Targeting brands, agencies and marketing companies, Vimily is launching in Sydney and Singapore today. The other markets in the region still need to be tested, according to the company.
Vimily was originally created as a video platform for families to share their legacies in a closed network environment. Katrin Suess, the company’s CTO and co-founder, told Campaign Asia-Pacific that driven by client needs and user feedback, Vimily has evolved to become an online video community that allows brands and consumers to create and share videos online.
“Vimily makes made the online video production much cheaper, and companies can create media content on-the-go,” Suess said. “One of the key features is to make video social, in order to build more brand exposure, and collect data of different demographics, which provide companies a possibility to build their own database.”
Vimily enables companies to pre-define interview questions, which will be displayed in a mobile app to prompt users on the subject matter. The videos can also be branded with the company’s logo and linked to any website.
While the video is being recorded, interviewees’ demographic information can be gathered through the app and uploaded instantly to Vimily’s platform, which is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Companies can repost videos on their own social platforms and websites. Interviewees can share across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and YouTube.
A call to action can be embedded on each video, to prompt users to, for example, make a donation, enter their personal details for a video competition or click to visit a website for further information. In the future, a pre-roll video advertisement can be incorporated at the end of a video to enhance brand recognition with audiences.
Matt Barnett, Vimily’s CEO and co-founder, said brands are increasingly looking for opportunities to create more meaningful conversations with large audiences in more unique ways.
“By simplifying our approach towards creating and socialising videos online, Vimily has developed a unique market proposition for businesses who want to create video content in an affordable way to carry a message or call to action,” he said.
Vimily is currently supported on iOS devices, and an Android version is expected in 2013.