{"id":22390,"date":"2021-07-19T16:13:43","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T16:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eight_visual_experience_trends_from_roundtables_with_emea_brand_leaders"},"modified":"2024-06-03T12:40:20","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T19:40:20","slug":"eight_visual_experience_trends_from_roundtables_with_emea_brand_leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cloudinary.com\/blog\/eight_visual_experience_trends_from_roundtables_with_emea_brand_leaders","title":{"rendered":"Eight Visual-Experience Trends From Roundtables With EMEA Brand Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers had high expectations for digital experiences. They now expect nothing less than seamless, intuitive, and engaging experiences regardless of the channel or platform they are on. The Cloudinary product team is well aware that meeting those expectations has created new challenges for retailers and brands, especially those that relied on in-store sales before the pandemic. To understand the challenges so we can better solve them, we recently worked with Meet the Boss<\/a>, a business-collaboration partner, to host three virtual roundtables with brand leaders.<\/p>\n

In each session, a member of the Cloudinary product team joined marketers from EMEA for brainstorming. We asked participants how they had been leveraging visual-media assets to improve storytelling, build relationships, and drive sales. The challenges and success stories they described were fascinating. In the words of Cloudinary\u2019s product marketing lead Prajanma Singh, who joined the Meet the Boss roundtable on June 25, it was \u201cabsolutely amazing\u201d to see how quickly companies had adapted to the unprecedented circumstances and to hear about the creativity that was born.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at eight common threads that emerged from the sessions.<\/p>\n

1. We Are More Alike Than Different<\/h4>\n

Companies represented at our three Meet the Boss panels included a high-end U.K. fashion brand, a global department store, a food-and-beverage corporation, a gaming company, an Indian footwear leader, and a home-design company. Yet, despite differences in verticals, company size, and location, their marketers shared many identical experiences. Multiple panelists observed that it was comforting to hear that their peers had faced similar challenges and that they\u2019d solved them in the same way.<\/p>\n

2. Creating Immersive Online Experiences Is a Balancing Act<\/h4>\n

Many marketers leveraged bigger images and more videos to drive conversions and create online experiences that rival in-store shopping, but challenges abounded. More media can compromise site performance, and consumers will leave a site if a page is slow to load. Furthermore, Google now factors page performance into SEO ranking<\/a>, penalizing sites for slow-loading pages.\nOur Cloudinary teammates explained how Cloudinary automotes media optimization<\/a> for faster performance, enabling brands to deliver outstanding visual experiences without sacrificing load time.<\/p>\n

3. In-House Content Production Benefits From DAM (Digital Asset Management) Solutions<\/h4>\n

During the pandemic, companies needed more content than ever before. Creating it was challenging, especially during lockdowns when it was impossible to get teams in the same room for photo shoots. Even though several organizations, including a gaming company, a fashion retailer, and a leading food-and-beverage corporation, built in-house content studios, they still needed to rely on production partners. Counting on multiple content sources, however, often led to long lead times and process inefficiencies.<\/p>\n

Notably, at one of the sessions, Ran Rubinstein, Cloudinary\u2019s VP of solutions, pointed out that many companies are struggling to streamline the \u201cvisual-media supply chain.\u201d In fact, more and more organizations are turning to a centralized, cloud-based Digital Asset Management (DAM) platform<\/a> to boost agility, simplify processes, and improve media quality.<\/p>\n

4. New Restraints Breed Unbridled Creativity<\/h4>\n

Without exception, our panel marketers were proud of the way in which their teams had solved tough problems during the pandemic. A few unearthed cost-effective strategies that they might not have tried otherwise. For example:<\/p>\n