What is a video? We weren’t so sure. Then we figured out that it’s a series of frames arranged to form a moving picture. Then our questions became more metaphysical, more advanced: why video? We went on a lengthy, complicated vision quest in search of the answer. I’d type more, but as it turns out, video sort of eliminates the need to do that.
Developing great company culture isn’t all just fun and games. Here at Wistia, we’ve been working hard to create an environment that brings out the best in every member of our team. In order to keep improving our game, we’ve been visiting companies we respect to learn how they work and what makes their culture unique. We’ll be sharing everything we learn though our favorite medium (video!) in an experiment we’re calling How They Work.
This was an especially fun installment of How They Work for us because we’ve been big fans of Clover Food Lab for a while — they even catered our holiday party! If you’re not tempted by those butternut squash fritters, you might not be human. Even if you’re not someone who works with food, Clover’s an interesting case study — they’re building a different kind of food business, one whose business model feels much more like a tech company. In many ways, they leverage technology to return to the way things used to be.
Clover's food is all vegetarian, but their message isn't at all preachy, and their healthier take on fast food is appealing to all, ranging from the BBQ seitan, which feels a bit like a hippie-friendly McRib, to the chickpea fritter, which is essentially a falafel on crack. They don't use freezers at all, so you know everything they're serving up is completely fresh. They also keep their menu local and develop close relationships with farmers.
Because of their local and seasonal menu approach, they've devised a way to make their menu completely flexible, incorporating whiteboards and screens to accomodate quick changes. Their menu in the Boston area stays fairly consistent between locations, but as Clover expands, this will be an important feature. Clover doesn't want people to come for a certain sandwich, they want people to come because of Clover's unique approach to sandwiches. They're also huge advocates of testing items and tracking what people buy to make their menu the best it can be. Because there's a low cost to letting people try their product (much like with a tech product), they do so frequently, and often unsolicited -- they're in it for the long term, and they're okay with making some mistakes along the way. And something seems to be working -- they've grown from 10 to 140 employees in the past year.
Clover currently has five food trucks and two restaurant locations in the Boston area. We hope to see more of Clover popping up in our favorite neighborhoods soon! How about Davis Square? 
 Fan Bi is the co-founder of Blank Label, a custom dress shirt company whose mission is simple: to make the luxury and empowerment of custom more accessible and more affordable. You can follow him on Twitter at @lifeoffbi or Blank Label at @blanklabel. |
Chinese New Year is the world’s biggest annual human migration, and with Blank Label doing its manufacturing in China, it’s our biggest annual production headache. Blank Label is an online custom dress shirt maker, and for two weeks each year around January and February, our tailors take two weeks off to travel home and spend time with families. In previous years, we’ve tried communicating the break with homepage browser pop-ups, banners around the site, support email auto-reponders, all of which generally cause confusion about why we’re delaying our customers’ orders.
In addition, during the break, our sales always freeze up. People get turned off and just don’t order during the period. We’ve had three years to try different communication tactics and just hadn’t found a good way to communicate why people should be okay with their order being two weeks late. Late last year, we were introduced to Wistia, and the power of communicating a message online with video. Immediately I understood why Wistia was better for business than YouTube, for us most notably. At the end of YouTube videos we posted, it would show related video from competitors. But it wasn’t until I saw some profiles of businesses Wistia had done that I understood that Wistia wasn’t just useful for screencasts, but that it could really communicate a story or message in a simple, engaging, brand-elevated manner.
This year we tried something different. We placed a banner on our homepage with a clear hyperlink that showed a pop-over lightbox video (with code simply copy-and-pasted from Wistia’s new SuperEmbed). We’ve received dozen of compliments on the video, our orders have held steady through out break, and it’s saved our customer service champions so much time explaining to people why their orders might be late. We’re now looking to add video to other important elements of the site including Returns, How It Works, and launches of new products. With the power of a SLR camera, some light video editing and Wistia’s SuperEmbed, we’ve been able to turn a customer and service frustration into a sales and branding win.
Do you have a frequently asked question or highly visited part of your site you think can be better served with video?
I’m proud to say that I’ve recently shifted how I use Facebook. I transitioned out of stalker mode and into business mode, using the platform to showcase my latest video work as CRLVIDEO. When I make a new video that I’m particularly proud of, I first email my close friends directly, then tweet it, then embed a Wistia video on my Facebook wall. Sharing my work on Facebook may be self-gratifying, but I tell myself that it’s building recognition for CRLVIDEO and what I do.
Every year (since 2005), I edit a short “year in review” video for my wife Courtney for Christmas. Nothing special, just some quirky music with pictures and video clips from whatever we did that year. I consider it to be the most important project I work on all year. No matter how many other projects I find myself trying to wrap up by the year’s end, I always love finding time to do at least this one very important project.
I followed the same video sharing progression I use for CRLVIDEO after I completed (and gifted) this year’s 2011 Christmas video. I sent out a few emails, tweeted it, and posted it on my (and Courtney’s) Facebook walls. Like the analytics junkie that I am, I checked my Wistia stats on the video a few days after.
I was shocked by the numbers. An extremely personal video. Made up of personal memories. Featuring pictures and video of only my wife and me. Garnered a metric of 91% engagement across everyone who watched the video. Umm...what? We’re not talking about a 10 second video here. This was a 3 minute and 10 second video... one of the longest I’ve created in over 2 years. 67 people watched an average of 91% of the video. 91% of every vomit-inducing, sappy, love-drenched frame.
With this video, I reached a new milestone. The 2011 Christmas video became the most engaging video of all of the videos I host on Wistia. Why? I don’t think it’s because it’s my best video. I think it’s because the video offers a privileged look inside our lives. We’re not living any differently than a lot of other of our friends. It’s the sheer curiosity and downright creepiness of everyone in our Facebook network that led each person to click play and watch all the way through.
Not creepy enough for you yet? Check out the spike in the aggregate graph at around 2:15. People re-watching this section like woah. Why? Because it had a joke picture of a joke gift from two of our closest friends that fake alluded to Courtney being pregnant. Guess that explains the e-mails from people we haven’t talked to since high school asking when the baby is due and if we know what she’s having!
There are a few lessons I learned here:
