Viibar × Dentsu Inc. Dialogue: Addressing "Diverse Challenges" with "Diverse Digital Video"

This spring, Dentsu Inc. and Dentsu Digital Inc. announceda capital and business alliance with digital video marketing company Viibar. What are the objectives behind this alliance, and what synergies are they aiming for? Viibar CEO Yuta Uesaka and Dentsu Digital Inc. Executive Officer Akiko Gunji discussed these points.

Digital Video Expertise × Problem-Solving Expertise

Gunji:In my previous column, I shared "Dentsu Inc.'s perspective" on this partnership. This time, as the interviewer, I'd like to hear "Viibar's perspective" while also conveying what Viibar and Dentsu Inc. aim to bring to the solution of digital video marketing.

Uesaka: Thank you. First, to briefly explain Viibar's origins: I started as a director at a video production company before transitioning to a marketing role at Rakuten. This gave me experience on both the production and client sides of the video industry.
Throughout that career, I felt the demand for "digital video" growing rapidly in society, while also sensing room for improvement in production efficiency and rationality. Wanting to solve this with a new business model, I launched Viibar in 2013.

Gunji: I learned about Viibar shortly after it was founded and have been intrigued ever since. It was also a time when demand for digital video was just starting to surge, so I kept wondering, "Who on earth is running this place?" (laughs). I always thought, "I'd love to work with them someday, meet them someday."

Uesaka: Thank you (laughs). At Viibar, we first developed a service that "matches clients wanting videos with the best creators and enables cloud-based production management." This allowed us to deliver high-quality videos quickly while simplifying communication during production, reducing the burden for both clients and creators.

Gunji: Speed and reducing the workload on the production side are major challenges in digital video production. By the way, I first learned about Viibar when I read a news article saying, "A former Rakuten employee started a digital video crowdsourcing service."

Uesaka: Oh, wasn't that article kinda sensationalist? (laughs) That said, we recognized that simple crowdsourcing alone offers limited added value in the video domain, so we've continued evolving the service. The key feature of Viibar's service isn't just creating and delivering videos. Our in-house planners and producers accompany clients from the planning stage and are fully committed to post-distribution results. In other words, we believe our strength lies in providing not just "digital video," but "marketing solutions centered around digital video."

Gunji: Exactly. Viibar's appeal isn't just about high-quality videos; it's about proposing "digital videos that improve the client's business." So, Viibar is now partnering with the Dentsu Group. Before this partnership started, we held weekly meetings and took ample time to understand each other, right?

Uesaka: We did! Beyond the main theme of "what strengths can we bring by partnering," we meticulously built up the foundation by confirming everything from each other's production systems, cost structures, and scheduling sensibilities, down to something as seemingly minor as terminology – "Are we using this term to mean the same thing?"

Gunji: This time, we felt it was crucial to emphasize "building this together," which is why we insisted on the "partnership" structure. We understood the preparatory phase for this collaboration was vital, so we invested significant time.

Uesaka: We meticulously aligned our respective assumptions and perspectives... Even just those regular meetings yielded significant value. The primary reason Viibar wanted to partner with Dentsu Inc. was to strengthen our capabilities as a "marketing solution," as mentioned earlier.
Many clients still think in terms of a division of roles: "Digital is for the lower part of the marketing funnel," and "Mass advertising handles the upper funnel phases like awareness and interest." However, as Viibar grew and we pursued our mission of "solving client challenges with digital video," discussions naturally arose: "Video production alone isn't a complete solution," and "How can we integrate with mass media?"
In other words, Viibar aims to strengthen its ability to support the entire funnel—from top to bottom—rather than just pinpointing and handling the bottom.

Gunji: Thinking of "video production alone" as a standalone element is actually quite difficult. While integration with mass media is one aspect, digital marketing itself requires the entire funnel to be seamlessly connected. It's only when the need arises within that context that "we want to use video here" happens. Therefore, especially in the digital domain, it's challenging to adopt a fragmented approach like "just creating video" or "just handling planning."

Uesaka: In that regard, Dentsu Inc. is precisely the kind of company that covers every phase, from the top to the bottom of the funnel. They possess an overwhelming amount of means and know-how for "problem-solving" in every situation. So, I thought the impact would be greater when working together than if we tried to solve things on our own.

Gunji: Thank you. The demand for digital video extends beyond advertising into all kinds of scenarios. Consequently, the requirements for video production—from strategy and planning direction to scheduling and cost considerations—are diversifying. We aim to build new production and marketing know-how tailored to these evolving digital video needs, alongside Viibar, which has led Japan's digital video market.

Introducing production management tools contributes not only to operational efficiency but also to refining creativity.

Gunji: As one concrete initiative in this partnership, Viibar producers are now stationed at Dentsu Digital Inc., marking the start of our collaborative talent exchange. We hope that by working together on various projects going forward, we can mutually feed back know-how. From your perspective, Uesaka-san, how do you feel things are progressing so far?

Uesaka: Well, starting to work with Dentsu Inc., I have to say—and this might sound presumptuous—but the sheer depth of talent within the Dentsu Group is truly staggering. It's not just the know-how; it's the sheer number of exceptionally talented individuals. That's precisely why I feel there's still enormous potential here.

Gunji: Another initiative we're pushing into the Dentsu Group is Viibar's cloud-based video production management tool, "Vync." This was originally developed as an internal tool, right?

Uesaka: That's correct. Many creators registered with Viibar are based in regional areas or overseas, so we built it to provide an environment where we could work efficiently and stress-free with these remote collaborators.

Viibar's cloud-based production management tool "Vync". Allows direct annotation ("red marks") on video, still images, and other assets

Gunji: When we trialed Vync for the Dentsu Group, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback from creators using it in their daily work, with many saying, "This is amazing." It enables sharing and completing information exchanges and communication among members during video production processes entirely within the cloud. This naturally boosts operational efficiency, but the real value lies in how every step of the production process gets stored within the tool. We see potential for using this stored data to review outcomes or improve production workflows.

Uesaka: Previously, project assets were often scattered across individual local drives. With Vync, everything accumulates in one place per project—not just video and audio assets, but also proposals, storyboards, communication during production, and revision histories. This enables instant access to "past projects" anytime. It enables reflection, and eventually, we hope to create a virtuous cycle of stock and output—where the accumulated information can fuel new idea generation.
The tool itself is constantly improving based on feedback from Dentsu Inc.'s production teams. We want Vync to be used not just for video but across various creative fields, aiming to become the standard production management tool.

Vync dramatically improves operational efficiency by recording production communications.

Leveraging each other's strengths to build new benchmarks and solutions for the digital video era

Gunji: As Ms. Uesaka mentioned earlier, "digital video" as a medium is now becoming something that can be utilized across a wide range of fields, not just advertising, but also including content and PR. The media platforms hosting videos and the purposes for using video are also diversifying.
Therefore, I believe the most important mission of this partnership is to "provide diverse solutions for the diversifying needs of digital video." To achieve this, we want to leverage the strengths of both Dentsu Inc. and Viibar to continuously create new solutions.

Uesaka: That's something we definitely want to pursue. From the perspective of Viibar's goals – "connecting the upper and lower parts of the funnel with digital video" and "collaboration between mass media and digital" – we also want to explore together what kind of results can be achieved when digital video is combined with other campaigns or integrated with TV commercials.

Gunji: By leveraging digital's unique characteristics, we can conduct A/B tests to see how the market reacts when we swap creative assets, or create ten different product cut patterns to measure response variations. Since Vync's digital video production accumulates all kinds of data, we can also explore more "scientific approaches to creativity," right?

Uesaka: The ability to conduct detailed "effectiveness verification" is indeed a strength of digital. That's an area we want to strengthen going forward, working together with Dentsu Inc.

Gunji: We're also considering building simple logic systems that aren't solely reliant on "individual ideas," based on data accumulation and analysis. Of course, what moves people isn't logic, but individual ideas and intuition. However, properly establishing the logic that leads to that point is also necessary. With digital, I believe we can create a structure where the logic comes first, and ideas and intuition are built upon it.

Uesaka: The optimal format for digital video changes depending on the combination of distribution channels and viewing devices. Viewer needs are also becoming extremely diverse, so we have a mountain of work ahead.

Gunji: The Dentsu Group brings expertise in solving marketing communication challenges, while Viibar brings expertise in planning and producing various types of digital video. By combining our distinct strengths and working together, we aim to provide clients with the optimal solution.

Uesaka: Exactly. As client demand to "solve marketing challenges with digital video" grows and the market expands steadily, I hope this partnership sparks more voices within the Dentsu Group saying, "I want to try digital video" or "I want to use Vync." Then, by pooling everyone's insights and know-how, we can further strengthen value creation through digital video marketing solutions.