Banijay is the world's largest independent content creation Group for television and multimedia platforms. Banijay is present in 16 territories.
Banijay is the world's largest independent content creation Group for television and multimedia platforms. Banijay is present in 16 territories.

Tag Archive: Damien Viel

  1. Banijay Entertainment Boards Moments Lab for AI Video Discovery Solution

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    Banijay Entertainment today announces it will partner with Moments Lab on the next stage of its digital transformation journey. Complementing the base and Amazon Web Services (AWS) cutting-edge hub solution launched in January, the AI video discovery platform will enable large-scale indexing,discovery, and repurposing of the content powerhouse’s 200k+-hours of archives, as well as reformatting and multi-channel distribution for its fresh and live productions.

    Powered by MXT-2 multimodal AI, and its recently announced Discovery Agent, Moments Lab’s pioneering solution will sync seamlessly with Banijay Entertainment’s existing digital asset management system to enrich its high-quality content with an incredible set of metadata, enabling it to repurpose and monetise at-scale and across channels.

    Making all materials globally searchable and accessible, the platform immediately ramps up the group’s clipping capabilities for new distribution channels. Increasing the volume, reach and monetisation of its brands on digital platforms, the offering is set to unlock further value for its world-leading catalogue. The platform, deployed by Moments Lab, will be based on AWS, with base managing the integration.

     

    Damien Viel, Chief Digital and Innovation Officer, Banijay Entertainment comments: “As Europe’s largest studio and home to the superbrand, creativity and innovation have always underpinned Banijay Entertainment’s activities. With our complementary digital transformation now well underway — from building a cuttingedge content hub with base and AWS to partnering with Moments Lab — we remain focused on collaborating with first-class technology providers who can support us in broadening the reach of our content and maximising its value in what is a hugely complex global ecosystem.”

    Moments Lab Co-founder and CEO Philippe Petitpont said: “It was clear from the beginning that Banijay Entertainment shares our pioneering mindset and bold vision for how AI indexing can unlock new creative possibilities and revenue opportunities. We’re honoured to partner with the business on such an important endeavour – helping maximise the value of its impressive catalogue of original programming.”

    Moments Lab’s patented MXT-2 AI model is trained on 1.5 billion data points and is tailored for high-volume video libraries of long, short-form and live content. Its features include Custom Moments, which are time-coded descriptions of key video moments tailored to user needs. In Banijay Entertainment’s case, it could pinpoint the most compelling scenes in a series of Big Brother; helping build viral shorts, trailers, or best-of compilations. With the addition of its brand-new Discovery Agent, users now can make requests through natural language prompts. In this way, teams can more deeply explore the catalogue of 200k-hours and receive clip and story concept suggestions to fuel the creative process.

    Moments Lab‘s AI video understanding and indexing technology analyses every moment of a piece of content. It operates via facial recognition, landmark and landscape, context, and sentiment analysis, making the entire audiovisual portfolio searchable with customisable, open-source metadata and descriptions at-scale. Moments Lab works with dozens of blue-chip media clients that rely on near-time delivery of metadata. The platform also provides multilingual transcription and translation, making all materials adaptable for a variety of new audiences worldwide.

    The news follows Banijay Entertainment’s launch of its next-generation, cloud-first content ecosystem with base and AWS. Set to supercharge the European studio’s collaborative creativity, the unified platform is powered by advanced cloud and AI technologies, and follows three simple steps – cloud migration, content hub creation and media workflow transformation. All activity is geared towards fostering creativity, transparency, security and protection for the organisation’s collective of first-class talent and IP.

  2. Banijay Hires Tech Veteran, Damien Viel

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    Content powerhouse, Banijay, today confirms the appointment of Damien Viel as Chief Digital and Marketing Officer. Stepping into the newly devised role, the executive will take charge of the group’s overarching marketing and digital diversification strategies, supercharging innovation worldwide.

    Viel comes onboard after a seven-year stint as Managing Director for Twitter in France, a role he departed late last year. There he led the global brand’s local business development and operations, which included the negotiation and management of country-level partnerships. During 2018 and 2020, he was also a strategy committee member for Idinvest/Eurazeo. With a strong track record in the digital space, he spent 2011-2015 at Google, the latter part as Director, YouTube and Google Brand solutions for Southern/Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa. Whilst there he ran the regional team, evolving and executing its branding and business strategy, delivering relevant education outside the company, and influencing significant revenue growth.

    At Banijay, reporting to Chief Executive Officer, Marco Bassetti, Viel will now concentrate on injecting his tech experience into the 21-territory-strong group. Exploring new partnerships, further monetisation opportunities for its leading brands, and reputation-building opportunities outside the entity’s core industry, he will be key to bolstering the company’s impactful long-term strategy.

    Marco Bassetti, Chief Executive Officer, Banijay: “Our industry is in an undeniable period of flux, and with further digital diversification on the horizon, we are keen to capitalise on innovation avenues to ensure we maintain our position as a frontrunner in the market. In Damien, we have a visionary leader, with a track record that speaks for itself, and he will be a great asset to our group as we look to further fulfil our growth ambitions and elevate our brand on the global stage. In embarking on what will no doubt be a transformative journey, we are committed to bolstering the creative environment we offer our talent to ensure creativity always prospers.”

    Damien Viel adds: “Digital innovation has rapidly changed how audiences consume content, and importantly, how leading storymakers share it. While tech advancements are often met with scepticism given their complexity, I’m a firm believer that innovation, creative technologies, AI and a customer-focussed approach, only bring further opportunity and that is what I am keen to explore at Banijay. In its hands is a prolific portfolio of brands and the talent that creates them, a combination which will be invaluable to evolving a robust marketing strategy and exploring further opportunities to diversify and positively boost the operation.”

    Prior to his time at Google, Viel was Deputy General Manager for M6 Publicité, the advertising arm of M6 Groupe. As operational lead, he had oversight of all agency and client relationships and during this period, also served as a member of the RTL Group European Trade Executive Committee. With an illustrious career to date, he has acted as General Manager for CARAT France (an Aegis Media company), and before that, he spent seven years with L’Oreal, holding various marketing responsibilities in France and Asia, having graduated from ESSEC.