Personalised video provider CitNow claims to broadcast more video daily than the BBC, with more than 50% of UK car dealers using the technology.

The use of video technology has led to a sharp rise in the amount and the quality of video being demanded by car buyers, who are enjoying the increased ability to consider new cars remotely and control the buying process without having to step foot in a showroom.

Overall, 4,400 CitNow product subscriptions are now live in 2,750 dealerships and the company works with 89 of the top 100 dealer groups in the UK.

At its peak, CitNow users upload 21,000 videos per day with almost half a million being created every month using the company’s app software.

Each video is watched more than once meaning the firm is effectively broadcasting more than 800 hours of video – the equivalent of 33 full-time 24-hour TV channels – every day. The BBC currently runs 27 channels, not all of them round-the-clock.

In the UK consumers now rate the quality of videos they receive. The changing nature of personalised video in the car market is demonstrated by the winner of the recent CitNow Video Awards.

The Best Overall Video prize at the Awards went to the Sinclair Volkswagen Cardiff dealership. Featuring brand consultant Stephanie Ranson and transaction manager Sophie Lewis, it showed the pair responding to a customer’s request for information about a vehicle’s adaptive cruise control system.

Despite the on-screen demonstration of the system by the pair, the customer did not actually buy the car, but the video illustrates the increasingly qualitative nature of personalised video service.

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