What just happened?
On July 1st, the portfolio of Vidispine and Arvato Systems Broadcast Solutions united under “Vidispine” as a re-launched go-to-market brand. Sounds sensible, but what does that actually mean? Why, why now, what is a go-to-market brand, and what does it all mean for me? Let’s try to answer some of those questions.
Since Vidispine was acquired by Arvato Systems, we’ve being increasingly integrated in terms of technology and operations, but the two brands have continued to go to market as separate entities with parallel marketing and account management activities. In fact, we started integrating from a technological point of view before the acquisition in 2017. Just before NAB 2019 – around March last year – we started preparing to launch some new technology that had been developed together and was to be applied across the whole portfolio – Vidispine, VPMS and BMS as it was – our intelligence layer for applying artificial intelligence and cognitive services in the content supply chain. We’ve been sharing other technology in a number of places too you’ll start to see more and more of that.
Of course, there are plenty of examples out there where common platforms and technologies are shared between brands – car manufacturers like the Volkswagen Audi Group come to mind – but in that case, their brands are targeted at different demographics, in our case that’s not true. Unifying the portfolios under one, go-to-market brand was the only logical and natural step.
You may also wonder why we decided to make the change now, during a global pandemic. Following on from the discussions started in March 2019, we started to evaluate our go-to-market options and put some plans together. To make such changes more than a superficial makeover takes some preparation but we set a goal of IBC 2020, planned for September, as our first public appearance under the new brand. We already had some exciting announcement planned for IBC, so as not to distract from that, we settled on July as our “launch window”. As you may also have seen, we were the first exhibitor to publicly withdraw from IBC his year and, naturally, with IBC planned as the first big opportunity to meet the “new” Vidispine, we had to consider the brand and portfolio project in that decision. However, now more than ever, without the opportunity to sit down, in person, and go through all the nuances of how two separately branded portfolios come together, it is critical to make clear to our customers, current and future, how we can support them to address their challenges. We could not delay!
But what is a “go-to-market” brand?
A go-to-market brand reflects the innovative strength of a company and its’ expertise in specific industries. It represents a global message and vision targeted at a specific audience – in our case that’s organizations who make money from video (and other media), such as broadcasters, or people who use video to support their business. As a large, global organisation, Arvato Systems has a number of different legal entities, and a go-to-market brand doesn’t change any of that – if you’re a customer or partner, the contracts or invoices you receive from us won’t change.
So what does this all mean for you?
If you’re an existing customers, there will be very little change – we will still strive to offer the best solutions and services on the market. There will be no changes to how you receive support or the project teams you work with. Obviously, with the portfolio coming together, and some product names changing, they may some visual differences in future software updates and potentially some changes to things like release numbering as we bring that in line. Since we have already integrated our technologies and, for example, our enterprise media asset management customers can take advantage of scale-out media services with VidiNet – the rebrand doesn’t change that, but it should make it much clearer as to which portfolio elements now fit together and where.
As a customer, partner or developer on our platform, you’ll know that we invest a lot in our community with regular user group events and this is something we want to focus on going forward too. Unfortunately we won’t hold any “in person” events this year, but activities that support our community of users, developers and partners form a significant part of our plans going forward.
If you’re just a casual observer, a new or potential customer or a partner coming to us for the first time, it’s a little bit different. These changes will make it a much easier portfolio to understand and explore. Of course it also means a single contact point.
Questions?
If you still have more questions, check out the FAQ, or use the details below to get in touch and one of the team will get straight back to you.
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