2021 – Motionlab's Year in Review
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Photo by Polina Tankilevitch from Pexels
2021! How was it for you?
It was painful and strange and frustrating and seemed endless but in this 'new reality' it's also important to look for the positives as well, for our own mental well-being as much as anything.
So, for a few brief minutes, let's forget about Covid 19, the climate crisis, the decline of US democracy, Brexit and the destabilization of Eastern Europe and focus on the good things that happened.
As well as the cancellation of Keeping up with the Kardashians, there was actually some good news around the world. And for Motionlab, it was a good year too.
Digitalization and Personalization
The upheaval of the last two years has caused lots of changes in the world of commerce – from the way we shop to the way companies talk to their customers. We explored some of those changes in detail in this blog but the key takeaways are that the increased digitization of marketing has been accelerated and with a shift to on-line e-commerce, factors like personalization have become increasingly important to meet changing customer expectations.
This is hugely relevant for Motionlab which is positioned firmly at the cutting edge of digital technology and innovative marketing. We anticipate these trends will continue into 2022 and the coming years and so feel well placed to face these changes and offer effective solutions to them.
“If I could compare 2021 to the development of our platform, 2021 would be the BETA version, so 2022 will be our V1 version (the first production version). The transition from beta to V1 was a huge step for us, so I believe the coming year will be as significant for the whole market as it was a shift for us. I’m looking forward to finally scaling properly, physically expanding into foreign markets and discussing long-term strategies with clients. I think there have already been enough discussions about short-term plans and budget trimming.
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The Global Picture
2021 was the year when Motionlab began expanding outwards towards international markets, especially in Europe and Asia. These are exciting times.
While travel and conferences were impacted by Covid, we still managed to send teams to Web Summit in Lisbon, Seamless in Dubai and the Forbes #30under30 summit in Bratislava.
In action at Web Summit in Lisbon
There was a lot of networking and meetings took place with friends, both old and new. It was notable to see the increased interest in video personalization as the tool becomes more established and talked about.
An invite to participate in the K-Startup Grand Challenge in South Korea created a wonderful opportunity for Radek and Jindrich to spend 4 months in Seoul. Not only did they take part in the event and came in the top 15 in the final pitch presentation, they were also able to connect with Asian agencies to kickstart our expansion there. They are now back home in Czechia for Christmas and a well-earned rest.
“Motionlab was among the 60 startups, selected from 2600 worldwide, to come to the Korea K-Startup Challenge. We all were very surprised but delighted when we’ve received the official announcement. We had 20 days to get our visas, pack our suitcase, and say goodbye to our girlfriends and families. Over 4 months in Asia, we’ve learned how to eat kimchi, spend 3 hours a day in public transport, write and read Hangul and create video-courses for our clients during a strict 2-week government quarantine. It was an incredible experience. ”
Radek presents Motionlab at Demo Day in Seoul
Prizes Galore!
It was also a great award season for Motionlab and our office shelf is now starting to buckle slightly under the weight of several new trophies.
As clients embrace video personalization more and begin to see the positive results it can deliver, we are happy to see an increase in the creativity of the campaigns and this is reflected in the prizes they have won. It was very exciting to work with so many great agencies and companies this year and we would like to thank them all for such positive experiences, as well as being super-happy to have helped them achieve these big successes.
The HBO Europe Christmas campaign (Konektor Social) got 4 nominations and won gold at the Fenix and Zlaty Strednik Awards.
The Innogy campaign (Wunderman Thompson) won awards at the Effie, Webtop100 and IMC Czech Awards.
“This year our clients managed to push the limits of video personalisation with their creative ideas and beautiful execution. It’s very hard to choose just a few examples, but I really loved the personalised video campaigns by Innogy, Notino and Finch Money. I’m really looking forward to see all the new creative approaches in 2022! ”
For Motionlab it was a year of consolidation and steady expansion but the last few months have made us feel that 2022 is going to be a busy one.
The company shifted from being an agency to being a tool and platform and we made our first sales through other agencies.
The Partnership initiative was launched to connect companies and share expertise and skills.
A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes by the tech team to improve and upgrade the platform to make it an even better experience and the fruits of that labour will be seen next year.
The Future
So, in a testing and unpredictable year for the world, we are proud of our achievements in 2021 and are quietly but firmly confident for the future. The worlds of technology and commerce are changing at a dizzyingly rapid pace but it's a change that is fascinating and exciting to be part of.
'May you live in interesting times' as the saying goes. We're certainly living in those.
Motionlab would like to wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year.
Danny Holman, Motionlab