Video production company One Day Video, which shoots, edits, and delivers videos in just 24 hours, not only survived but thrived through Covid-19 and in under two years has already gained 81 clients including Foodstuffs and Hamilton City Council.

Here, we chat to brothers, turned co-founders, Matthew and Jacob Dawson about how they’re meeting the demand for high-production value videos for small to medium sized businesses in New Zealand.

What’s the big idea behind your company?

While doing some freelance video work, I (Jacob) found that most businesses struggled with the video making process. The back-and-forth feedback, or ‘death by a thousand edits’, took far too long and didn’t guarantee they got exactly what they wanted. I thought, “why can’t we create a video in a day?” And that’s where the idea for One Day Video was born.

What’s the origin story?

Matt and I are brothers, but we first began working together a decade ago when we launched an online toy store selling quirky and fun toys. We marketed the products by using the family camera to make funny YouTube videos and this is where our business partnership truly began. Fast-forward to the beginning of 2019 and the idea for One Day Video formed in my mind – it took a bit of convincing, but Matt soon joined me, left his full-time job a few months later and we took a deep dive into the world of business once again. We were lucky enough that our father, Rodney, joined our endeavour as the Sales Manager and all-round business coach.

What’s your point of difference? What does One Day Video offer its clients?

Three things:

1) We use the power of concentrated creativity to make world-class videos in as little as a day. For many companies, this saves huge amounts of wasted time because we edit the video right there with them on-site.

2) We also assign a dedicated scriptwriter to every job ensuring the video is engaging and tells a clear message.

3) We push our customers to introduce humour into their videos, making content that their audience actually wants to watch. At the end of the day, we create high production value videos that are affordable to small-medium sized businesses because of our agile process. 

What challenges have you faced along the way?

Covid-19 had a big impact on our business because 100 percent of our work was live videos, meaning we had to cancel all our shoots during lockdown. We were pretty concerned, but then Matt came up with a brilliant idea to introduce an animated video package. Our sister who was doing some freelance digital marketing work for us at the time (we’ve now employed her fulltime), ran an ads campaign over Facebook which was really successful!

What stage is the company at now?

We’re at a very exciting growth phase! We’ve just created and filled a new role – Producer – to manage all our ongoing projects. In addition, we’re working with 12 contractors to create multiple videos each week. We still work out of a home office (aka converted garage – where all great start-ups begin!), but are seriously thinking about making the move to a proper office space soon. 

What successes has your business had so far?

Hiring our first full-time employee in September was a highlight! We’ve also seen our little team of contractors grow from three to 12 in one year. And apart from everything else we’ve mentioned, we invested in our very first creative project – an animated Christmas commercial about what really goes on at a Christmas tree farm. This is the first of many creative projects and signified an exciting stage where we had the resources to do it!

Which project has been your favourite?

This might sound cliche, but we actually try to make every project our favourite. However, a recent video that we completed for Foodstuffs had us all very excited! It was an internal comms video to take the 20,000+ Foodstuffs’ staff through a virtual tour of their new distribution centre. We wanted to make it fun and engaging, so we hired an actor and voice over artist to bounce off each other in a comedic fashion while they took the viewer through the facilities. The client loved it and it had a fantastic response on LinkedIn – you can watch it here.

What’s next for One Day Video?

We’re right on the cusp of launching a new product… our Digital Marketing Manager and Sales Manager have been cooking up a range of video marketing packages so our current customers can take their videos to the next level online. We’re excited to use our expertise to help other businesses thrive! 

What impact could you envision your company having in the future?

We want to become the go-to video marketing company in New Zealand. We’re just approaching our second birthday and quite honestly, this no longer feels like an impossible dream. Our focus is on creating scroll-stopping, story-led videos for Kiwi brands and having already partnered with the likes of Foodstuffs, Hamilton City Council, NZ Home Loans, and GirlBoss, we’re excited about the impact we’ll have! It’s only the beginning.