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Dell: The Business Case for Captioning Corporate Video Content

At the 2013 Streaming Media West conference, Dell Technologies spoke on the power of captioning corporate video content, specifically marketing and product education videos. Dell’s approach to video captioning is a testament to the business for adding closed captions to corporate media and spans benefits like increased search engine optimization, greater web accessibility, and improved video viewing experience for audiences.

The Benefits of Captioning Videos (According to Dell)

Equal Access

The major benefit of captioning is that it makes videos accessible to more people.

Compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act was Dell’s main driver for captioning in the first place. Section 508 is a part of US federal disability law in that specifies requirements for making digital products, services, and communications fully accessible to people with disabilities.

For video, that means adding closed captions and transcripts to make them accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing users.

One in five Americans over the age of 12 experiences hearing loss significant enough to interfere with daily communication. That means that without captions, Dell would be excluding 20% of their potential audience. Captioning product videos is the obvious choice.

[Free eBook] 8 Benefits of Captioning Online Video

Search Engine Optimization

When Dell’s goal is to drive traffic to its site, search engine optimization is key.

Closed captions and transcripts make videos searchable — by users and by search engines.

Google can’t watch video, so there is no way for it to detect all of the great keywords contained therein — unless you provide the speech in a format that search bots can read, like HTML5 captions.

User Experience and Engagement

Dell has found that they can play multiple videos in their lobbies and offices with the sound off, and people can still follow captions to see what the video is saying.

Clearly, that’s a better user experience than having multiple audio tracks play at once, or having display videos muted without captions.

Video content is an integral aspect of Dell’s marketing communications strategy. They utilize video to educate people about its products and use it as a successful training tool for customers.

Why Dell Streamlined Captioning in the Production Process

When Dell began captioning their video content, it quickly learned that captioning should be included in the production workflow to ensure the process was sustainable.

When Dell considered the how the captioning process would fit into their production, they paid close attention to several. For instance, they knew that sharp audio quality helps get more accurate captions, so Dell invested in quality microphones and recording equipment to ensure that speech sounded clear. They also realized that their product experts who presented in their videos sometimes had thick accents, and therefore wanted captions to help capture their words accurately.

Dell concluded that it was most efficient to streamline captioning and translation into their budget and production process. By doing so, they could address these important factors in pre-production to ensure the final product provided the best user experience.

Advanced Workflows for Captioning

The Results of Captioning (And Why It’s Worth It)

According to Dell, the benefits of closed captioning corporate video content far outweigh the costs.

Bill McCarty, Manager of Corporate Multimedia at Dell Software Group (at the time of the presentation) said, “It’s hard to find a good reason not to caption, to be quite honest with you. It is such a minimal cost, especially compared with […] high-end video production or even mid-range video production. It is just something that is very easy to build into a budget.”

That’s the word on the business case for closed captioning, according to Dell Technologies. Now, who’s ready to follow Dell’s lead and reap the benefits of captioning?

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