A Meltwater Case Study and Interview with Daniel Robey

Having just used ReMake to power a Meltwater social campaign, we sat down with ReMake Founder and CEO, Daniel Robey, to talk more about the ReMake platform, and how it’s putting the power of content versioning into the client’s hands. Read the full interview and watch our case study video below.

Eighteen months ago, after spending the best part of the last decade versioning, localizing and distributing assets all over the world for some of the biggest entertainment properties on the planet with his other company, Think Jam (whose clients include 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros, HBO, to name drop just a few), ReMake Founder & CEO, Daniel Robey, saw an opportunity to “automate and simplify the world of video content”. 

With an ever-growing client list keen to jump on Think Jam’s expertise, and “not enough time in the day”, Daniel, along with some of his company’s brightest tech experts, set about investing in and developing a “brutally simple” software solution that would enable brands and their teams to take any video and create (and deploy) multiple versions, in a matter of minutes. The result is, of course, ReMake. 

“... [versioning] video ads take longer, it takes more people, more time, more tech, more servers, more machines. We needed to start thinking about some clever ways to streamline and simplify that process to help the team. So, we started developing tools for ourselves that would allow us to change copy, centralise materials and sort assets, and [ultimately] speed up our business.” 

“We realised, with the changing world, it would be quite cool to turn this tool that we’re using into a software solution that clients can use, and actually put the power into their hands.”

Daniel is keen to emphasise ReMake’s “brutal simplicity”, a founding principle that informs every part of the business’ decision making, and the focus behind a “no experience necessary” platform that anyone can use, which significantly reduces the number of exchanges and steps video versioning would typically see - to quote, making the process “200x faster”, whilst cutting costs by “up to 70%”.

“Clients wanted to see more versions or alternatives to their content, and with video it’s a lot harder to just change the copy, render it out and send it across. So by putting the tool into the client’s hands, enables them to look, to play, to experiment; to change the copy, the messaging, the logos, if they want to, and saves them all of the cost, and all of the backwards and forwards.”  

What ReMake definitely isn’t, however, is a software “Swiss Army knife” - “we’re not over cooking what the platform does and what the process is. We want to ensure simplicity for our clients. It does a few things really well to make the lives of clients easier; changing the copy, changing the images, approving the content and deploying it.”

And it’s doing those “few things well” that ensures brand protection every step of the way - an irrefutable pipe dream for many creative directors, no doubt. By limiting the number of editable fields and keeping creative locked, ReMake allows teams to make their changes, without the worry of compromising on brand identity. 

“Brand control for us is phenomenally important; we know that an enormous amount of time and effort is spent on creating amazing ads, social content, TV spots, and so on. Creating versions of those ads, and creating versions of that content globally, and ensuring at the same time that the design, aesthetics, layout, styling, fonts, legal approval is all maintained, is one of the most important parts of our system [ReMake].” 

“We actually chose not to add lots of creative functionality to the system to protect the original creative.”

 Such a focus on brand protection is one that positions ReMake as the perfect solution for businesses who are producing vast amounts of video material on a global scale; where alternate versions are consistently required across multiple territories - something that applies to more than a handful of sectors and industries.

“We’ve been speaking to dozens of brands and different types of sectors in recent months, and we can see a number of industries that are really benefiting from what we offer; pharmaceutical, entertainment, consumer products, mobile phone providers, and tech companies… where packshots change, and versions change by country.”

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits ReMake offers businesses, however, is the opportunity to personalize (and optimize) their video content. With its simple-to-use functionality and UX, and aforementioned brand protection features, ReMake enables businesses to empower their teams, anywhere in the world, to localize and update messaging; ensuring it’s nuanced and that they’re talking to their local audience in the way they expect to be spoken to; a correlation Daniel draws with brand trust. 

“We see a lot of information that tells us that the customer doesn’t trust brands, which is unfortunate based on all the hard work brands are doing… Consumers are being targeted with more and more ads, and they are overwhelmed by that. The ones that are cutting through are the ones that are personalized… It’s actually cheaper for an advertiser to engage an audience with a personalized ad… So actually, everyone wins; the consumer’s happy, the advertiser’s happy, and people are getting a much more personal and targeted experience…” 

“There’s a lot of work to be done in the coming years, I think the key area of focus is going to be for retailers and ecommerce brands, where they can actually build up their trust and they can personalize their content at a much quicker rate.” 

 A final point Daniel is keen to make is that ReMake is proudly independent, and a platform that can fit seamlessly into your day-to-day workflow - with brutal simplicity, of course. 

“It’s important to note that… ReMake fits into any MarTech stack… we’re not replacing a media buyer, we’re not replacing a social media platform, we’re not replacing your entire management workflow, we’re just enhancing it. It’s a really cool feature that we can plug in to any tech stack, and power the versioning, whilst working with your current structure and set-up. Again, another focus for us is to keep people’s lives simple.” 

Listen to Daniel's interview in full here. 

Want to learn more about ReMake? Book your short demo with our customer success team today.