0:00 Hi, Lindsey. Hey. How's it going? Good. Hello, everybody. I can see people joining. We can see your notes in the chat. 0:08 Before I start sharing my screen, I guess I'll just welcome everybody to the Dave and Lindsay podcast. No. It's not actually a pod maybe someday we'll have a podcast. 0:17 But we will try to be fun and funny and festive and informative and interactive. I'm Dave Summer. I'm a senior vice president of customer growth at Bazaarvoice. 0:28 And I joined Bazaarvoice because I kind of, like Wayne Gretzky, the hockey player says, wanted to go where where the puck was sailing. And I believe that what people say about brands is becoming more and more important than the polished stuff that brands do. 0:41 And Bazaarvoice is also able to push that out. So a little commercial. Push it out to retailers on the PDP, push it out to brand sites, and also push it to social media and AI. 0:50 But we're gonna get into more of that more later. let my esteemed partner and friend who's an incredible leader and marketer at one of the most iconic brands in the world, Lindsay, let me let you introduce yourself. 1:02 Awesome. Hi, everybody. And thank you, Dave, and to Bazaarvoice for having me today. I'm so excited to be here. I am Lindsey Aiken and I've been at Coke for over ten years. 1:13 And the majority of my experience has actually been in digital but across a ton of pieces of our organization. So I've been in marketing and food service, I was in our digital COE and now commercial as part of operations. 1:27 And in the last four years, my current role as the senior director of e commerce, I've been leading our strategy, planning, and emerging capabilities efforts for North America, and I specifically support all of our retailers. 1:40 So this is the perfect conversation to be having today. Awesome. We're so lucky to have you here with us today, and I will start sharing my screen. 1:48 There we are. We just introduced ourselves. And today is a hot combo. It's a combination of twenty twenty six trends and predictions, so some data we have, but also sharing Lindsay's expertise in the real world working with real brands. 2:03 So actually, first question. We talked about user generated content and ratings and reviews being important. And it feels like one of those changes that was, like, super slow, and then all of a sudden, it's here, and everybody's talking about it. 2:17 So how are you seeing this play out across your retailers? Are you noticing that consumer content, whether it's ratings and reviews or UGC, is influencing visibility of products and actually conversion? 2:28 Absolutely. And I keep saying to my team that ratings and reviews are finally having their moment. For the past few years, our ecommerce strategy has always included ratings and reviews as a as a main metric, because we know that it drives engagement and conversion, and especially because some of our retailers are requiring a minimum number of reviews or recency of reviews for their search algorithms. 2:51 But UGC is becoming even more important as of late because agentic AI is on the rise, and we're seeing a direct correlation to what's showing up as answers in these LLMs. 3:03 So we need to be keeping up with the times. Excellent. Okay. And that was you didn't miss a slide, folks. That was me actually just asking a question while the title slide was up. 3:12 But thank you for paying attention. I appreciate it. Alright. So some of this data and these percentages are represented on the slide, but the headline is what consumers say about brands. 3:22 Whether it's ratings reviews or UGC or videos they make or social, in many cases is more important driving sales than what brands say about themselves. 3:30 So things like sixty two percent of shoppers, this is from our study we ran, show that they purchased based on UGC. Forty eight percent of shoppers were influenced actually by the recency and number of reviews. 3:42 So that's kind of interesting. They actually see what's fresh. Fifty seven percent of consumers are swayed in the purchase decision just by the stars. If they see that Fairlife from Coke has five stars, they think, oh, yeah. 3:53 I'm looking for something higher in protein. I'll try that. So, Lindsay, that's the headline. But how are you planning to keep reviews fresh? And they do have five stars. 4:02 And they do have five stars. And they're doing a great job, Fairlife. Incredible product. But how has this changed how you prioritize getting reviews, keeping them fresh, and filling any content gaps? 4:12 Yeah. Freshness is a big one for us. We look closely at where reviews are thinning out across key SKUs, and we're building more consistency into how often we need to be refreshing that content. 4:23 Like I said, one of our biggest digital shelf execution metrics is ratings and reviews. And underneath that, we have to focus on recency, average star rating, and number of reviews, which is really supports all of the stats you just shared. 4:34 But in twenty twenty six, we're going to be performing monthly brand audits so we can understand where are our biggest opportunities and not only with ratings and reviews, but with content, share of search, etcetera. 4:47 But, yeah, I think freshness is is key. I mean, that's why we had you on the show today is because Coke is so buttoned up about this and so disciplined with how you measure your digital shelf metrics. 4:59 I love it when we talk about digital shelf metrics. That is leadership. And it's funny. Earlier in my career, I was like, oh, the volume's all in brick and mortar. Not anymore. Right, Lindsay? 5:09 Not anymore. All the growth is in digital. And so that's why for all of us on this call today, it's a super, super exciting time. Okay. 5:17 So taking into account, yeah, we wanna win at retail by having fresh reviews. How do you think about search and AI? And this is gonna kinda lead to the next section. 5:26 But how do you think about processes, how brands can work better? How do they make sure that they have these reviews, which are kind of the new currency to win in AI search and AI shopping? 5:38 I love this question. And I'm actually gonna take a step back and talk about the physical world for just a second because we've mastered being within an arm's reach of desire. 5:46 That's one of Coke's long term marketing slogans. But now through e commerce, we're making sure that that reach extends to every moment and every device. 5:55 Almost rephrasing within an arm's reach to just a tap away. And in order to make that happen, we have to have a one team mindset when we think about ecommerce and our digital shelf strategy. 6:07 So there, as you know, so many players at Coke, and we all have to be consistent and integrated when we're going to market. So my team specifically focuses on the digital shelf and optimizing our content across retail. 6:19 But at the same time, our marketing team has a ton of players leveraging AI in different ways. So I'm sure some of you have seen our latest holiday commercials that were made using elements of AI, and then we also have our social social and retail media network team. 6:33 So I feel like we're all dipping our toes into the AI waters, but we still need to be sharing best practices across the board. 6:41 One specific way that I think we're winning in AI is with our new AI copywriting technology that we've been scaling this year. 6:50 But beyond that, we're looking into other opportunities where agentic AI can come to can come up and how our brands need to show up when consumers are asking ChatGPT or Gemini questions, and they're actually skipping that dot com and search altogether. 7:07 So it's very important stuff. Excellent. And I I love that tidbit about copywriting, AI copywriting, that that's working and all these things everything Coca Cola has to do has to work at scale. 7:18 So good for you that you get to lead all that. Okay. Thank you. We're moving a little deeper into the world of AI. So a study was run by Yale and Columbia University, Columbia University where I actually got my MBA, so I know it well, and I live in New York. 7:33 So two credible sources, and they kinda said, okay. Ratings and reviews are having their moment. They're the new currency. And then the quotes on the right say that if you double your number of reviews, and this is right out of, all the different, search AI engines, so Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude, you name it, if you double your number of reviews, you can actually increase the price of your product. 7:54 So that's super interesting. And then the second one is that AI agents react positively to a have higher average rating. They look at that, and it makes sense. 8:04 I mean, you're training all these large language models. They're looking, they're reading, and they're trying to understand what's authentic. So really, really important. 8:13 How is, oh, I have one more story I wanna tell. So let's say that my kids are coming over after after soccer. 8:21 Right? Real world situation, and I wanna have a barbecue for them. And I wanna get the right price, and so I'm gonna send my AI agent out to say, okay. 8:29 Buy the right beverages. Buy the right food. Make sure you have some healthy options for people. That could happen and it'll actually search across all the key retailers, whether it's Walmart or Target and actually make a purchase. 8:41 So in a way, the whole purchase funnel that we all grew up with is collapsing. Because not all these steps, you're just asking for the right product and reviews are feeding into that. 8:49 So how is Coke thinking of winning in this new world where discovery and purchase have collapsed, this AI world? That's so funny with that example because I was just talking to somebody coming back from the Thanksgiving holiday and they were saying how one of their friends I think typed in like what beverages should I buy for my Thanksgiving party and wanted to see like the price differentiation. 9:13 And there's a lot of work to do so we have some evolution going into twenty twenty six, and we're actually going to be changing our ratings and review strategy, and we're going to be way more proactive when it comes to our LTOs and our innovations. 9:30 And I can't get into specifics, but we do wanna win in this evolved journey. So we're starting with how we're showing up currently and what needs to change about our content and where that content will live. 9:42 So we're gonna be doing a ton of different pilots to figure all of that out. Beautiful. And we understand you can't share everything. And, actually, that's a good segue to getting interactive with everybody in the audience. 9:53 We've been making Lindsay talk a little bit. So look on your screen, everybody. You'll see on the right hand side, there's a application that says poll. And Lindsay and I, we wanna do a quick poll. 10:03 So which commerce channel is your organization prioritizing for the largest budget increase in twenty twenty six? Now this doesn't if you don't work at an organization that's budgeting for it, just talk about it as you think about it. 10:15 Are you gonna put more money in retail media? Are you gonna put and this is anonymous, so don't worry. Are you gonna put more money in direct to consumer? Are you gonna put more money in social commerce like TikTok shops or Instagram or traditional retail, whether it's in the store getting feature and display activity or even ecommerce programs? 10:31 Go ahead and take a second and vote, and then we'll throw the results up on the screen. I'm gonna vote too. But I'm not telling you, Lindsay, what I'm voting for. Alright. 10:41 They told me to stop sharing, which I will do. Okay. Cool. 10:50 Excellent. Alright. So people social commerce is popping. Well, I guess that kinda fits with that trend of What other people say about your brand and how they take control of it. 11:00 DTC, always big and important. Traditional retail, yeah, so balanced. But in all these cases, authentic content is really, really important. 11:10 Alright. So back to you, Lindsay. How do you think about budgeting for different channels? And what's Coca Cola prioritize prioritizing in twenty twenty six? Well, like I said, we have many teams who fulfill a lot of these different channels. 11:25 So we prioritize our investment based on a variety of factors. But for my team, we're really focused on a multifaceted strategy. 11:33 So it's partnerships, how are we measuring digital shelf, and how are we, looking at emerging capabilities. 11:41 So I wouldn't say that I'm really answering this question one to one, but, we have a a a big integrated approach here. 11:49 Excellent. And I know as we talked about before that we're all thinking about AI. It's like the buzzword in the drinking game. Every time somebody says it, drink. 11:59 But what I would say is if you're looking for an easy button or if you wanna go back to your boss, anybody on the call today and say, oh, I got this AI thing figured out. 12:07 I like this triple a framework. Accessible. So you need to make sure your content is clean. It's centralized. It's tagged properly so that the AI can read it. 12:18 You need to make sure it's authentic so it wasn't created by a bot. It's verified. It's trusted. We've got our Bazaarvoice trust symbols, and it's abundant that you've got lots of it. 12:28 And the good news and, again, shamelessly, this is a bit of a commercial. The takeaway font's a little small. What I would say is your partners, your friends at Bazaarvoice are happy to work with you on any of the a's. 12:39 Accessible, authentic, abundant. We can help you get there. We can be, kinda that easy button. But Coca Cola, brilliant brand builder. In fact, I've even got Santa Claus on my Diet Coke. 12:49 So, mean, I feel like Coca Cola owns the holidays in many ways, and you always focus on Coke being the real thing. Tell me how you think about this framework or how you think about nailing it in the ass. 12:59 Yeah, love this framework. I love Coke always the real thing. I'd say Coke is already doing this without even realizing it. 13:07 When it comes to authenticity, I feel like Coke has built trust through consistent storytelling. And I mean, even through all of our marketing history, I mean, just said a slogan, we've always stayed true to ourselves and had that consistent identity for more than a century. 13:21 So it's core to our brand story. So obviously, we need to continue doing this. And it creates the feeling like Coke isn't chasing the trends, but just being itself over time. 13:32 So I feel like even in this new AI era, trust remains the foundation and the technology will just help us deliver the trusted message further and faster. 13:42 Yeah. I hope so. I mean, just as a human too, hope authenticity always matters. It is a little scary, some of the stuff going on with AI, but that's a chat for us at a later time. 13:53 Should we get interactive again? Should we get interactive again? Who wants to? Podcast. Yeah. Let's do it. In the chat, say if you'd like to do another poll. Give me a thumbs up or yes or Alright. 14:04 Here we go. Oh, I see I see a thumbs up. Thank you. Alright. So our next poll, and hopefully you know how to do this now because a poll button is gonna appear, for twenty twenty six in the halls of your office. 14:15 So what's the biggest opportunity with what we call authentic consumer voices? So that could be ratings and reviews. It could be UGC. It could be videos. 14:23 In your company, is it like, okay. Number one, we need more real consumer content where shoppers buy, so we want it to show up in the PDPs. That would be number one. Number two, we want content that works better for shoppers and also for AI. 14:36 So that really picks up on what you just said. Authentic content that, you know, OpenAI or Gemini will read. Number three, faster changes when feedback shows a gap. 14:46 So for our partners, we show gaps where, like, you're missing reviews for certain brands. Like, do you think you need to get faster on that? Number four, stronger proof that content impacts sales. 14:56 So, like, do you need our measurement team to dig in more with you and show you the ROI? So let's, get your answers and use the polling tool. I know some people put it in the chat last time. 15:06 I'll go ahead and put mine in here too. All of these are really good. Alright. Did you put your answer in, Lindsey, or no? 15:16 You're not I know. I surprise. It's a surprise. She is one of those clients that keeps you guessing. Alright. Let me stop sharing, and let's see the poll results. 15:28 Who's ready? Oh, you're still coming in a little bit. So content that works better for shoppers in AI. 15:36 I don't think that oh, Hispanic marketing. See that in the chat. But that's a good one. More real consumer content where shoppers buy. Excellent. Faster changes when you see a gap. 15:45 And, yeah, a couple oh, a bunch of people actually said stronger proof on the impact of sales. Yeah. We're all living in a world where we're gonna do more of what shows high ROI And less of things that are challenged. 15:58 So, Lindsay, I always kinda bring it back to you, but I'm fortunate enough to have you here today. What are your core thoughts on planning for twenty twenty six? 16:07 So for me, my answer was b, content that works better for shoppers and AI. We're adding agentic AI to the menu in twenty twenty six, but we're not changing our signature recipe. 16:20 We're just enhancing it. The core flavors or the fundamentals, if you will, need to stay the same. We're making sure that our foundational recipe of providing value to our retailers, optimizing content based on insights, and scaling best practices is perfected so the new AI capabilities can actually drive people to come back for more, and then we'll ultimately grow our business and then be able to answer the last question of ROI and making sure that, we know that this is driving results. 16:51 Amazing. And I I do think your company is very impressive about that, being able to really tease out what's working, what's not. You've got your own methodologies and ways of doing it, but it it does seem to be very effective. 17:02 Okay. Well, you can start thinking of your questions for Lindsey and I because we're gonna go to q and a in a minute. But first, what I wanna say is the topics we're talking about. 17:11 So on the right hand side, you see mastering AI AI first discovery, building unshakable trust in your brands, turning discovery into revenue. 17:21 We are gonna go deep on those on January twenty first. I'll probably try to get Lindsay back on stage again for this incredible event. Sorry to spring that on you. You don't have to say yes now. 17:31 But it it's gonna be an exciting time, and we're gonna roll out this whole playbook of how to win in AI first. And it's exciting too. Like I said, I I feel like I was lucky enough to pick Bazaarvoice, that is where the puck is going is is ratings and reviews. 17:44 So it looks like they put the registration in the chat. Thank you for doing that. And hopefully, you've had a moment to gather your thoughts because now we're gonna go to q and a. 17:53 And I don't even know if I need to have the words q and a out there. Maybe I can stop sharing and we can just start to take questions. So what do you got for us? 18:08 Let me make sure I'm looking in the right spot. In the oh, they're in the q and a section. Great. Oh, there's already a ton of questions in here. Okay. And they're being voted on. Alright. 18:16 So the first question is, what is one example of a recent UGC or creator campaign you've seen that was exceptionally authentic and drove a clear measurable ROI? 18:28 Okay. Well, I can't speak to the results of our clients unless they're on our case studies website. But what I can say is if you go to, like, walmart dot com or target dot com and you look at the PDPs, and this I've been hearing this from Target and Walmart. 18:40 Procter and Gamble is doing an incredible job recently, especially in personal care and beauty of pushing great content out. Again, you'll see that publicly. 18:48 Also, Nick's cosmetics from L'Oreal does an incredible job at their brand pages, but also at their retail sites. And, of course, Fairlife from Coke. Yeah. 18:59 Well, actually, Lindsey, you wanna talk about Fairlife? It's been a great example. Yeah. No. Fairlife has been amazing. We actually just had our QBR with the Bazaarvoice team earlier today and our Fairlife team came to Atlanta in headquarters and we just spent a long time talking about this. 19:17 But we're seeing amazing results with Fairlife, especially with leveraging social content not only in their website, but also within retailer sites as well. 19:27 So it's a great case study and one that I'm using to influence some of our other brands. Excellent. Great product, high in protein, less sugar, and doing a great job with marketing and and truly innovating. 19:39 So very cool. Yeah. And, Dave, I saw there was a question for me which smaller brand across the entire massive Coke portfolio is really strong with ecom, and my answer would be Fairlife at this point. 19:49 They're they're really doing amazing. And you can even see I think today, we saw that their, the number of reviews they have is, like, nine thousand plus for their products, which is very high with conversion. 20:02 So we're very excited about Fairlife and where that brand is going. Cool. And I see a couple questions about getting access. Yes. There will be access to the recording. 20:12 Another question I saw, if a brand's starting to build the case for UGC or creator investment in twenty twenty six, what's the biggest mistake they can make, and what should they focus on? 20:21 Listen. There's lots of ways you can get UGC. What I would say is make sure you wear it out. Make sure you syndicate it. 20:29 So use it in as many places as possible, and that also is our kind of business model where we say, okay. We can syndicate content to retail, also your brand page and galleries, as well as into AI and social media. 20:42 So that's kind of the system we're working. But, yeah, if you're gonna pay this money to get ratings and reviews and UGC, make sure you syndicate it so you get as much bang for the buck as possible. 20:51 Let me see another question or, Lindsey, if you see one. Which AI copywriting tech platform is Coca Cola using? 21:02 We are working with a company called Talcot, and they are awesome to work with. Excellent. Excellent. Good to hear. 21:11 What's the single most unexpected channel oh, this one, I'll just ask to you, Lindsey, where you're seeing an outsized need for authentic consumer proof or a or authentic reviews UGC for twenty twenty six? 21:26 Any any channel? Well, I feel like this is AI, isn't it? This is what we've what we're here to talk about today. For sure. 21:35 No. I mean, I feel like AI has always been here. We've always been talking about it. But now I feel like in the last, like, quarter, all of my meetings are like, how are we're winning in SEO, but what is the shift from SEO to GEO? 21:48 And what are we doing already? And what do we need to be doing? So that's where a lot of our twenty twenty six planning has been coming to for that channel. Excellent. 21:58 There's some funny ones in the chat. Okay, Daniel. I see. How can I connect with companies like Coca Cola and get RFPs? I don't know. 22:07 Email your contact at Coca Cola. Maybe you can share more about RFPs. You can reach out to me too, and I'm happy to to take that one as best I can. 22:16 Danielle says, did I hear that right? If you double your reviews, you can increase the price of your product. Yeah. Yeah. And I think we're gonna unpack more of that data at Summit. 22:25 But it just goes to show that if you're using AI shopping, that if something is perceived to the consumers to be of great value, so the taste is great, or even if it's a a new stroller for your your baby and it works really well, they say that the price can go up and the recommendation engine will still give it a recommendation in AI search. 22:45 So I think that's that's very cool. Andy wrote for Dave. I'm constantly amazed at how many massive SKUs drop the ball in reviews. 22:53 Good point. Less than five reviews, not just for new products. What's the main friction when they don't partner with Bazaarvoice? There's so much empirical research on how critical reviews are now. 23:04 Yeah. Great question. I think people forget it in the process. They say, we're rushing to go to launch and and get our ad copy out there. 23:15 But then we have a slide that sometimes shows that if you miss that last model, that last mile and there's only one star or two star and then there's somebody next to you in the let's say it's a protein based cereal and you spend a lot of money driving them to buy your protein based cereal. 23:30 Well, the way the algorithm works at walmart dot com and target dot com and lots of other places is they'll put other protein based cereals right next to you. And if one of them has five stars and you've got two, it can be a tough environment. 23:40 So, it's not as expensive as you think, and there's lots of things we can do together, in different ways. So that's what we're here for. Lindsey, did you wanna add to that too? 23:49 I mean, how does it happen in your mind? People launch without reviews. Yeah. No. I think that it's, I mean, like I said, ratings and reviews are finally having their moment because I feel like it's been an afterthought for a lot of planning. 24:00 People have been thinking on offline first versus what tactics do I need to execute online. But now I think that sampling programs prior to launching is going to be very powerful, especially with this new rise of requirements, from our retailers to even show up in these algorithms. 24:23 Excellent. And I see there's a couple of questions that came up in it. There's a chat and there's a q and a. But Gina has asked this, are there major differences between the US and Canadian shopper expectations we should prepare for? 24:35 I don't have a great answer for that. Lindsey, you have any thoughts about the Canada versus US market? I mean, one thing I remember from from when I worked in the brokerage business is that there's a lot more private label penetration in Canada. 24:47 So I think that could be a factor, But I still think the need for authentic content and trust is the way people shop these days. So I do see a lot of these retailer store brands, private label actually investing more in reviews also. 25:00 No. I I agree. I think it's very similar, and I am hand in hand with our ecommerce lead in Canada, and we are implementing similar best practices, when it comes to digital shelf requirements and, how we're executing. 25:15 So I think I'd like to say that it's very similar for us. Excellent. Well, this has been a very lively engaged crowd. 25:25 I see them thanking us and asking for more and hopefully attending our summit. So and we're about time. So I would say, Lindsey, you gonna surprise me with some parting thoughts? 25:35 Like what what put some knowledge down here. What what's on your mind? I don't know. Let's see. Well, first, Dave and Bazaarvoice, thank you so much for having me. 25:47 It was so fun. And I guess to everybody here, remember that the future of an arm's reach of desire is just a tap away. 25:56 So don't forget to buy your Coke online for the holidays. Love that. I love that. You wouldn't be a leader of Coca Cola's ecommerce business if you didn't say that. 26:05 So I'll say something similar, and this oh, look at that. People are putting the Coca Cola symbol in the chat. I love it. Thank you. Love it. What I would say is, what consumers say wins the day. 26:18 So the voice of the consumer, and that's what we're about is authentic consumer voices, whether it's reviews, whether it's videos, whether it's content that shows up in all the places, retailer dot com, brand dot com, social media, and now AI. 26:32 The voice of the consumer wins the day, and, we've really enjoyed being here with all of you. You can probably tell we've had some fun. And thank you. Hope to see you at Summit. 26:41 Awesome. Thanks. Thanks, everybody. I guess we leave the stage, Lindsey. 26:51 Bye. Bye.
