is an ISO27001 certified company. The certification reflects the fact that in addition to offering comprehensive levels of client administration and designated user access, the App and platform have undergone rigorous internal and external security controls and processes.

What kind of IT infrastructure does one need to best utilize BinumiPro?

Binumi Pro is tech agnostic. It’s a native App and a web App and it works across all operating systems. It’s plug and play, straight out of the box. There are three elements: a Storytelling Kit that enables anyone to shoot handheld smartphone videos to a professional standard. An App to capture and upload footage to the cloud-based sharing platform. And lastly, a fast-turnaround in-house professional editing team turns footage into brand-compliant, finished videos in hours rather than days.

We have seen a remarkable rise in the number of CMS platforms in the last 5 years. Yet, most are lacking seamless integration with video tech platforms. How does BinumiPro enable web/app publishers to improve their CMS integrity with a Video tech model?

We have launched an AI-powered content management system named The Reef.

This is a simple video ecosystem where users can create, collaborate and curate their content securely.

Features of The Reef include AI-powered automatic transcribing of audio tracks, plus facial recognition software that provides information on where a person is featured across a business’s videos. The Reef features custom permission levels, smart indexing, and sharing, to enable users to control how they distribute, reiterate and localize content.

How can User Generated Content that are produced on smartphones be taken to the standard of professional video?

 Three things about user-generated content that are great: it can be relevant and timely – providing the immediacy of grabbing the moment; it provides the ability to provide a reaction; and it provides a feeling of authenticity. But there are three ways in which UGC can let you down: stability, light and sound.

So, always try to be as stable as you can when shooting footage; control as far as possible your shooting environment; light your subject well; and elevate the audio production to get better quality sound.

COVID-19 is disrupting every business. Yet, publishers are fairly deep-rooted with their strategies to continue delivering content.

Tell us how you build resilience and enforce digital adoption at all steps of Marketing, Sales and Support using Video tools?

COVID-19 has meant that the world has been filled with video over the last eight weeks, as everyone has turned to it as a way of communicating. That’s why it’s important to be able to create premium content so that companies can rise above average video production values. We like to think of ourselves as offering a Netflix level service, while the world is filled with cable TV standard content!

What should companies aim to achieve and deliver in the next 8-9 months?

They need to be creating a program of content that creates its own audience, not just releasing things and hoping for the best. Everything has changed, so you have to change everything that you are currently doing. Everyone has to think about themselves as  a TV channel. Think about things like personalization, tailored content, marketing segmentation and programmatic.

How can tech help brands and event organizers to gain cut-through as they are forced to take events online and go virtual?

Brands and event organizers need to find new ways of interacting with audiences – a highly engaging virtual event can generate a much greater ROI than a simple one-sided webcast. While many are getting used to live Q&As, chat functions and screen-sharing, there are more engaging and accessible audience interaction features to consider, including online voting, AI-powered closed captioning or subtitles, and the ability to split attendees into breakout streams.

Tag a person from the industry whose answers you want to see here:

Anthony Copping, Founder/CEO of Binumi, our sister company.

Binumi is the DIY version of our Pro product, and they’re doing great things in supporting the education sector while Covid-19 affects schools.

Thank you, Christopher! That was fun and hope to see you back on MarTech Series soon.