To survive—and succeed—in ecommerce, you need to use short-form video. The days of door-to-door salespeople peddling company products are long gone. Today, an online retailer that wants to drive sales should be prepared to invest in creating high-quality short-form videos that engage their potential customers.
Which ecommerce brands are doing a good job with video marketing? Below are three standout brands that can provide some inspiration for using short-form video to grow your business.
VAT19
VAT19 is a brand that sells “curiously awesome gifts,” including candy, toys, gummy, putty and more. To increase visits and drive purchases directly from their website, VAT19 produced several silly and fun videos of people using their gifts to have a good time. This allowed potential customers to not only see what VAT19 but also watch their products in action.
Rather than creating strictly informational how-to and FAQ videos, VAT19 took advantage of the medium of short-form video to have fun and get creative, with an entire game show about its gifts. In fact, VAT19 regularly produces videos challenging people to try out unusual things, like taking a dip in a bathtub full of liquid glass putty, which is one of their most popular items.
VAT19’s youtube page is filled with this type of fun-to-watch content—and it’s earned them over 7 million subscribed viewers on YouTube, and close to 7 billion views on all their videos. Their fast-growing Tik Tok channel features one-minute pranks and challenges based on products.
Nintendo
Nintendo has also used short-form video to reinvigorate its brand and make it more accessible to young people. In 2016, Nintendo decided to cash in on the nostalgia among its fanbase by re-releasing its classic gaming systems and consoles. The goal was to use fan nostalgia for the old games to fuel excitement over new products like the Nintendo Switch. While many expected this campaign to backfire, they couldn’t predict how how short-form video marketing would impact the campaign.
To promote the sale of the old consoles, Nintendo started releasing one-minute-long videos and clips of their old games. Fan favorites like Super Mario have become regulars on the Nintendo YouTube channel, starring in minute-long videos that take you down the memory lane of your childhood and teen years. The channel’s subscriber base on YouTube has grown, thanks to these short videos that are fun, evocative, and easy to watch.
With over 7 million subscribers and over 2.5 billion views on the main YouTube channel, the nostalgia campaign has worked for Nintendo. By using short-form videos to help players reminisce about the fun they had playing Nintendo games, the brand created enough engagement from potential customers to drive up sales for their new gaming systems. The Switch has sold around 80 million devices worldwide, becoming Nintendo’s fifth highest-selling console of all time, behind the Nintendo DS, the Wii and the Gameboy.
Ubisoft North America
Number three on our list is yet another video game developer. Ubisoft, famous for games like Assassin’s Creed and Just Dance, uses video platforms to roll out short videos to drive interest and sell their games. Typically anywhere between a minute and five minutes long, the videos feature interviews with developer teams, clips of users playing the games, and reviews of new games coming out.
For example, Ubisoft has a dedicated YouTube channel for their game Just Dance 2021, to be released in 2021. The short videos about the game released have already created buzz and anticipation from gamers. For a game that’s not out yet, the account has just under 2 million subscribers and over half a billion total views.
Conclusion
The best brands are using short-form video to grow their ecommerce sales. Whether you’re a global brand with a massive marketing budget or a small startup starting to grow your brand presence, short-form video is a powerful way to to boost sales. And the more creative you are, the better it pays off.
New to creating short-form video? Sign up for Firework’s free trial today, and we’ll help you get started creating short video that will help your business better engage with your customers.
