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Cisco recently declared that by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82 per cent of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. And while consumer demand for video content continues to soar, publishers are having to work really hard to keep up.
One company that has an answer is Wibbitz, which offers an array of online tools to help content creators simplify the video production process.
Here Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-Founder of the company, talks through the company’s product range while highlighting the technology that could revolutionise content creation in the future.
Explain what Wibbitz is? How long have you been in business and what problems are you trying to solve?
Wibbitz is an automated video creation company that gives any team the freedom to produce professional short-form video – quickly, easily, and at scale. I founded the company in 2011 because I’ve always believed in the power of video – it’s essentially the most powerful way to share information and connect with people.
Of course, video requires a lot of resources, peoplepower, and budget, which limits many publishers’ potential to produce this type of content. I wanted to develop a tool that can be used by all teams, with or without video skills, to quickly and easily create professional-quality video.
Wibbitz is now used by over 500 of the world’s top brands all over the world to easily produce hundreds of videos a month – at a fraction of the price of traditional video creation.
What are Studio and Wavi and what are the key benefits they offer to content creators?
Wibbitz Studio is an online video creation platform that makes video production easy for anyone, regardless of experience level. Creators have access to customisable video templates, drag-and-drop editing tools, a team of in-house experts, and millions of licensed photos, videos, and soundtracks. It’s the ideal tool for anyone looking to create videos in-house, on-brand, and in minutes.
Wavi is an API product that enables fully automated video production from a feed of existing content assets. This is a great solution for enterprise brands that have a large database of structured content – like sports recaps, financial reports, list articles, etc. – and want to transform that content into thousands of engaging videos, in seconds.
How did the deal with Condé Nast Italy come about and how do the publishers intend to use your tools?
The editorial team at Condé Nast Italy was looking to diversify their offering for both their readers and advertisers. And knowing that video performs better than any other content medium across the board, they realised that they would need to scale up their efforts in order to keep up with increasingly high demand.
Wibbitz Studio and Wavi proved to be the perfect solutions for Condé Nast Italy to produce video at massive scale, while improving efficiency and reducing costs. The team is now using Wibbitz Studio to create recipe videos, travel content, gossip and fashion show coverage for seven of its Italian brands – Vogue Italia, Vanity Fair Italia, La Cucina Italiana, Traveller Italia, Wired Italia, GQ Italia, and AD – and using Wavi to generate videos based on user preferences for their various newsletters and websites.
How do you think video production will develop in the future? How might AI and machine learning further revolutionise the process?
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the industry has evolved to be video-centric in all aspects – Google and social media platforms are all prioritising video content; OTT platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video have permanently transformed consumers’ viewing habits; IoT devices are gradually expanding their interactivity from audio to visual. We’re also witnessing an uptick in the usage of AI and machine learning technologies to simplify the video creation, analysis, and distribution process. Video is what people want to spend time with, and it’s the best way to connect publishers with their audiences – and now much of the media industry is responding to this increasing demand.
The true power of AI lies in how it works with humans, instead of for humans. I believe that the marriage of AI, human creativity, and empathy is what essentially will boost our productivity and quality of all kinds of work to a whole new level. As we work to improve our automation technology, we always make sure that the user experience helps inspire creative ideas, and that the creation process is ultimately human-led, rather than automation-led.
What impact has Covid had on your business? Has it created new opportunities as well as challenges?
After Covid hit, we took the opportunity to pause and reflect on our strategy, and how we were communicating the value of our product within this new and unfamiliar climate. We noticed a few things – first, many publishers actually started creating more videos to keep up with increased content consumption during quarantine, which allowed us to expand partnerships with many customers; second, we noticed that many businesses were cutting budgets and shifting their content production in-house.
So we came to realise our role in all this: to lower the barrier to entry for video, by making video creation more accessible for any business or publisher going through these challenging times. We decided to provide a free trial on our website and introduce new plans at a lower price.
In doing so, we’ve made it much easier for any person that is curious about our tool to jump right in and get started with video. We even have many people with video experience that try the platform and realise how much time they can save producing the short, quick-turnaround video content. Although we’re all facing uncertainty right now, we’re both optimistic and excited about how a tool like Wibbitz can help publishers thrive during this time and evolve for the future.
Ashley Norris