British Pathé, considered by many to be the ‘finest newsreel archive in the world’, is extending its partnership with Capture’s leading digital asset management system as it launches its new website.

After utilising elements of Capture’s rights and licensing capabilities for several years, British Pathé is now going one step further and upgrading to Capture’s full all-in-one visual media management and eCommerce platform. It was a digital transformation project focussed on modernising the British Pathé online experience, putting Capture at the centre of their plans.

British Pathé represents a total archive of more than 220,000 films. The collection, which is renowned for its historical and cultural significance, includes footage of global major events, famous faces, fashion trends, travel, sport and culture. This invaluable media resource is used worldwide by broadcasters, documentary producers and archive researchers.

Capture’s digital asset management platform helps rights owners maximise, monetise and get more eyes on their iconic content. With tools to elevate each asset, it helps rights holders to organise, protect and share their precious assets whilst driving greater commercial value from them. British Pathé has the video assets, and Capture has the tools to maximise the value of each. It’s a perfect match.

The project

With high volumes of traffic and an enormous archive of content, British Pathé needed to offer a first-class user experience paired with easy-to-manage back-end administration, all without relinquishing control over the look and feel of its site. This is exactly what Capture has delivered.

The partnership will see British Pathé capitalise on the stability that Capture’s continually evolving platform brings. Far beyond its initial implementation, British Pathé’s system will develop and update in line with Capture’s own enhancements. When new technological improvements are implemented, British Pathé will see them added to their system.

Capture’s development team has worked closely with British Pathé to ensure each aspect of its new site is on brand and on message, while simultaneously delivering a cleaner, updated user experience. Behind the scenes, the move to an all-in-one platform drives efficiencies and reduces labour time for the British Pathé team. With all elements under one umbrella, from the underlying archive to the eCommerce licensing website, the need for self-management is reduced and allows the team to focus their resources on other areas of the business.

“This latest step in our partnership with Capture really drives efficiency in our day-to-day operations. Behind the scenes, our team will no longer need to middle-manage the variety of systems that we ran on previously. Now, this is all done for us – so we can focus more on delivering incredible videos to our wide customer base,” says Alastair White, CEO of British Pathé.

The relationship

British Pathé needed an all-encompassing video asset management solution. Choosing Capture has empowered British Pathé to improve both the front and back end of its system while retaining the brand aesthetic.

British Pathé’s customer portfolio ranges from one-off purchasers to full subscription holders. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, British Pathé needed personalised journeys and tailored permissions for individual customers.

“We’re thrilled to be extending our partnership with British Pathé, one of the most influential entities in the history of British media. In this latest step, we’re seeing the future-proofing of a national institution with far more extensive integration of Capture’s offering. With everything now under one umbrella, British Pathé’s operations are more efficient than ever – even though their requirements could historically only be supported by a fully custom solution,” said Nick Caw, CEO at Capture.

Through Capture’s platform, it can now easily curate unlimited, flexible customer profiles through unique price books and subscription models. British Pathé can control exactly what each different type of customer sees when they log-in to the site, from varied pricing and download options to different watermarking or video resolutions. This way, it can deliver the right content to the right people – for the right price.

The benefits

Capture has helped British Pathé to free up its internal resources, which no longer need to be allocated towards the upkeep and maintenance of its site and integrations. Instead, Capture’s platform provides a simple, all-in-one visual media management solution.

Alastair White, CEO of British Pathé continued, “in Capture, we found a company with a strong track record in video asset management, that was also passionate about partnering with us to recreate the British Pathé experience with a modernised look and feel.”

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