How Siemens Transformed Digital Communications With Lumen5
ABOUT SIEMENS
Leading player in industry 4.0
Siemens is a technology pioneer and global powerhouse. It transforms businesses and industries to improve the lives of billions of people around the world.
The company delivers purpose-driven digitalization, automation, and engineering for more efficient manufacturing, smarter power distribution, stronger supply chains, and more.
With 293,000 employees worldwide, Siemens is a leading player in industry 4.0. It’s at the cutting edge of infrastructure, transport, and healthcare.
"Our message needs to be in a market very fast, we can’t really wait for any back and forward with the agencies just to create some really simple social media assets."
Michelle Hsiao, Visual Content Director, Siemens
THE CHALLENGE
Become a Digital Communications Leader
Siemens uses technology to overcome real-world challenges. As a digital pioneer, its marketing strategy needs to align with the company’s mission and digital-first branding. It has to meet customers where they are on digital channels.
“One of the goals of the company is to help our customers in their digital transformation,” says Guenter Gaugler, Head of Content Production at Siemens, “Lumen5 helps us in getting more digital in our communications - that’s part of the digital transformation.”
“The times of total control are gone. Today, you have to be responsive. You have to empower your communicators to do the right things themselves and not go through all the approval processes that we used to have in the past.”
“We are trying to empower our people to be able to do the modern way of communication,” adds Guenter. “Next year, Siemens will turn 175 years old, and that is only possible because the company has been transforming all the time.”
Siemens wanted a fast, easy, and affordable way to digitize its communications and create high-quality video content. Outsourcing to agencies meant long turnaround times and costly production fees.
“Our message needs to be in a market very fast,” says Michelle Hsiao, Visual Content Director at Siemens, “we can’t really wait for any back and forward with the agencies just to create some really simple social media assets.”
With over 45% of B2B buyers using social media at the beginning of their buying journeys, slow content creation and agency fees meant that Siemens risked losing out on opportunities to connect with potential customers, develop relationships with leads, and ultimately drive sales.
They needed a solution to speed up video content creation and respond to the digital world.
"We researched the market and identified Lumen5 as the best solution on the market."
Michelle Hsiao, Visual Content Director, Siemens
THE SOLUTION
Empower Thought Leaders to Create with Fast and Simple Video Production
Siemens is a global organization with employees all over the world. So the solution needed to be accessible to teams no matter where they’re located. Lumen5 is a web application that can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
Michelle was at the heart of the decision-making process. “We researched the market and identified Lumen5 as the best solution on the market,” she says.
The solution also needed to be simple so that Siemens could empower its internal thought leaders to create content, and digital communications could be democratized across the company.
The combination of A.I. workflows and the intuitive drag-and-drop interface means anyone can use Lumen5 to create professional video content. “One of our colleagues called Lumen5 the PowerPoint version of video making,” says Michelle, “I mean, everybody can use PowerPoint; it’s easy.”
With Lumen5, employees can use their smartphones to capture raw footage and quickly turn it into high-quality video content that’s ready to publish.
“We’re helping people that wouldn’t normally be content creators with becoming content creators,” says Hanna Sandvik, Global Senior Digital Media Strategist at Siemens, “this is something we haven’t really done before. If you’re using an agency, this is non-existent.”
"The onboarding process was smooth and effective! The Lumen5 team was a great help to set everything up."
Michelle Hsiao, Visual Content Director, Siemens
Keeping Messaging and Branding Consistent Across a Global Organization
The Siemens brand covers multiple departments and teams in different countries. So maintaining consistent branding and messaging across all digital channels is a challenge.
The modern buyer’s journey is increasingly fragmented and spread over a growing number of channels. The average buyer will have 6-8 interactions with your brand before becoming a viable sales lead, making brand consistency more important than ever.
With the drive to expand its digital presence, Siemens risked messaging becoming disjointed and diluting its brand image.
Lumen5 helps Siemens overcome this challenge by developing custom designs and templates exclusive to the Siemens brand. As it expands and develops its digital communications, the Lumen5 product is continually updated to meet Siemens' needs.
A Lumen5 Customer success manager acted as liaison between the Siemens Branding and Creative Production teams and the Lumen5 Template team. She works closely with Siemens to produce the custom templates and communicate the updates to end-users.
Siemens maintains control over its content so that every video published tells a consistent brand story. “The onboarding process was smooth and effective!” says Michelle, “the Lumen5 team was a great help to set everything up.”
Lumen5’s customer success manager also takes care of account management. So, the Siemens team can focus on content creation, not onboarding new users and admin.
“The customer success manager has really helped to get things running smoothly,” says Michelle, “basically, shifting everything from an account management part to them.”
Regular meetings and reviews with the Siemens team ensure that goals are met, and strategy is always aligned. Siemens can see account analytics, including the number of videos created by users, creation time, adoption levels, and more.
Lumen5 is a strategic partner in Siemens’ digital transformation journey. Feedback from the Siemens team is constantly fed into product development and updates to improve the experience for end-users.
"With the traditional agency, the time is usually about one week. But with Lumen5, it’s cut down from weeks to hours."
Michelle Hsiao, Visual Content Director, Siemens
Taking Digital Communications to the Next Level
“With Lumen5, we bring our video creation to a completely new level,” says Guenter. “Before that, it was restricted to professional designers, or we had to go to an agency to get it done.
Starting with an initial 25 licenses, Siemens increased its user base to 100 after strong user adoption and feedback. Now, 4x as many team members can leverage the speed and efficiency of Lumen5.
“We have broadened the users tremendously and can use it all over the world,” says Guenter, “we’re now able to do very fast and cost-effective videos.”
Lumen5’s extensive library of video clips, still photos, and audio files enables Siemens to streamline content production. Creators can use over 300 million media files on the Lumen5 platform, including access to Shutterstock’s $4.35 billion stock library.
It’s easy to add branded assets and use stock media to create tailored content for specific digital channels and social media platforms.
“I particularly use the easy integration of both Siemens assets and stock imagery, says Hanna, “the service is also extremely nice to use for Instagram stories, where we usually need a “base file” to then place Instagram elements on top.”
The accessibility and ease of use of Lumen5 is a key benefit for Siemens as they push thought leadership content to increase brand awareness. When team members and executives attend summits and events, they can create relevant and timely video content to maximize reach and audience engagement.
“If we’ve got an event, sometimes we have hours to turn around a video and get it published in our global channels,” says Michelle, “with the traditional agency, the time is usually about one week. But with Lumen5, it’s cut down from weeks to hours.”
THE RESULTS
Increased Output, Faster Production, and Reduced Costs
Lumen5 has helped Siemens speed up and scale its digital communications. The company has been able to cement its position as a leader on digital channels while saving considerable amounts in video production costs.
4360 videos created in the last 12 months
98.3% faster turnaround times
25x cheaper than using an agency
“Before, we heavily relied on third-party agencies to create video content,” says Michelle, “it’s time-consuming and costs a lot. Using Lumen5, we can do this internally, and it’s faster and cheaper.”
Digital transformation is driven by a pressing need to keep up with change. Business buyers and consumers are hyper-connected. They expect brands to offer more transparent, faster, and open communication.
With Lumen5, Siemens can produce high-quality content at speed to engage audiences and capitalize on opportunities.
“We are able to bring our messages much faster and more often to the world,” says Guenter, “supporting our brand, and in building discussions with potential customers, with existing customers, and with people who are interested in Siemens and Siemens products.”
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"We are able to bring our messages much faster and more often to the world."
Guenter Gaugler, Head of Content Production, Siemens
“With the traditional agency, the time is usually about one week. But with Lumen5, it’s cut down from weeks to hours.”
Visual content director at Siemens AG
“Lumen5 is especially helpful for business people who don't have the technical experience to make their own videos.”
Media relations and content manager
“Thanks to Lumen5, we have been able to cut down on the time and costs related to video making.”
Global advertising and sponsorships
“We’re able to create a video quickly with a turnaround of five minutes versus trying to coordinate with an agency and see if they have time to fit you in. With Lumen5, you could just get it right then and there.”
Social & digital content manager
“The best part about Lumen5 is that it's not time-consuming. It's really easy and you only need a couple of minutes to create a video because everything is included.”
Senior online marketing manager
“We have scaled Lumen5's use across our marketing organization, realizing benefits across many team layers. As company communicators, this agile tool enhances each customer's experience and engagement.”
Director of global integrated marketing, Emerson
“We saw increasing demand within Communications for an intuitive self-service video production tool and Lumen5 filled the gap.”
Creative & digital assets manager, Corporate Voice, Swiss Re
Siemens needed a faster and more scalable way to create high quality video content across a global organization with thousands of communicators. Agency timelines were too slow and too expensive for the pace of modern B2B marketing. Lumen5 provided a solution that allowed any communicator or thought leader to create video in minutes. This aligned with Siemens’ commitment to digital transformation and responsiveness across digital channels.
Lumen5 makes video creation accessible to employees who are not traditional content creators. The drag and drop interface and AI powered workflows allow subject matter experts to turn ideas or smartphone footage into polished content. This decentralizes production and removes the bottleneck of relying on designers or external agencies. Siemens can now publish timely updates, event content, and thought leadership faster than ever.
Siemens worked with Lumen5 to create custom templates, brand aligned designs, and locked visual standards. These assets are accessible to every creator across all regions, which keeps messaging and visual identity consistent. Lumen5’s customer success manager also collaborates directly with Siemens’ branding and creative teams to ensure templates evolve with their strategy. This gives Siemens confidence that every video reflects the brand accurately.
Fast, accessible video creation is a critical part of Siemens’ digital transformation efforts. By enabling employees to create their own digital content, Siemens fosters a more responsive and modern communication style. Teams can deliver information quickly across channels where buyers and stakeholders are already active. This helps Siemens stay competitive in a fast changing digital environment.
Siemens reduced turnaround time by 98.3 percent and now creates videos in hours instead of weeks. Production costs dropped significantly because the team can now create videos internally rather than outsourcing. In the past 12 months, Siemens created more than 4,300 videos using Lumen5. The company estimates that this approach is roughly 25 times cheaper than using traditional video agencies.
Lumen5 makes it easy for teams to produce videos quickly after events, product launches, or industry announcements. Raw footage from a smartphone can be turned into high quality content ready for global publication in a matter of hours. The extensive media library also helps creators customize content for specific platforms such as Instagram, LinkedIn, or internal channels. This speed allows Siemens to publish content while conversations are still unfolding, which increases relevance and engagement.
