NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vimeo (NASDAQ:VMEO), the world's most innovative video experience platform, today announced its 2022 Best of Staff Picks, Vimeo's recognition of exceptional Staff Picked videos from the past year across three categories: Best Branded Videos, Breakthrough Creators, and Best Videos. This year's winners were selected from 600+ Staff Picks in 2020. All the winning videos are available at https://vimeo.com/bestoftheyear/.

Established in 2008 as a way to celebrate the best of the best videos uploaded directly from Vimeo’s community of world-class filmmakers, Staff Picks has emerged as one of the preeminent channels for online video and one of the most coveted awards for filmmakers, having helped launch the careers of many celebrated directors. Staff Picks Best of the Year recognizes standouts in original storytelling, diverse perspectives, and exceptional craft.

“Vimeo Staff Picks is an industry-respected source for talent discovery and a way for our creators to gain more exposure. In a recent Vimeo survey of hundreds of Staff-Picked creators, 85% believe receiving a Staff Pick helped increase brand awareness around their business, 68% said that being Staff Picked helped them receive paid/funded future work, and 61% say that being Staff Picked helped launch their careers,” said Lynn Girotto, Chief Marketing Officer, Vimeo. “This is a testament to the ambition of Staff Picks to help creators increase their exposure, get hired, and most importantly, get paid.”

“Being featured as a Vimeo Staff Pick led to my video being seen across the internet – as a result, it was discovered and shared by Tony Hawk, then featured on the front page of Reddit and beyond. I hosted my video exclusively on Vimeo, so I've been able to see the impact of the Staff Pick directly,” said Najeeb Tarazi, Director of Best of Staff Pick 2022 winner “One More Try.” “As both a creative and a professional, I host my work on Vimeo because it allows me to connect with a large audience of creative colleagues, including many of the most admired filmmakers and agencies in my industry."

2022 saw the highest number of brand videos ever to be included in Staff Picks. With the growing appetite for compelling, high-quality video as a marketing and communications tool and recognition that video can be the most engaging medium for customer communication, leading marketers have been using Vimeo’s Staff Picks channel as a talent acquisition pipeline for years. Having introduced branded videos into Staff Picks in 2020, we now see 12% of Staff Picks selections coming from companies.

For the first time, this year’s Best Of microsite provides an interactive experience, utilizing Vimeo’s interactive video capabilities; visitors to the microsite can access curation notes, director commentary and Q&A, filmmaker biographies, and more.

2022’s Best of the Year Staff Picks are:

Best Videos of the Year

• Doechii - Crazy, directed by C Prinz
• Faraway, directed by Aziz Zoromba
• Indonesia FPV: Bali & Java, directed by Andrew Efimov
• O Black Hole!, directed by Renee Zhan
• One More Try, directed by Najeeb Tarazi
• Ousmane, directed by Jorge Camarotti
• The Sentence of Michael Thompson, directed by Kyle Thrash, Haley Elizabeth Anderson
• The Vandal, directed by Eddie Alcazar
• TSHA - Running, directed by Danaé Gosset
• Ultromedia Please, directed by Sam Campbell

Breakout Creators of the Year

• Amber Schaefer
• Cherish Oteka
• David Findlay
• Dumas Haddad
• Ian Barling
• Joe Cappa
• Justyna Obasi
• Nuhash Humayun
• Runyararo Mapfumo
• Talya Galasko

Best Branded Videos of the Year

• Apple - Escape From The Office, directed by Mark Molloy
• Cannondale Presents - High Road, directed by Lindsey Hagen
• Christie's - Santo, directed by Freddie Leyden
• Coors Light - CoorSlide, directed by Animation Director Faga Melo and Creative Directors Raphael Franzini & Rafael Beretta
• Kathmandu - Summer Never Sleeps, directed by Daniel Warwick
• KidSuper - The Misadventures of KidSuper, directed by Sebastian Sdaigui
• Mastercard - Spotlight , directed by Fredrik Bond
• Penny - The Wish, directed by Marcus Ibanez
• Switzerland Tourism - Even if it Takes A While, directed by Spencer MacDonald
• TAKT - Thank you, directed by Bine Bach

About Vimeo
Vimeo (NASDAQ:VMEO) is the world’s most innovative video experience platform. We enable anyone to create high-quality video experiences to connect better and bring ideas to life. We proudly serve our growing community of nearly 300 million users — from creative storytellers to globally distributed teams at the world’s largest companies. Learn more at www.vimeo.com.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/b56039c6-e682-4104-a10b-789d650332bc

Contact: PR@vimeo.com