Last updated on June 15th, 2024
Ajay Bam is the CEO and Co-founder at Vyrill, a multi-purpose, AI-based video searching tool which seeks to be the Google for video. They are currently is reaching out to small investors about their WeFunder campaign.
GUEST: Ajay Bam of Vyrill | WeFunder Campaign | Vyrill MetaData | LinkedIn
HOSTS: The VidAction Podcast is hosted by:
– Dane Golden of VidAction.tv and VidTarget.io | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube
– Renee Teeley of VideoExplained and ReneeTeeley.com | LinkedIn | Twitter |
Instagram | YouTube
SPONSORS: This episode is brought to you by our affiliate partners, including: TubeBuddy, VidIQ, MorningFame, Rev.com, and other products and services we recommend.
PRODUCER: Jason Perrier of Phizzy Studios
TRANSCRIPT
Ajay Bam:
The first thing we do is we find the video. We find the different kinds of video for that product. So it’s, for example, in beauty cosmetic industry reviews are important, unboxing videos are very important, how to videos are very important. So we’re actually able to find all these videos from social media, and then after we find them, we then actually analyze the video in eight dimensions for a sentiment, topic, scene, demographic, diversity, brand safety, keywords, trends, and topics, right? So we offer the most powerful in-video search that there is.
Dane Golden:
It’s time for the VidAction Podcast. This is the podcast where we help marketers and business owners just like you get more value out of your video marketing efforts. My name is Dane golden from VidAction.tv, where we help you up your game on YouTube for business and transform your viewers into loyal customers. And my other business is VidTarget.io, where we help you get higher return on your YouTube ad spend with targeted YouTube video placement lists. And for you the listener you should know as always, you can follow along on your podcast app with the transcript and links and hey, send us a message on Twitter let us know how you like the show.
Dane Golden:
And today we have a special guest. It’s Ajay Bam. Welcome Ajay.
Ajay Bam:
Thank you. Thanks Dane. Thanks for having me.
Dane Golden:
I think I said it wrong. It’s Ajay Bam.
Ajay Bam:
You’re almost there. You got it.
Dane Golden:
Okay. So we want what we want to make sure in this podcast that everyone can look up the products and people we talk about and so I spell out names a lot. Your name is spelled A-J-A-Y B-A-M, is that right?
Ajay Bam:
Correct.
Dane Golden:
Okay. So we’re going to be talking about your great product today and that also has a special spelling. It’s Vyrill, am I saying it right?
Ajay Bam:
That’s right. it’s a play on the word viral marketing, Vyrill.
Dane Golden:
How is it spelled?
Ajay Bam:
It’s V-Y-R-I-L-L. So there’s two l’s at the end.
Dane Golden:
Okay. V-Y-R-I-L-L. And so we asked you on the VidAction Podcast today, because Vyrill is a multi-purpose, this is my definition you tell me if I’m wrong, it’s a multi-purpose video searching tool and I’ve got a lot of questions about it. Is this good, did I get it right? Is that what it is?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So Vyrill in a nutshell is Google for video, focusing on videos like reviews, unboxing videos, how to videos, essentially videos that customers watch to make their shopping decisions. And Vyrill is also one of the very companies in the world that can Google inside the video as well to enable insights and video commerce.
Dane Golden:
Even when I talked to my producer of this podcast, Jason Perrier, he goes, “Oh, that sounds interesting. I can’t wait to hear it.” So he’s going to be editing this later on. So he’s looking forward to it as well. Now let me make sure I understand, companies can search for mentions across YouTube and social media to understand essentially both what people are saying about them and then you can track in a tracker campaign. Am I going in the right direction?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So let me just share with you what we do. So essentially what Vyrill has done is we have trained machines to watch millions of videos on social media platforms and also on your smartphones, to help brands and retailers find authentic video content such as reviews, unboxing videos, how to videos and more that they can leverage for insights, a demand gen and content marketing.
Ajay Bam:
So essentially what Vyrill does is we’re able to help brands and retailers find authentic video reviews that customers are posting about their favorite product and brand on social media. Or we can also help brands and retailers capture videos as well, reviews and more at scale from their customers. And then we analyze the video once it’s captured. So first thing we do is we match videos to products, and that’s really one of our core strengths is we’re able to match millions of videos on YouTube to the entire L’Oreal product catalog, or the-
Dane Golden:
Let me ask you to stop there, and also that’s a lot of information so I’m asking you to go a little bit slower because this is really great and I don’t want people to miss it. So when you say you’re googling inside videos, let’s start first talk about what types of platforms, there’s so many. We focus mostly on YouTube, but we dabble in all the other video platforms as Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Vidyard, what are you looking through?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah, so currently we’re looking through YouTube. YouTube is number one, it’s one of the most mature of all the platforms. And also we find that a lot of video reviews for products are actually well featured and documented on YouTube. And then we also just integrated with Dropbox. So now we can read any video in any file folder for a Dropbox account. So it lets us capture videos outside social media as well.
Dane Golden:
Okay. So YouTube and Dropbox are your main platforms right now?
Ajay Bam:
Correct. And then we’re adding of course, Instagram, Facebook. And then we also consider a creative platform such as Vimeo, Vistairs or Clipchamps of the world as well, for the integration as well. So we can also capture videos directly from creative platforms as well.
Dane Golden:
So this is, I probably get my terms wrong, but machine learning AI and I do a search, let’s say I’m a large cosmetics company and I want to look and find mentions a single product. What I’m hearing you say is that I have a search for that, and this system will maybe find a list of the videos and maybe even go into those videos and show me where it’s mentioned.
Ajay Bam:
That’s right. So we offer the best. The first thing we do is we find the video. We find the different kinds of video for that product. So generally, for example, in beauty cosmetic industry reviews are important, unboxing videos are very important, how to videos are very important. So we’re actually able to find all these videos from social media. And then after we find them, we then actually analyze the video in eight dimensions for a sentiment, topic, scene, demographic, diversity, brand safety, keywords trends, and topics, right? So we offer the most powerful in-video search that there is for searching through massive amounts of video content on the platform.
Ajay Bam:
So you can literally, if you’re searching for a review featuring a 19 year old female talking about red lipstick color and talking about the clean beauty ingredients in the product, we can help you find that review if there is one. So we actually go inside the video and if you’re looking for an answer, so let’s say you’re buying a beauty product and you’re interested in a particular ingredient or a color, we can just help you search inside the video, or we can help you search inside a collection of videos and give you the answer what you’re looking for. And we can just take your directly inside the video where that’s happening.
Dane Golden:
And are you looking for text or are you looking for images? Are you looking for both?
Ajay Bam:
Great question. So we do all three.
Dane Golden:
Wow.
Ajay Bam:
So again, we analyze text for sentiment, topic, keyword. We analyze audio, to understand sound, music, speech, silence, and noise. And then we analyze images for brand safety. So we look at nudity, we look at minors inside the video. So we’re actually able to flag the video for brand safety and then we also look at foreign language as well. And we’re also using computer vision for analyzing all the images for scene analysis as well. So for example, again, and give you-
Dane Golden:
Let me stop you, did you say you’re using computer vision? Is that what the word you used?
Ajay Bam:
Yes, that’s right.
Dane Golden:
What is that?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. Computer vision essentially is a mechanism to understand an image or a set of images. A video is usually a million images, so analyze, understand the images inside the video and contextualize that in the context of commerce. And so computer vision itself is simply analyzing, looking at all the images and understanding what’s actually happening inside the image.
Dane Golden:
So for instance, you might be able to say, “Well, client from 21 seconds to 25 seconds, your logo showed on the screen in X video?”
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So we’re able to, what’s important is not just the logo, but we’re actually, for commerce what’s very important is to find all the video content by product, category, brand, or competitor. So we’re actually able to find all this content at product level by product. And the reason we’re doing that is we then help brands understand the best of reviews for that product or the worst of reviews that people have posted about the product. And then they can also use the platform to boost that content, to drive further engagement on social media. So essentially we’re surfacing the best of the content by product, essentially.
Dane Golden:
So you could tell if, not only is the product mentioned, but you could tell if it was a lipstick, or an eyeliner that was mentioned because you’re seeing the image.
Ajay Bam:
That’s correct. Correct. And then you can also search through the videos as well.
Dane Golden:
That’s astounding, that’s really astounding. I’ve heard and seen little glimpses of this, but I had no idea that anyone was going into this step. That’s really astounding.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah, it is. And these are some very difficult AI [crosstalk 00:11:11] problems and which is why it’s taken us actually two and a half years to build this. These are very difficult challenges.
Dane Golden:
Holy cow. So let me ask this question, I’ve seen little dribs and drabs of what hooks that Google AI can put in some of these videos. I assume that you’re based in some way on that platform and that’s involved in it in some way.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. Essentially the difference between us and YouTube is that YouTube actually is, it’s primarily an ad platform. So usually YouTube puts an ad in front of the video. We actually analyze what’s inside the video. And that’s really the big difference, is with Vyrill you can go deep with, for example, with a vertical on YouTube and we can help you find, analyze and leverage all the video content for your vertical, and we can also track all competitor data as well. So our platform allows you to track both your content versus your competitor content as well.
Dane Golden:
I was going to ask about competitors. So what does it look like when I… Okay, I’ve found all of the pieces. I found all of the content pieces that have been mentioned in as a brand and the sentiment and all that. What does the interface look like? Is it a grid that says “Sentiment, nice. Age of person, twenties.” What does it look like?
Ajay Bam:
Yep. So that’s a good question. So first of all, we deliver all the insights and data via our dashboard. So as a brand, you can track via the dashboard, all your videos on multiple platforms versus your competitors as well. And then you can get the analysis of all your videos at individual level, or we can also give you an analysis of all the videos that add for a collection of videos as well. And the way we do that is for individual videos, we give you about 30 different filters and we give you for each video, we analyze the video in these eight dimensions that I mentioned before, everything from sentiment, topic, scene, demographic and all that. So as a market here, you can look at all the insights at an individual video level, or we can offer you insights.
Ajay Bam:
And we actually offer insights in about six different categories. So we can offer you insights about your topics, about creators and their profiles, demographic data. We can help you with keywords on… And we actually are one of the very few companies that actually analyzes the audio or the audio speech. So we can tell you what positive and negative brand your creators and your fans are talking about your product and brand inside the video. So you can use those keywords for both your messaging and for your SEO as well. And then finally, we’re also giving you an engagement report as well, and then you can mix and match. We also generate, we also develop a lot of build custom reports as well. So you can also mix and match depending on your marketing goals.
Ajay Bam:
For example, you might be interested in understanding all the reviews that you have on YouTube, but all the reviews that are missing as well by your target demographic. And so we can actually give you a report that tells you everything about your missing content, which you can then leverage… that insight can then be leveraged for optimizing your content marketing strategy and developing your content. And one of the key things we do is, we really help you measure your engagement on YouTube versus your branded content. So you can also essentially get an insight on paid versus organic in a nutshell.
Dane Golden:
Right. You’re giving me a lot to think of here and so forgive me if my questions are coming as rapid fire, because it’s the permutations of what you’re talking about are really quite broad. I’m going to ask this question. I’m betting it’s harder to track the actual comments. Are you tracking the comments as well? Or is that not open in the API?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So that’s a great question. So at the moment, we’re starting to analyze the comments, but we’re not there yet. And comments are also, they’re much more complicated than just analyzing speech, because a number of times we find that many of the comments are just individuals arguing with each other about something else.
Ajay Bam:
And sometimes it has nothing to do with the product or it’s more about their egos. So I think that those are much more difficult challenges and we will eventually get there later next year, but we’re not there yet with fully analyzing comments, but can we do that? Yes, absolutely we can do that and we’ll be working on it.
Dane Golden:
So you’re providing, and this is common with once you start getting a lot of data, then the question is, how do I know if I’m improving or my footprint is improving? What are the types of questions that people are starting to ask and say, “Well, how do I get a better sentiment?” Or “How do I know if my sentiment is going up or down?” Is that something that is starting to be sort of people saying, “Well, you need an 8.7” or something like that. I don’t really know how to ask the question, but I think you know what I’m getting at.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah, absolutely. So I think in terms of sentiment analysis, we’re able to actually showcase how positive or how negative the speech is, in the context of your product and brand inside the video. So we do measure the strength, whether it’s very positive or negative, with a score. And then in addition to that, sometimes sentiment could just be about one feature or multiple features as well. So in order for brands to understand that further, we also provide a list of all the keywords and phrases that we generate from the audio speech as well.
Ajay Bam:
So brands can break it down, not only at a very high level with our score, but we can also further break it, break down the sentiment into what are the positive and negative sentences and keywords and phrases that they’re talking about in the context of your product and brand.
Dane Golden:
But could I say “In October, there was… 67% of my sentiment was positive in general and in November 73% was positive” Or is that just too much?
Ajay Bam:
Yeah, absolutely. We can do that. We can also, and it’s not just about just pure sentiment as well, right? If you look at social media, the other metrics that also play a role is likes, views, comments, shares, and all of that. So we actually generate our own engagement index based on all these parameters. And so brands, we actually have a filter on the dashboard where you can sort all your data by engagement index, and you can also map all that engagement on a timeline as well for both seasonality and time. So yes, to answer your question, there are many ways of looking at the data and so we can actually help you. So one of the benefits of our platform of doing competitive analysis is we can actually tell you, what is the share of your worth with video versus your competitors worth on YouTube, right?
Ajay Bam:
And this can be very important and useful to help you decide your spend and how you want to grow your video and your YouTube channel as well.
Dane Golden:
Yeah.
Ajay Bam:
And ultimately where we’re going with this, where Vyrill really is headed is, we capture the videos, we analyze the videos and score it. And then we’re finally, we’re building tools to license the video, an authentic review, and then be able to put that review on a product page to increase conversion. Right? So ultimately, where we’re going is conversion.
Ajay Bam:So there’s two metrics that we are helping brands with. First is help me generate new revenue and help me find new customers. And that’s really the two KPIs that we drive with our platform for our customers.
Dane Golden:
Yeah, this is good stuff. And how do I sort of stack myself up against a competitor? What does my data look like? Is it the exact same interface, or do I stack up… What can I stack up, one similar product against another product? Or what does it look like exactly?
Ajay Bam:
That’s a great question. So you can actually track your data at brand level, at category level, at product level, or at keyword level, right? So there’s many ways to look at your data, depending on your again, on your marketing goals and objectives and what you would like to do with the competitive data. But to answer your question, we give exactly all the same reports and data as we do for your brand. So you can track both your brand… So you can literally compare apples to apples.
Dane Golden:
And the data continues. I assume you… If I was with you six months ago, I can look back at that data.
Ajay Bam:
Exactly. So that’s a great question as well. So you decide the timeline. You can go as back as you want. We also track all the data in real time. So every day your marketing team can get a daily summary email of all the new video content and of all the trending content for both your brand or your competitor brands directly in your inbox.
Dane Golden:
So what are some of the goals that a customer comes to you with or might come to you with and you say, “Yeah, okay. We can do something like that.”
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So a couple of things. First is digging through massive amounts of video data is a big problem for brands. Today a lot of that is done manually, with Vyrill, we literally save 90% in time to do that. We can immediately within 24 hours, we can help you find great content and boost that content to authentic content, to drive more engagement, right. So that’s one. Second is we can also help you grow your voice if you will, and your share of your video content on social media as well.
Ajay Bam:
So, as I mentioned before, we can track both your data and your competitor data, and the platform can actually guide your content marketing, video content marketing strategy, both on YouTube, but also across multiple platforms as well. And the reason is we’re also able to capture all the demographic data as well. So you can decide, you can actually see what demographic performs well with what content on what platform.
Dane Golden:
I imagine also if there was something-
Ajay Bam:
Yes, sorry, and just to finish. And of course the third is once that authentic video is licensed through the platform, we know, and by the way this has been not only proven by Vyrill, but also with many other platforms as well, the moment you put a video on a product page, it really helps customers make informed purchase decisions. So if you look at what’s happening during COVID right now, video consumption and creation is up 600% in many categories such as beauty, CPG, DIY, home improvement, right? So a lot of customers say that video actually helps them or 85% of consumers say that video actually helps them then nail their purchase decision because they can see the product, the person and the emotions.
Ajay Bam:
And video also cuts down on fraud on review fraud, because you can actually see the product in action. And the other thing is, with COVID staying for another 12 months we’ll be around and until a vaccine happens, a lot of customers say that they’re looking for a touch-free shopping experience and video really offers that.
Dane Golden:
Yeah, it sure does. And let me ask you since you brought up that 600%, do you remember where you got that number? I’m very interested in that.
Ajay Bam:
I can send you a couple of sources on the increase in video, and by the way we seed our own platform as well. So I would say I can give you the best proof, which is for one of our customers, in fact many of our customers, we’re seeing video content increased pre-COVID and during COVID anywhere from 10 X to 68 X.
Dane Golden:
That’s amazing, truly amazing because people are just… the video is the substitute now for brick-and-mortar .
Ajay Bam:
It is.
Dane Golden:
What about, are there any anecdotes that you can relate that are for actual situations with clients that was just a totally surprising, weird use of the product or thing you discovered that you didn’t expect?
Ajay Bam:
Absolutely. So as I mentioned before, we offer the most powerful in-video search. With one of our customers, we actually analyze their pre-COVID and during COVID data. And he was so surprised that Heidi Klum, one of the stars on America’s Got Talent, has a huge affinity for cheese and such as there’s actually video that Vyrill discovered featuring celebrities and their favorite cheeses, that I’m serious, a brand would not have discovered without Vyrill. Who has the time to watch minutes of videos and millions of minutes of videos? And that’s really the key problem we have solved. So in order to facilitate video commerce, the most important thing is search. No customers don’t have, when they land on your product page, they don’t have the time to watch a video that’s more than two minutes long.
Ajay Bam:
So if the video is 15 minutes long, how do you help the customer get to what they’re looking for? The answer that they’re looking for to make that informed is a problem we have solved, right? So that’s one example of how through our platform, they were able to find some celebrities and their favorite cheese products. And by the way, this has a larger implication because tomorrow if I’m hiring someone for my marketing campaign, a celebrity for my marketing campaign, what better than to actually hire someone who loves cheese, right? That actually had posted something about cheese inside a video.
Dane Golden:
Sure.
Ajay Bam:
Right. So that’s one. The second is we also help brands… It’s not always about celebrities as well. I think in the end, most people buy products because of someone who looks like them has purchased the product, or their neighbor has actually purchased the product and made a recommendation as well.
Ajay Bam:
So one of our key benefits of our platform is we actually help marketers with a long tail, which is we help them find a list of anyone and everyone who’s talking about their product and brand that has made a great review about the product that they can then eventually engage that video or engage that person for future campaigns. So I think it’s easy to find celebrities, but how do you find someone in your neighborhood, in your zip code who actually loves the product? So I think at the end of the day, what matters is you want to hear and see a video from people who look like you, and that’s really the Vyrill advantage. We help you find anyone and everyone who loves your product.
Dane Golden:
Wow. That’s like one-to-one marketing.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. It’s one to one. And the beauty is we also, once the video is captured, we build the creator’s profile. We also, when possible we generate, we find their email address and their contact information as well. So we have created a mechanism now for brands to run campaigns with creators, to either capture video or do product shout outs or more.
Dane Golden:
Amazing.
Ajay Bam:
So our platform does insights and campaign management. And really, so we’re focusing on insights and commerce really.
Dane Golden:
Wow. And you guys are doing a Wefunder campaign. Tell us about that.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah. So thank you and thanks for bringing that up. So we had a lot of fans who are not traditional investors of VCs or angels who said, “Hey, we love what Vyrill is doing, we all watch video reviews, we would love to participate and be a shareholder in Vyrill. So we recently launched a campaign on Wefunder, it’s Wefunder.com/Vyrill.
Dane Golden:
And that’s V-Y-R-I-L-L?
Ajay Bam:
Yes, it’s Wefunder, W-E-F-U-N-D-E-R.com/Vyrill, V-Y-R-I-L-L. And really what this does is it enables all fans who are not traditional investors to own a piece of Vyrill. And we believe that the future of commerce is video. It will start with a video, it will end with a video. And so we wanted to give our fans and all our customers a piece of Vyrill. And so essentially with Wefunder campaign, anyone with $250 can actually invest in and own a piece of Vyrill.
Dane Golden:
Cool.
Ajay Bam:
Right? And own a piece of a company that’s really on the cutting edge of AI and machine learning. And that’s solving a real problem, which is capturing and building and leveraging video reviews.
Dane Golden:
It sounds great.
Ajay Bam:
And by the way, just to mention we have the Chief Scientist at Pinterest and a top AI professor at Stanford, and also the CTO of Airbnb is investing as well in the campaign.
Dane Golden:
That’s great.
Ajay Bam:
So I just wanted to mention that we are getting some very high profile endorsements as well. Again, I think everyone believes that where things are going post-COVID is video for commerce. And Amazon, just to mention really quick, has already amassed 215 million plus video reviews on their platform. So we know that video is already here. So essentially what Vyrill is doing is while it is, Vyrill offering the next fortune 5,000 brands and retailers the same tools and capabilities that Amazon has, to capture, understand, and leverage video reviews and more.
Dane Golden:
Wow. Ajay Bam, how can people find out more about Vyrill and you, and let’s talk some URLs people can go to.
Ajay Bam:
Yeah, absolutely. So of course, Vyrill.com V-Y-R-I-L-L.com. And if you’re interested in reaching out to me as well, and sending me a note about how I did on the podcast or any other advise, comments, or if you have a customer in mind that you could introduce me to, I would love that. And my email is very easy. It’s ajay, J-A-Y@vyrill.com. Again, ajay, J-A-Y@vyrill.com. Thank you.
Dane Golden:
Fantastic. So I want to invite you the listener to review us on Apple podcast. And hey, tweet me at Dane golden and ask me a question about video marketing. I do this podcast and our various other YouTube videos and other projects because we love helping marketers and business owners, just like you, do YouTube and video marketing better. Thanks to our special guest, Ajay Bam. Thank you. Ajay.
Ajay Bam:
Thank you so much and go video, go Vyrill.
Dane Golden:
Go Vyrill. Until next week. Here’s to helping you help your customers through video.