It’s no secret that The North Face works with a roster of incredible athletes — many of whom star in the brand’s highly produced and captivating video content. But when we sat down with Robert Wassmer, Creative Content Manager at The North Face, we learned that they also have an all-star team of creators working behind the camera. Check out the video above to learn how The North Face finds collaborators, and read on for more video wisdom from Robert.
What do you love about the Vimeo community?
I joined the North Face team five years ago. Since day one, I was saying that we needed to up our presence on Vimeo. The great thing about Vimeo is that you’re a channel with a really intentional community. The people that flock to Vimeo are going for a specific reason — to watch a certain caliber of film. We gravitate toward platforms like Vimeo when we’re looking to share our videos. And it’s really interesting.
The feedback that we get on Vimeo is sometimes completely in contrast to the feedback we’ll see on other social sites. With the Vimeo community, we don’t have to explain what we’re trying to achieve as much as we do with audiences elsewhere. Vimeo just gets it, which is really great.
How does the North Face team use Vimeo?
Since we don’t have an in-house editing team, It’s very case by case. We mainly use Vimeo as a distribution platform, but I’ve used Vimeo review tools with numerous production partners for editing and it’s great. Dropping a note at a timestamp is just awesome.
I’ve also started poking around Vimeo For Hire. It’s so easy to do a quick search for an animator or a DP. The North Face is traditionally known for curating and empowering a team of world-class athletes.
But a similar thing is actually happening behind the camera—we’ve curated a really incredible team of world-class creatives. And as I look to the future, I want to keep doing that. I want to get more females behind the camera and more diverse perspectives, more people of color and of different sexual orientations. I want us to think about how we can get a wider perspective on the outdoors, and Vimeo For Hire will be a great tool for us to do this.
How do you see your video efforts driving the brand?
The outdoor industry is extremely saturated and everyone is making similar things, so it’s complicated. So you can’t always differentiate yourself with your product, but with what your logo represents. That’s what’s really great about video — it illustrates what our brand stands for and believes in. I think that showing the human side of our brand does so much more for our sales than anything else.
At the same time, we have people in all corners of the world using our product. So, it’s easy for us to display our products in authentic ways. Visually showing someone on top of a mountain peak like Lhotse in a North Face jacket is such a great representation of what we stand for and also what we’re selling.
