Two Goals Viibar and Dentsu Inc. Want to Achieve with "Digital Video"

Dentsu Inc. and Dentsu Digital Inc. announced a capital and business alliance with Viibar on April 20.

Through this partnership, we aim to achieve two major goals.

This time, we'll discuss the challenges facing Japan's digital video production industry that led to this partnership, along with the specific details of the collaboration.

How to respond to diversifying production demands in the rapidly advancing digital video era?

The digital video market continues to show rapid growth. Looking solely at the advertising market, the digital video advertising market size, which was ¥29 billion in 2014, is projected to reach ¥122.4 billion by 2017.

Figure 1: Estimated and Projected Market Size of Video Advertising Expenditures (Source: " 2016 Internet Advertising Market Size Estimation Survey " by D2C Inc./CCI)

Moreover, looking more broadly at "video planning and production," corporate demand for video and its use in marketing extends far beyond just "advertising." As shown in the figure below, digital video is needed across all media and in all situations, making it increasingly indispensable for future marketing.

Figure 2: Expanding Scenarios for Corporate Digital Video Utilization

Although collectively termed "digital video," each application has distinct objectives and usage methods, leading to differences in strategy, planning approaches, schedules, and costs. While the overall production process—such as "filming followed by editing"—remains similar, the on-site workflow and role allocation vary slightly. For example, the level of detail required in the filming plan before shooting begins differs.

In this era, diverse expertise is increasingly demanded from the supply side handling planning and production. Particularly in the fast-paced digital advertising space, demand is rising for previously uncommon types of videos—such as "mass-produced videos created quickly and on a low budget" or "videos that undergo continuous PDCA cycles even after release." These formats are now capturing a significant share of the market.

Diversifying client needs. We want to build an efficient production system.

The Dentsu Group aims to further strengthen its capabilities in "defining challenges specific to digital video, planning, and realizing production processes," building upon the marketing communication expertise cultivated through its campaign planning and production experience.

Viibar ( http://viibar.com/), our new partner, is currently the most dynamic digital video production company. With the mission "Changing the world of video. Changing the world with video," it supports the digital video marketing of approximately 600 clients globally, leveraging a network of over 3,000 professional creators. As a company that has led Japan's digital video market, it possesses the precisely needed strengths in "areas unique to digital video."

Viibar's registered creators are all professionals with extensive experience across various fields. Moreover, most are multi-skilled creators capable of handling everything from planning to shooting and editing. From this pool, we select the most suitable individual or minimal team based on the project's challenges and budget. They work alongside Viibar's in-house producers from the planning stage. A system is in place to provide agile and meticulous backup throughout the entire process—from finalizing the plan (including the directional concept) to shooting and editing—until completion.

Partnering with Viibar allows us to build a production system that addresses corporate marketing challenges while also fulfilling demands like "producing many videos at once" or "repeatedly conducting A/B testing." The major goal of this partnership is to create a mechanism that teaches the know-how of capturing people's emotions—distinct from TV commercials—and satisfies diverse client needs for digital video.

Simultaneously, we aim to go beyond simply creating videos. We want to systematically accumulate scientific insights into "what kind of videos will lead to the results companies are aiming for."

Furthermore, another underlying purpose shared by both parties was the desire to transform the inherently labor-intensive and often inefficient process of video production into a sustainable system, especially as demand for digital video explodes.

Now, let's look at the specific details of the partnership to achieve these two initial goals.

To solve challenges common across many production sites, Viibar's "Vync" is being promoted for adoption within the Dentsu Group.

Vync is a cloud-based tool. It allows teams to store and share all data and materials related to planning and production, including video, images, audio, storyboards, art direction, and shooting plans.

It enables centralized management of schedules, information exchange, confirmation, consultation, and revision instructions within the team, thereby smoothing communication among members.

By sharing and completing the majority of the video production process in the cloud, it significantly improves operational efficiency.

Vync incorporates features unique to Viibar, which deeply understands the specific tasks involved in video production. For example, when making video corrections, you can add "red markups" directly onto the video itself. This means you can "write necessary instructions directly onto the required frames at the exact positions needed."

Furthermore, incorporating feedback from Dentsu Inc.'s production teams, the tool has been refined to minimize extra steps like clicks and transitions, continuously evolving into an increasingly user-friendly solution.

Furthermore, since the entire process—from creative briefs to planning and production—is stored within the tool, it enables detailed analysis of planning for results and facilitates improvements to the planning and production process itself.

Alongside the tool's introduction, we began a personnel collaboration where Viibar, Dentsu Inc. and Dentsu Digital Inc. personnel work together to tackle challenges in digital video production.

As mentioned earlier, "digital video" as a medium can be utilized across a broad spectrum—not just advertising, but also content and PR—from the top to the bottom of the marketing funnel. The current vision is for a joint team from Dentsu Inc., Dentsu Digital Inc., and Viibar to execute diverse video strategies, planning, and production across various phases of marketing activities.

Specifically, a dedicated desk has been established within Dentsu Digital Inc. Producers and planners from Viibar will participate in projects involving digital video, regardless of whether they are advertising or non-advertising. By leveraging each team's distinct strengths and working together, we aim to create optimal solutions.

Whether in team composition, production processes, or even in balancing cost and quality and designing PDCA cycles, we aim to flexibly provide plans best suited to solving the specific challenges of each project.

In an era where video is increasingly prominent, we will tackle marketing challenges by combining concepts born from "Dentsu Inc.'s cultivated marketing communication planning capabilities" with those born from "Viibar's unique digital video expertise," further enhanced by new, efficient production processes. Please look forward to it.

Next time, we'll hear from Viibar CEO Yuta Uesaka about his passion for digital video and Viibar's objectives for this partnership.