Case Study: Meeting the Enterprise Video Distribution Challenge

"We had approximately 80% of our employees in Canada view nearly 100% of that video," Jensen says. "That’s unheard of. That’s ridiculous. And the reason was that there was a little novelty to it. It was well-produced. It was interesting and important information, and it came to them when they didn’t have to go get it. And I think that’s huge. This system works because the user doesn’t have to do anything."

What’s more, the solution gave Cushman & Wakefield peace of mind. The firm is using it inside the enterprise, so the content it delivers is totally secure at every phase from publishing to targeting, delivery, receipt, and use. The content can even be deleted from each machine with a time stamp.

The solution works by requiring recipients to initially install a piece of software on their computers and by using encryption keys, without which the recipient would not be allowed to view the content. Because of this, there is no threat of unauthorized content viewing, duplicating, or altering.

Jim Janicki, Ignite’s CEO, points to the content’s trackability as another key feature of the solution. Clients such as Cushman & Wakefield can track every delivery, every play event, everything that happens to that content. This is, of course, important from a compliance perspective. In addition, Jensen likes knowing who still needs to view a piece of content and whether his company’s video messages are effective. For example, if reports indicate that everyone watched a piece of content except you or that you watched only half of it, management can send you a reminder to view the content in its entirety.

Reconnecting the Branches
So far, Cushman & Wakefield’s employees have responded favorably to the video messages. They like seeing the CEOs and other management face to face and express disbelief when told that the production and delivery is accomplished by just one person. But it’s true; it takes just one "communications dude," as Jensen calls himself, to produce and target content with Ignite’s solution.

Employees are also clamoring to get in on the action. More and more departments are requesting to utilize Ignite to send out their own content. Cushman & Wakefield currently has one camera stationed in New York, two in Dallas, and a Go Pack camera that the company can send wherever it’s needed around the globe. Offices in Asia Pacific and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa occasionally send Jensen content to target as well.

In the Dallas office, Jensen himself has pioneered the use of Ignite on a local scale for feel-good morale boosting. In this office, where Jensen is based, the solution has been used to distribute video of activities in which the branch has been involved. For example, branch members took a camera with them when they went to the VFW airport to meet the troops coming home from Iraq. Then, they put together a video synopsis of the event and targeted it to the Dallas office "to give everybody a feel good," Jensen says. And again, the reach was tremendous. "We have 105 employees in this branch. We reached 103 of them with the video. And of those, 96 of the people watched the video."

Supply and Demand
The company’s intranet was another area in need of an Ignite-like solution. Prior to using Ignite, Cushman & Wakefield had wanted to put on-demand content on its intranet. Jensen says, "We thought it would be great to put video on our intranet. Well it’s not, because if too many people go to it, it bogs down the system." The Ignite solution allows the firm to have an on-demand channel, which is channeled through Ignite's service lines, that employees can go to.

But Cushman & Wakefield’s primary use of CWTV is for senior management messages delivered globally—or at least, that’s the plan. Currently, it has total reach in the U.S. and Canada and significant reach in Asia Pacific. In January, the firm will be expanding to all of EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia). "By that time we’ll be able to do a lot more global messaging. That will also allow us one compatible system in all our computers around the globe, which is another major challenge for a company like ours. That’s the IT challenge."

The Future
In Ignite’s newest release, the company is offering a customizable interface by building a complete API layer on the software, and Cushman & Wakefield will be one of the first clients. Also in the works are plans to roll out the solution to the firm’s customers and vendors. To this end, Cushman & Wakefield is working with Ignite to come up with a way to best reach some of the firm’s client base with the solution. The hurdle is that clients would have to download a piece of software. The firm is thinking of working on a soft delivery, having a small group of clients download software that won’t remain on their machines.

Jensen is pleased with what Ignite’s solution has done for Cushman & Wakefield communications. He targets videos a few times a month and encourages branches to use it to their advantage, but he knows that its conservative use will keep it effective. Just like email, he says, "if you overuse a system in ways that people are not going to be able to respond to, then you’re going to lessen the impact. But if you do it smartly and with well-produced messaging, the numbers are going to be much higher than any other form of delivering the message to employees."