Even as children, Kuni and Tomo Hijikata knew that their family business was worth fighting for. Founded in Nagoya, Japan back in 1936, the Hijikata family’s cast iron foundry was renowned for its extreme accuracy. But by the early aughts, the foundry’s future was in question. As heirs to the long-standing company, Kuni and Tomo knew it was up to them to keep their cast iron craftsmanship alive.

At the time, both brothers had stable jobs at Toyota and Toyota Tsusho, but they saw an opportunity in designing cast iron cookware meant to last generations — so both brothers left their full-time jobs to go all-in on saving the family business. The brothers trained on the floor of the foundry as artisans, and in 2010, Vermicular was born. When their first cast iron pot hit the market, the demand racked up a whopping 15-month backorder, fueled largely by enthusiastic word of mouth.

A decade later, the Vermicular team is setting their sights on global expansion, now offering their products in the U.S., China, and beyond. To best communicate the value of their cookware to new, international markets, Vermicular has invested heavily in video to spread the word. “Without our videos, we’d have a much tougher time expanding our business,” says Mark Hayashi, Vermicular’s Head of U.S. Office. We caught up with Kuni, Tomo, and Mark to learn more about Vermicular’s approach to going global with video. Watch their story above, and read the full interview below.

“We always consider our video assets to be an extension of our brand and products. Visuals are always more effective than just the written word, and this is especially true in the realm of cooking.” 

Mark Hayashi, Vermicular’s Head of U.S. Office

How did you develop this product? 

Tomo: “I thought that we could utilize our company’s cast iron expertise to create enameled cast iron pots with perfectly-fitted lids. But there was no precedent for that process in Japan. We knew then that we’d have to pioneer it ourselves.

To learn everything we could, Kuni and I apprenticed on the floor of the foundry. Kuni became a casting craftsman and I became a precision machinery expert. It took us three years and over 10,000 iterations to create a prototype that delivered on our goal.” 

What was the process of establishing your brand in Japan? 

Mark: “Brand storytelling has always been the core of our marketing and communication strategies. Telling stories of our unique history and commitment to craftsmanship resonated with our audience and helped us connect with them on a deeper level. 

We started by crafting video concepts around our brand mission. Whether creating a brand story video or how-to-product videos, we make sure the contents represent who we are. At the start, we did not focus too much on short-term sales, but instead prioritized maximizing customer satisfaction from a long-term perspective.” 

What has been your biggest hurdle in building the Vermicular brand outside of Japan? 

Mark: “Our biggest challenge was the language barrier. Since we launched the Vermicular brand in 2010, we’ve established a solid brand presence in Japan but none of that transferred over outside Japan. We literally had to start building the Vermicular brand from scratch, which was challenging and required extensive pre-launch preparations.”

Where did you invest first when looking to build the your brand internationally?  

Tomo: “Designing a brand story video as well as partnering with a chef who shares the same passion and appreciation for cooking that we have was an obvious choice in showcasing who we are and what we believe in as a brand.”

Your branded content is obviously beautiful. How have you achieved this level of quality? 

Mark: “We partnered with a branding agency for the brand video and we spent quite some time agreeing on the ‘look and feel’ of the lighting, casting and wardrobe, and food styling. We also spent quite some time going back and forth on crafting video storyboards which became the guiding star throughout the process including the shoot days.

With so many people involved in the shoot, there’s almost always unexpected setbacks resulting in onset delays. Having a solid storyboard that includes a detailed shot list helps set clear expectations and guide everyone involved in the shoot to look in the same direction. Not only did our storyboards become a precise map for our hectic shoot days, it also helped us avoid post-production woes. I think this step is especially important for smaller brands with a limited budget.”

Where are you investing your production dollars as you continue to expand? 

Mark: “Our hypothesis was creating a product video along with a how-to-video series would help our customers enjoy the full capabilities of the induction cooker. As stated in our brand mission, our goal doesn’t end when customers make a purchase of our cookware.

Our desire is to have our customers enjoy cooking with the Vermicular cookware as long as possible. We’ve noticed clear results from these how-to-videos as they not only help educate the owners but also help shoppers have a better understanding of the usage of the cooker.” 

Has video assisted in building a name for Vermicular globally? 

Mark: “Definitely! A lot. We always consider our video assets to be an extension of our brand and products. We may not have the biggest budget, but we spend hours trying to figure out the narrative and structure of the videos that best tell our story. Visuals are always more effective than just the written word, and this is especially true in the realm of cooking.” 

Why does the team use Vimeo to host and embed your videos?

Mark: “We prefer Vimeo for a number of reasons, but the first being Vimeo’s customizable features for video embedding. The clutter-free and ad-free experience allows seamless user experience throughout the website and protects the ‘touch and feel’ of our brand.

Vimeo also helps us share draft contents between our teams in the U.S. and Japan, so it’s easy to get feedback, even when we’re 5,000 miles apart.” 

What’s next for Vermicular? 

Kuni: “More innovative products are in the works and we will be expanding our product offerings in the U.S. and across various Asian countries.” 

Mark: “We are currently strategizing our video content strategy that ranges from branded content with various partnered chefs and farms to product explanation videos and how-to-videos that will become our valuable assets for years to come.”

Upload your videos now

“I think the best way to explain how I got here is one person at a time, one video at a time,” says comedian and creator Kevin Fredericks – better known by his online moniker KevOnStage. Kev is speaking to us from his office and studio space in Los Angeles, the epicenter of his biggest creative endeavor to date: KevOnStage Studios. But the digital creator didn’t land Hollywood-level production digs overnight. Kev’s grew from side hustle to full-time gig over nearly a decade of the digital grind. 

“Before, a comic’s path was to move to L.A., get on The Tonight Show, and hope an agent catches you,” he says. “Now, with the proliferation of the internet, you can find your own audience and essentially make yourself a star.” Since 2011, KevOnStage has slowly but surely amassed over 1M+ Instagram followers and 800K+ YouTube subscribers, by sharing candid bits of comedy with his devoted online fans, lovingly known as the Stage Krew.

“I think charting your own destiny, for me, is so important,” adds Kev. “Right now, I’m making my own show that I shot and produced and financed that nobody in Hollywood had to okay. I’m able to create the whole thing and give it directly to my audience.” 

Learning the ropes

Kev began building his online community over a decade ago, but he says things took a while to take off. “I didn’t find any real success as KevOnStage until probably 2017,” says Kev. “Before that, I was just working hard, not getting many views, like many people.” 

During that time, he had to find his north star when it came to making content that was true to himself and his sensibilities. “When people don’t create from their core, the success is draining,” says Kev. “I was always okay with never blowing up, but just being okay to make content that I loved. And I think because of that, I’ve had more success, as opposed to doing whatever worked.” 

As his career began to take off in earnest, Kev took to touring the country with fellow comics – but the pandemic brought those in-person gatherings to a grinding halt. Keen to find new ways to keep the momentum going, Kev’s brother came to him with a new idea: a streaming service.

Taking the power back

Kev is the first to admit an OTT service was not on his radar as a next business move. “We were first just trying to make independent movies, and my brother said, ‘Yo, I’ve got a way that we might be able to do this on our own app,’” he says. “I wasn’t even thinking about that as an option.”

Kev reached out to business partner and producer Brennon Edwards, and asked if he’d go in on launching an OTT app. “It was a no brainer,” says Brennon, now President of KevOnStage Studios, because it gave them the power to create (and make money from) their content on their own terms. “We live in an age now where the barrier of entry when it comes to being able to be a creator is so much lower. And Vimeo changed the game for us.”

“We were able to step past what we were waiting for Hollywood to do for us, and get to do it ourselves,” he says. “We work directly with the audience that we have. They are the ones giving us the money to be able to do what we want. It gives us all the power back, as creators.” 

Empowering fellow creators

Since launching KOSS, Brennon, Kev, and Co-Founder and Co-CEO Melissa Fredericks have consciously created a supportive and creative environment for other Black creators to take a chance on their work. “I just I am grateful that this space exists, that people are employed here, that people get to chase their dreams here,” says Kev. Up next on the horizon? More high-quality comedy, coming right up.

“The beautiful thing about this journey, is that we are taking things, regardless of what traditional Hollywood says, into our own hands,” adds Melissa. “We’re having an impact on people. That is not waiting for Hollywood to anoint you. That is deciding, we did this ourselves. Period. And we can do this ourselves. Period. And we can give people opportunities that they wouldn’t otherwise get. Period.” 

Take control of your content with Vimeo OTT

With a global workforce over 300,000 strong, Stellantis – maker of brands like Peugeot, Fiat, and Chrysler – knows the importance of scaling, well, just about everything. “We are within the top five automotive manufacturers in the world,” says Phil Price, Head of The Performance Academy, Stellantis. “As the learning and development sphere grew, we very quickly realized that it’s really all about what we can provide our workforce to improve performance.” And so, The Performance Academy was born. 

Based in the automotive capital of England, the folks at The Performance Academy produce thousands of hours of training content for Stellantis employees – but in order to keep up with their ever-growing employee base, they needed a repeatable way to share information with teams across the globe. “We’ve spent a huge amount of time looking at how people want to learn,” says Phil. “Video-based virtual instruction is the future.” 

A member of the Vimeo community for over a decade, the team has always seen the value of video. To that end, Stellantis has shifted their focus away from in-person towards a fully online strategy. “With face-to-face training, you have to replicate it 10 times with 10 separate costs,” he says. “With video, scalability has no limit.” 

Learning without limits

“We have, on average, about 350 hours’ worth of assets available in a week,” notes Phil. “Behind that 350 hours, we’ve probably got tens of thousands of hours worth of content that we’ve established and developed over the last 12 years.” 

This catalog of content means every employee can learn when and where is best for them. “Our training is available 24/7,” he adds. “That’s important, because we see people doing it on their own time, because they know it’s going to improve their own performance.”

Powerhouse productions

Now, The Performance Academy is expanding to near-daily live streams, from sales trainings to board-level communications. To pull it off, The Performance Academy has continued to invest in their production efforts, operating as a mini Hollywood studio in the heart of Coventry, England. 

“Look at where we are today,” says Phil. “We’re in our own studio. We’re in our own ability to animate an overlay, do anything that we want to. Anything you could see in a movie, we can now do in The Performance Academy.”

Partners for growth

Now empowered with professional production tools and a crack team of L&D experts, The Performance Academy uses Vimeo to produce, host, and distribute their work. “As the learning and development sphere has grown, Vimeo has continued to develop its delivery methods, models, and reporting,” says Phil. “We’ve really benefited from that.”

“Vimeo as an organization is thinking about, ‘How do we take this great work and give it to an end user?’ The benefits that we have working with Vimeo is that we’re in control,” notes Phil. “It’s a testament to scalability, right partners, right team members, and right ideas for what the future looks like.”

Learn more about Vimeo Enterprise

Marie Kondo is on a mission to help people organize their world by organizing their homes. Her approach to tidying is rooted in a single question: Does this item spark joy? The Emmy-nominated Tokyo native launched her first consulting business at just 19 years old, while still studying at university. That business has since grown into the KonMari empire, with a pair of award-winning Netflix shows and four (count ‘em!) best-selling books. 

​Following that success, Marie and her KonMari team have developed an online course that brings the details of the KonMari Method to life. “Most know KonMari from our Netflix series or Marie’s best-selling book, but the course gives viewers a direct line to Marie and her methods. It’s the next best thing to an in-person consultant experience,” says KonMari’s Director of Publishing and Corporate Planning, Kay Amano. The ten-episode “Fundamentals of Tidying” course is powered by Vimeo OTT – and features Marie herself walking viewers through every detail of the tidying process. 

The course, which has been purchased by thousands of organizational enthusiasts, is an invaluable resource for those looking to spark more joy in their lives. But it’s also a helpful blueprint for all kinds of course creation, whether you’re teaching guitar or onboarding new employees.

Read on for Marie Kondo-backed tips for designing an online course that, well, sparks joy. 

1. Keep it short and digestible

A key element of the KonMari Method is to break tasks into smaller pieces to keep people from feeling overwhelmed. The KonMari team translates this approach to their videos by keeping each video lesson short, digestible, and categorized. Watching the course takes less than two-thirds of the time it takes to read the book, and each video clocks in at under ten minutes each.

“If you take the audiobook, it’s four and a half hours per book. With our course, we were able to condense the content down to 75 minutes. That is how we initially started this project, to make sure that we had visual guides that are easy, digestible, bite sized content for people to be able to actually go through the entire Tidying journey.”

– Kay Amano, Director of Publishing and Corporate Planning

The course is also optimized to be highly browsable, so viewers can choose the “chapter” of their lives they need help organizing at the moment.

Takeaway: No matter what kind of course you’re creating, keeping it easily navigable and brief is crucial to engaging viewers. Try to keep runtimes short, and each video focused on a specific topic or theme.

2. Give the people what they want 

KonMari developed its video course after surveying existing customers on where they were in their tidying journey, how much they would be willing to pay for a visual guide, and exactly what they most wanted to know about tidying. They also reached out to their community on social media, taking advantage of online feedback from fans.

“We also did a lot of social listening. People were constantly either DMing us or commenting on our posts and asking, ‘How do I do this? How do I do that?’ That helped us really understand what our followers wanted and needed.”

– Kay Amano

Takeaway: When developing a course of your own, take the time to understand your audience’s needs. Utilizing email surveys, social listening, and even 1:1 conversations is crucial to making sure you’re making something that meets a need.

3. Make it visual 

The KonMari Method is laid out in great detail in Marie’s many books and series, but for visual learners, words on a page just won’t do. “The second book had some illustrations, but didn’t really go into depth other than around her folding techniques,” says Kay. “A lot of people said, ‘How do I store this? How do I fold this? I want to see it in action.’ That’s when we decided to launch the course, to allow people to go through the basics.”

Takeaway: When designing a course of your own, think ‘show, don’t tell’ whenever possible. “This kind of visual is much, much better than just reading a book,” says Takeo Yagi, Vice President of Operations.

4. Prioritize accessibility

As the international “Queen of Clean,” Marie speaks to a global audience. Her bestselling books have been translated into 40 languages, and she has many fans in different countries whose primary language may not be English or Japanese.

Marie speaks Japanese with English subtitles in the “Fundamentals of Tidying” video course, which then allows the KonMari team to provide translation to people in over 100 countries who have purchased the course.

“Because we can’t ship internationally yet, this course is a great offering for our audience. It can reach our international customers when our more tangible products can’t. It allows us to go farther than just the U.S.”

– Patti Ni, Director of Growth Marketing

Takeaway: Whether you’re catering to a global audience or not, providing tools like audio descriptions and subtitles are crucial to expanding your reach and increasing your accessibility.

5. Offer supplementary content 

The KonMari team thinks of their tidying course as a supplement to the rest of the content their brand offers. “Everything starts by knowing Marie. That’s through Instagram and our Netflix show,” says Takeo. “The next is the book — learning the KonMari Method. For people who try the Method by themselves, our Vimeo course is there to help. But we also offer consultants, for those who tried to do it alone but need some help. Each step leads into the next, but it’s also pretty clearly separated.”

In addition to orienting their course as a step along the larger KonMari journey, the team also uses Vimeo OTT’s “Extras” feature to provide free, supplemental content alongside their course. By offering support throughout every step of the way, KonMari is able to build both buy-in and trust with their audience and keep them engaged as lifelong customers. 

“It’s really important to embrace the why versus just the how,” says Kay. “This course really tackles both. ‘Here’s how you do it, but this is also why you want to do it, all the way from beginning to 10.’ That’s really part of the message and applies to everything that we do at the company.” 

Takeaway: Your video course is the main dish, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer a few tantalizing sides to go along with it. Consider what else your viewers might need during their journey, and provide it!

Launch your own course with Vimeo OTT

When Eric Pokorny first donned the green apron at Starbucks 27 years ago, he was a new barista, unsure where the journey would take him. Now, as a Media Content Manager at Starbucks, Eric is responsible for producing and distributing video and photography content for the brand’s core training and some of its enterprise learning programs. 

To turn training programs into an engaging educational experience for partners (employees) around the globe, the team relies on video as a key medium to deliver engaging virtual trainings for new baristas around the world. “We’re a large organization, serving up content to over 350,000 partners around the globe. Vimeo is the center of that when it comes to hosting and having a center of deployment,” he says.

In tackling the challenge of streamlining and standardizing virtual training for thousands of employees across time zones, continents, and languages, Eric quickly realized the importance of having a single source to manage and distribute video content. And this need has only grown more critical since 2020. “We started our digital transformation about seven years ago,” he says. “Now, our mass communications, live streaming, and focus on keeping everybody informed all skyrocketed with the pandemic.”

Here’s what the team at Starbucks has learned along the way to optimize and improve virtual trainings for their colleagues worldwide.

A blended approach with purposeful, supporting media

When Starbucks first prioritized video as a medium to help create, produce, and distribute training for its workforce, it was with the intention of designing an onboarding process that was educational, thoroughly engaging, and enjoyable to complete. 

To that end, there were a few key factors in order to best serve their global partners:

• A single source of truth to store, manage, and distribute training videos from anywhere
• Full control over managing their content, like pulling or updating videos across their asset library in real time
• A device-agnostic platform that streams seamlessly across desktop and mobile devices
• Robust security and permissioning, so only the people they choose to view their videos, can
• Detailed video analytics to measure engagement

With user-level video analytics, Eric and his team can see how much of a video an individual has completed, ensuring that they’ve received the information they need to be successful. And with a completion rate of around 90% on some of their most watched videos, it’s clear that video is an engaging medium to train learners.

“It’s very important for us to know that our partners understand the information we’re putting in front of them via video,” he says. “To see a 90% completion rate means that our partners aren’t dropping off until the very end.”

With fast-paced growth comes a need to stay organized

Training a workforce tens of thousands strong requires a lot of content. Content that requires managing, updating, and redistributing on a regular basis. With so many moving parts, it can be easy to lose track of it all.

“I’ve been in many situations where I was asked, ‘Eric, do you have that video from 2001?’ and I’d have to say, ‘Okay, let’s go to this hard drive, and that hard drive, and this shared drive…’ just to find it,” Eric says. (Something many of us can relate to, right?)

Early on, the Starbucks team realized that having all video content stored in a single location, that could be easily accessed and updated, was essential to alleviate this pain point. “I call it good digital hygiene,” Eric says, referring to proactive measures his team takes to ensure consistent content discoverability. 

“When I think about all the places video can live, a single source of truth for that one video is so important to us,” he says. “What if a policy or procedure changes, and we need to pull the content on that topic? If we don’t have control over all the places that video went, it’s a nightmare to find it, tell people to stop using it, and re-share a new link to an updated asset.”

Fortunately, the right kind of platform can make a world of difference when mitigating these changes. “Having a platform like Vimeo that can house the single source of truth, let us push it as a link or embed code, bring it into any learning, and still swap it out without the links or embed code changing — that has saved us so many times over the last several years.”

Asset management is just part of the challenge teams like Eric’s faces in the day to day. As a collaborative team, Eric needs to make sure his colleagues can efficiently weigh in on training content as needed. “I’ve been using Showcases, which are a beautiful and organized way to serve up content to my teammates,” he says. “If I have all of the training videos for the Barista Basics program in one place that’s easy to look at, then whoever’s going to revise the program doesn’t have to manually click through multiple pages. They can just bring it up and have this really elegant viewing experience for themselves, or whoever else on my team is managing those programs, it makes their lives easier, too.”

“We have a lot of videos, and a lot of use. If I didn’t have all of this in one place, in neatly organized folders, I don’t actually know how I would keep it all straight. I don’t think I could.”

Eric Pokorny, Media Content Manager at Starbucks

Creating inclusive trainings

The Starbucks team understands that effective virtual training is accessible virtual training. For new hires to feel energized about starting a career at Starbucks, they need to see themselves reflected in their onboarding experience. That means ensuring the viewing experience is optimized for all learners, and that the content itself reflects the diverse audience it serves.

“Inclusivity is really important. Sometimes it just takes looking at your content and pausing to ask, ‘How am I speaking to everybody?’” says Eric. “It’s really important to know your audience and represent them in these videos.”

 “Accessibility in the form of captions is very important to us,” Eric explains. “We don’t post a video unless it has captions as an option.”

Ultimately, creating meaningful training videos and keeping up with your audience’s needs takes intention. According to Eric, all it takes to tell the stories that need to be told is to be honest and human.

“We’ve been talking a lot at Starbucks about what I’ve heard called the great human reconnection,” he says. “It’s about taking the time to look at things differently, feel what we’ve all been through, and incorporate some of that in your next production. Keep it human, keep it real.”

Organize all of your company’s videos

Before launching his fitness streaming service Ky-Fit Live, Iñaki García was a well-known personal trainer with a roster of celebrity clients in Spain. Then the pandemic hit. Iñaky’s work dried up as Spain locked down, and the high-end fitness center where he ran classes closed. The future looked uncertain. 

Now, thanks to Vimeo OTT, thousands of people – the self-styled “Iñakers” – in more than 50 countries tune in to his live afternoon workouts, streaming straight from his home studio.  

Starting something special 

Two days after the start of the first lockdown, Iñaky began his online classes, offering two or three workouts a day on Instagram. His high energy, optimistic style did more than help people stay fit – it created a sense of community who united around the daily workout ritual.    

After providing 300 free classes to an ever-growing audience, Iñaky realised that he’d tapped into something special. So he converted his attic into a studio to livestream his sessions around the world. “Because of the positive impact we saw it was having, we wanted to continue the classes in a more professional way,” he explains. Ky-Fit Live was born.

A streaming platform fit for anything

“We were familiar with Vimeo, so we started with Vimeo On Demand and the response was incredible! On the first day of streaming, we sold out of all the subscriptions in three hours, and in just two months we had almost doubled our subscribers,” Iñaky says. 

That growth has continued, with Iñaky able to monetize his content and scale his offering. Ky-Fit Live now has five live sessions a week, and subscribers can tailor their workouts to specific goals – like weight loss or building muscle mass – and the right intensity level. The channel also helps with nutrition, providing monthly menus to help people eat more healthily.

When Vimeo told him that his account was in the global top 1% of bandwidth thanks to its popularity, the move to Vimeo’s OTT platform made perfect sense. 

“Being able to count on a solution like Vimeo OTT has allowed us to focus on what’s important and rest easy knowing that we are providing our users with the best technology, which adapts to multiple devices and multiple platforms,” says Iñaky.

Programming for the people 

The key to the channel’s success, Iñaky believes, is that they’re always adding to and evolving their offer.  “Our platform is alive and constantly transforming,” he says. “90% of our platform is live content and Ky-Fit Live currently has more than 500 videos available.”

But it’s not just Iñaky’s commitment to content that’s created such a safe space for his online sessions. “We’ve worked really hard to create an accessible platform for the world,” he adds. “For example, we have a group of blind subscribers that have trained with me since the beginning. It was essential that they feel comfortable in a digital environment and Vimeo provided us with many services in that regard.”

This confidence in the technology has allowed him to dream big for his channel, and the community it engages. In the future, Iñaky plans to organize in-person events and stream them over Vimeo OTT. He also wants to branch out into interviews with health and fitness experts.

Living better with technology

“We relied on Vimeo during a very delicate moment, when we understood that the only way to communicate with the world was through a screen,” notes Iñaky. But even as the world returns to in-person and hybrid events, he knows that the online community he’s built since the very first lockdown is KyFit’s special sauce. 

“I haven’t invented anything,” repeated Iñaky. “Physical activity has always been around, but I’m concerned with doing things right.“The lockdown was the catalyst for change and Vimeo OTT was the tool that made it a reality.”

Get to know Vimeo OTT →

Evolvetogether arrived on the scene in the midst of a global pandemic. With the world in a state of crisis, a sudden demand for medical face masks inspired founder and CEO Cynthia Sakai to take action. While other apparel brands began selling simple cloth options, Sakai wanted to offer something even more hygienic without sacrificing fashion for function. So she tracked down a factory that agreed to help her produce sterile, 3-ply SGS-tested medical masks at an affordable price point.

Last year, evolvetogether sold 10 million face masks. The NYC-based company’s early success was built on the quality of its hero product, one of the only FDA-registered consumer face masks available. This year, the company expanded into daily essentials like natural hand sanitizer; a reusable water bottle that’s marked with the Great Barrier Reef’s global coordinates; and the Fog Eraser, a reusable dry cloth that keeps fog at bay for people who wear glasses. (The Fog Eraser sold out within 24-hours after its first release, and 6,500 people joined the waitlist to get one.)

“We’re not about whims, trends, or making products for the sake of making them,” Sakai says. “We are about making the best possible version of a daily essential that performs how we promise, has a clean aesthetic, and makes a positive impact.”

Masks with a mission

As Sakai navigated the whirlwind of scaling a privately funded startup at a time when so many other businesses were struggling to stay afloat, it became clear very quickly that she hit on something truly remarkable. At one point, when celebrities including Ariana Grande, Katie Holmes, and Jennifer Lopez were photographed wearing her masks, she had a wait list more than 40,000 people long.

While those endorsements helped evolvetogether achieve massive growth, Sakai was intent on ensuring that the brand stood by its mission to offer performance-tested, socially responsible products that worked. “Caring is core to our DNA,” Sakai explains, and that culture covers everything from the brand’s production partners to its packaging, which is made from 100% post-consumer waste. The brand also donates a portion of sales from special edition masks to support organizations including the ACLU, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, GLSEN, and One Tree Planted.

“Everyone around the world uses daily essentials in some shape or form — which of course, adds up to a lot of waste and subpar product experiences,” Sakai adds. “But we think if done right, it could add up to a lot of opportunity to make a positive impact on people and our planet.”

Pared down essentials, robust video strategy

Sakai says her biggest challenge to date has been COVID-19’s impact on logistics, which affects everything from inventory to production to shipping. “As a new brand, we’re still getting our sea legs and building our reputation with our partners and customers, so it’s especially critical to get it right,” she says. “It’s pretty amazing that we’ve mostly figured it out by being agile, and prioritizing customer relationships and communication.”

Evolvetogether’s team is now 15 people strong, and Sakai recently partnered with a video agency to shoot and edit video content for the brand’s site and social channels. Customers can expect the brand’s video strategy to emphasize sustainability and social justice as much as it prioritizes sales goals. “Videos act as a kind of invitation to people,” Sakai says. “It’s an invitation to a community that wants to help make the world a better place for all of us, together. And that’s pretty powerful.”

Upload your videos now

For the team at Oishii, there’s no better way to highlight the special power of an Omakase Berry than to go straight to the source. “When someone bites into one of our Berries for the first time, there’s always this ‘Oh my god’ moment — a real physical reaction,” says Lesia Dallimore, VP of Brand and Marketing at Oishii. “Video helps us really create and share the emotional experience that our Berry creates the second someone tries it.” 

To capture the oh-my-goodness wow-factor that goes with trying their uncommonly flavored (and cultivated) fruit, Lesia and the team rely on UGC video to convey the taste of an Omakase Berry, Oishii’s premiere produce offering. “It’s no small feat to get people to wrap their head around the fact that it’s $50 for a tray of strawberries,” explains Lesia. “But if we can get them to try it — or experience the sensation of trying it — then it becomes a lot easier.”

Perfecting produce through vertical farming

Though they’re beginning to expand into countless agricultural options through vertical farming practices – think melons, tomatoes, grapes, and red peppers — Oishii began with one product: a strawberry. “Our founders wanted to begin focusing their efforts on the Omakase Berry, a fruit typically only found during winter in the Japanese Alps,” explains Lesia. “And we started there because that Berry is so unlike any other strawberry an average U.S. consumer has tried.” 

Oishii’s Berries — cultivated in a controlled, vertical farming environment complete with “very happy” bees and free of pesticides and contamination — aren’t your grandmother’s supermarket strawbs. They’re creamy, deeply red, and almost candy-like in flavor: “Everyone tells us they taste like what strawberries should taste like,” adds Lesia.

Ceremonial strawberries for everyday

Crunchy, plastic-clad clamshelled Berries might be the norm in the U.S., but Oishii co-founder Hiroki Koga explains that luxury fruit is a deeply-woven aspect of Japanese culture. “If I came home and there were strawberries on the table, I knew there was something to celebrate,” Hiroki explains. 

“It’s an experiential thing,” adds Lesia. “It’s not just a piece of fruit.” To help explore the Omakase Berry’s possibilities as an expression of luxury, the Oishii team also utilizes video to define the fruit as more than a yogurt topping or swiped-from-the-fridge snack. “The idea is that you would bring our strawberries to someone’s house instead of a bottle of champagne or a bouquet of flowers,” Lesia notes. 

“Obviously our best bet is for people to actually try the Berries before they buy them,” says Lesia. “But video is the best way for us to tell our story on that larger scale.”

Capturing a beautiful Berry experience

To highlight the range of Oishii’s value props — its carefully curated luxury and those wide-eyed first bites — Lesia and her team are focused on creating different video content to speak to both their elevated storytelling and their wow-factor snacking in turn. To meet both needs, Oishii has dabbled in both brand agency outsourcing and a bit of UGC, to create a combination of video styles that speak to all parts of their business. 

“Video really helps us do both of those things,” says Melissa Cohn, Oishii’s Senior Marketing Manager. “Whether it’s a nicely curated video from our agency or just a repost of someone trying the Berry for the first time, our videos consistently get more interactions on social media.” 38% percent more, to be precise, when compared with similar still imagery. 

“Having a co-founder who’s Japanese comes with a certain level of precision, integrity, and quality,” adds Lesia. “People are really able to see the thought and care that comes with that end product and experience through video. And I think that’s hugely important.”

Upload your videos now

Last year, Dave Costello and Micah Heftman launched Kengos, a shoe brand committed to making footwear a force for good. Thanks to the power of video, the Brooklyn-based startup’s message of transparent, stylish sustainability is being shared far and wide.

“Our goal is to leverage video in a way that’s engaging, enticing, and meaningful,” says Dave, the brand’s CEO, who dreamed up the idea for Kengos while he was still in business school. Before he even had a prototype in hand, he knew that he wanted to create a product that both inspired customers and designed smart solutions for their problems. He also knew that video was the best way to communicate his beliefs around manufacturing, climate change, and fashion.

Crowdfunding clean footwear

Kengos’s first product is the Lace Up, a striking and versatile shoe that’s 87% plant-based and is made of cotton, eucalyptus, corn, cork, and natural rubber. The Lace Up has only five components, a stark contrast to other shoes which typically have more than thirty. Kengos aims to push the footwear industry forward with a manufacturing process that extends the life of shoes while closing the loop of the supply chain.

To create the Lace Up, Dave and Micah, his Chief Product Officer, did a deep dive into product development before starting a Kickstarter campaign (under the brand’s former name, SCOOTS) that spilled over to Indiegogo and totaled over $50,000 in sales. During the campaign, Kengos began building its email subscriber list, which has since ballooned to 14,000 potential customers interested in learning more about the brand as it grows.

“Instead of trying to fabricate the biggest moment possible for launch, we wanted to get to market, turn on the lights, engage with our audience, and then build on momentum,” Dave explains. “Research tells us that video is the king of advertising. That’s why we’re investing in it right now, and that’s why I’m confident that video is going to be the way we go.”

Sustainable storytelling

The Kengos website is a streamlined, shoe-lover’s workhorse packed with useful stats, facts, and quirky product photos. But the soul of the site is an embedded video that expresses the brand’s core principles. Aptly titled “The Production Process,” the video was shot in Los Angeles prior to launch.

“The video explains the brand and, at the same time, draws a clear line of distinction in terms of what’s different and memorable about us,” Dave says. “We’re making footwear that’s optimized for the climate, but doesn’t compromise on what people care about most in shoes: style, comfort, price, and durability.” To date, Kengos’ videos have 34% more engagement than their photos. 

To produce “The Production Process,” the in-house staff at Kengos—a small but mighty team of six—worked closely with freelance videographers and editors. “We wanted to assemble an interesting, scrappy crew of talented people who could go out and shoot, then help us assemble the content that we needed,” Dave says.

His approach to creative direction is always a collaborative one. “When you find the right creative partner, it’s important to strike a balance,” he advises. “You want to be specific about whatever message you want the video to send. At the same time, you can’t be too specific, because you don’t want to clamp down on the creative freedom that the videographer brings to the project.”

“Video lets us tell [our] whole story in a way that’s so much more vivid than words and pictures alone.”

Dave Costello, Kengos co-founder

Stepping into success with video

As a young startup, Kengos is laser-focused on staying as close to the customer as possible, and is currently testing different messages that will appeal most strongly to their target audiences. The team is also brainstorming a new series of shoots that will go behind the scenes to illustrate the brand’s commitment to sustainability and its overall messaging.

Distribution on social, and more on-site embedded videos are all part of the plan to keep customers interested and engaged. “Video lets us tell [our] whole story in a way that’s so much more vivid than words and pictures alone,” Dave says. “And that’s important. Because what we’re doing is important. And video makes it possible.”

Upload your videos now

What do a Japanese strawberry brand, an electric motorcycle company, and a sustainable shoe start-up have in common? They’re all using video to change how customers experience their products.

From high-flying drone footage to user-generated reaction videos, these brands are using Vimeo to share and embed content that’s delivering real results for their business.

Watch their stories below.

Tarform

The founder and head designer of Tarform­ — a Brooklyn-based startup that makes electric motorcycles powered by clean technology — believes that it’s up to mission-driven brands to build products that are environmentally conscious as well as beautiful. The company relies on captivating embedded site videos to express its values, product features, and, perhaps most importantly: the thrill of the open road.

Why Tarform uses video: “Our ambition is to inspire people to adopt a more sustainable mindset. Video is one of the most impactful ways to share these stories and spark conversations.” – Taras Kravtchouk, Founder and CEO of Tarform

Kengos

Just last year, Dave Costello and Micah Heftman launched Kengos, a shoe brand committed to making footwear a force for good. Before Dave even had a prototype in hand, he knew that he wanted to create a product that both inspired customers and designed smart solutions for their problems. He also knew that video was the best way to communicate his beliefs around manufacturing, climate change, and fashion.

Why Kengos uses video: “Video lets us tell our whole story in a way that’s so much more vivid than words and pictures alone. And that’s important. Because what we’re doing is important. And video makes it possible.” – Dave Costello, Co-founder of Kengos

Evolvetogether

With the world in a state of crisis, a sudden demand for medical face masks inspired evolvetogether founder Cynthia Sakai to take action. Last year, evolvetogether sold 10 million face masks. This year, the team is expanding their product line into more everyday essentials, and investing in video to build a community of people devoted to making the world a better place.

Why evolvetogether uses video: “Videos act as a kind of invitation to people. It’s an invitation to a community that wants to help make the world a better place for all of us, together. And that’s pretty powerful.” – Cynthia Sakai, Founder and CEO of evolvetogether

Oishii

For the team at Oishii, there’s no better way to highlight the power of their curiously delicious berries than to go straight to the source. To capture the wide-eyed, oh-my-goodness, wow-factor that goes with trying their astonishing fruit, Oishii relies on UGC video to make an impact.

Why Oishii uses video: “Video helps us really create and share the emotional experience that our berry creates the second someone tries it.” – Lesia Dallimore, VP of Brand and Marketing at Osihii

Chapter 20

In 2020, just as on-the-go sanitizers became an accessory du jour, Chapter 20 hit the market. But crafting a messaging strategy for a product that has a wide range of use-cases — think hand sanitizer meets sunburn salve meets tattoo aftercare — is easier said than done. The solve? High-quality video, that’s already performing 28% better than their photos. 

Why Chapter 20 uses video: “Video lets us get beyond the functional, so we can create a feeling of knowing that you’re clean. And Vimeo Create makes telling that story so much easier.” – Justin Kerzner, Chapter 20 co-founder

Upload your videos now