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Rapt Media, an interactive video company, just raised a $3.1 million Series B round led by Boulder Ventures. The Boulder-based company has developed video branching technology that gives viewers interactive control over videos. CEO Erika Trautman said she sees broad applications for the interactive video technology including use in education and entertainment, but it’s best use so far is for marketing.
“The majority of our customers use it for marketing purposes. It's really to drive business results,” said Trautman. “Really smart brands and organizations know that course they need video, but its not enough to stop there. The viewers expect more.”
And that is where Rapt differentiates itself. Interactive video engages viewers much more than its passive predecessor. Rapt cites a case study of its electric razor advertising campaign with Phillips. The video allowed viewers to select five different facial hairstyles for the video’s main character, then whichever they selected seamlessly took them through different storylines.
Compared to a typical video advertising campaign the results were quite impressive. For the Phillips campaign, the average mobile interactive video viewing time exceeded four minutes and the average user interacted with the video three to four times.
Moreover, “Phillips found that there were some beard choices that were really popular with certain demos. And they got info on what resonated and what fashion was trending,” said Trautman.
Much in the same way tracking clicks on a website helps marketers determine the intentions of users, tracking the route a user chooses within a video implies a lot of information. Marketers can splice the audience down by their chosen path and learn which demographics respond better to different storylines. Over time, videos can be honed into stories that lead to more sales.
"We’re able to identify the click path that was most likely to lead to conversion," said Trautman. “We are able to parse the difference between popularity and sales. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes they are different. But that has been really difficult to differentiate with typical video analytics.”
Part of that ability to segment users and sales leads comes with a new partnership Rapt has formed with Eloqua, a marketing automation software company. Eloqua’s software will help track user behavior and prioritize any leads that come from the videos. In addition to buttons that route viewers to different story lines, videos can be integrated with pictures and information submission forms.
Above: an inContact campaign run with Rapt Media's interactive video technology
As far as producing interactive videos Trautman said it requires a different mindset. “We went through this evolution when the Internet started. Early-on when companies went online they said, 'Let’s put our brochure up with links.’” Interactive video is going through a similar evolution. “The medium spans from a television-like spot with just a button all the way at the bottom to the Pharrell Williams 24-hour interactive ‘Happy’ video.”
Rapt Media sees itself somewhere in between. The technology is all built on HTML5 so it’s native to the web and works across devices. It also is built to be easy to implement and scale. All traits Trautman said she believes will be key to the company’s success.
Rapt Media will use its $3.1 million funding round to expand its presence in New York and Los Angeles, so that the company will be closer to major agencies, brands and production companies. The company is just under 30 employees currently and has plans to grow over the next year. The latest round brings Rapt Media’s total funding to $7.4 million.
