Case Study

The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool enhances subscriber engagement by live streaming 40 hours a week and prioritizes accessibility by partnering with Verbit for live captions and transcriptions.

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In a Nutshell

Financial and investment advice company, The Motley Fool, found themselves “launching a live video streaming network in the middle of a pandemic.” With a plethora of timely updates to share, its leaders are live streaming to subscribers 40 hours per week. Due to the on-demand nature of how audiences consume content and keeping the accessibility needs of diverse members in mind, The Motley Fool partnered with Verbit to offer and prioritize live captions and transcriptions of all content to allow subscribers to engage more effectively.

The Challenge

In the early days of the pandemic, “the stock market had declined around 30 percent. Members had a lot of questions and were startled, and there was so much uncertainty in the world,” said Steve Broido, Director of Multimedia at The Motley Fool.” The company turned to live streaming to reassure members, but with 40 hours a week of live streams, they were struggling to produce accessible live video at scale.

Steve Broido Director of Multimedia , The Motley Fool

“Larger companies look at their clients as commodities, and Verbit really looked at us as humans and as people that were really trying to solve business problems. Verbit has been highly available, accommodating and accessible to us in terms of solving business problems.”

The Solution

Verbit’s technology presented a scalable live captioning solution that offers The Motley Fool members accessibility and different formats for digesting content. “When the opportunity to work with Verbit arose, it really made sense to be able to get as much value from the video” as possible by generating word-for-word transcripts from videos as well. Verbit offers The Motley Fool:

  • Live captioning at scale
  • Word-for-word accuracy essential for financial reporting
  • Captioning files that convert to transcripts for referencing
  • A true partnership relationship to meet custom needs

The Results

Meeting live streaming needs of 1000s of members

“When you’re doing things at that scale, you really need someone who’s going to be able to carry it.” Verbit delivers on the accessibility needs of The Motley Fool’s “highly scalable content operation.”

Delivering accurate captions and transcripts

Accuracy “was really critical to our members,” said Broido, and once The Motley Fool gets the transcript from Verbit, it is “pretty much ready to go for web publication.”

Converting files for multiple uses

“In working with Verbit, we don’t just get a highly accurate transcript, but what starts as the caption file turns into a highly accurate transcript, which also turns into the polished version of the caption file. It’s a really smart workflow and a very efficient workflow.”

Delivering value to staff and subscribers

Motley Fool has a “really close relationship with Verbit.” and “one of the places where Verbit really shines for us is with our member live streams.”

Steve Broido Director of Multimedia , The Motley Fool

“It was refreshing to build a relationship with Verbit. If there are pain points, things that come up or new feature requests, we can talk through them. Verbit has made us feel important and valued.”

About The Motley Fool

The Motley Fool’s goal is “to make the world smarter, happier, and richer through a lot of investment guidance and stock ideas,” said Broido. For nearly 30 years, The Motley Fool has been offering advice online and in newspapers. Recently, the company started a 40- hour a week live stream of financial advice, interviews and breaking news. The Motley Fool’s real-time programming features top CEOs and financial experts like Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary.