Someone commented on a recent post of mine that the final step in a content workflow shouldn’t be called “archive.” It should be called “enrich.” I applaud the sentiment. It implies nothing sits on a shelf gathering dust; that every asset is a living, breathing revenue opportunity waiting to be unlocked.
The vision is compelling. Media organisations are so sophisticated in their catalogue management and fluent in audience metrics, that their content archive flows seamlessly back into the revenue cycle. Every frame tagged, every asset discoverable, every piece of footage perpetually ready for its next commercial life.
Here’s the reality check. The minute my kids outgrow their clothes or abandon a toy, do I list it on eBay? No. Toys work their way from the floor, to a shelf, to a box in the loft. And maybe on a rainy day when they’re counting their pocket money do we have the conversation about “should we sell some of your old stuff?”
But on paper the eBay listing was our enrichment step, and we have turned dormant assets into cash flow.
Media enrichment carries a very different cost structure. There are storage costs to keep assets accessible, tooling costs: AI tagging, metadata platforms, rights management systems. There’s the human cost of curating, reviewing, and maintaining catalogue quality. And then there’s the question nobody wants to answer honestly: does the revenue generated by enrichment exceed the cost of doing it?
I don’t have that answer.
I suspect most organisations don’t either.
What I do see is a growing ecosystem of vendors selling sophisticated enrichment widgets at premium price points, each promising to turn your archive into a goldmine. The technology is genuinely impressive. But the burden of converting that investment into real revenue dollars? That falls entirely on the media organisation, not the vendor.
This isn’t an argument against enrichment. It’s an argument for doing the maths first. The gap between “this asset could generate revenue” and “this asset does generate revenue” is where budgets quietly disappear. Enrichment without a commercial feedback loop is just expensive archiving with better metadata.
Maybe the question isn’t ‘archive or enrich?’ but ‘enrich what, when, and based on what trigger?’ Not every toy needs an eBay listing. Not every asset needs AI tagging. The win is knowing which is which before you pay for the platform.