0:00 Thank you so much, Serena and Osh and Stefan. That was absolutely wonderful. Yeah. It was good. Right? I mean, trust isn't just about messaging. It's about action across every consumer touchpoint. 0:09 As you heard from the panel just here, authenticity drives long term brand success. Yep. And next, to amp up and scale our authentic content play, we're talking full funnel content strategies and how top brands deliver meaningful consumer experiences driving awareness, engagement, and conversion to create a very compelling customer journey. 0:28 Yeah. So that's a new panel. It's gonna be moderated by our very own VP of client strategy and insights, Jo Callaghan. Alright. Thank you so much, Emma and Ed. 0:42 Thank you all for being here. I'm so excited about this panel in particular. I'm Jo Callahan. I'm the VP of client strategy here at Bazaarvoice, and I am joined by two of my very good friends in the industry. 0:53 I personally spent, ten years, at Unilever in media, two years at Pinterest, spent a tremendous amount of time in national media and really know this firsthand how we need to connect the dots, full funnel between everything from national media all the way to digital shelf. 1:09 And so the role that all of these different touch points can play together and impact one another in a really positive way is really, really important. So Audra Carson from Coursera Brands is one of my my dear friends. 1:20 We worked together at Pinterest. And, Lindsay Aiken from the Coca Cola Company is also joining me. I'm gonna let them introduce themselves to you, and then we'll jump in. 1:32 Okay. Well, hello, everybody. Nice to be with you all here on the virtual stage today. I'm Audra Carson. Been a brand builder, a content marketer, and a demand generator my entire career across multiple industries. 1:47 Excuse me? Oh, keep going, Audra. I think we were just getting a little bit of feedback. You're good now. 1:56 Okay. Sorry. Well, I'll start that over. So, again, Audra Carson, brand builder, content marketer, demand generator. My entire career across consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods at General Mills and pulse cereals. 2:08 Again, worked with Joe at Pinterest in the ad tech space. I've worked in Power Sports, and I'm currently the chief marketing officer at Crisero Brands, which is the driving force behind the sportsman's guide, the golf warehouse, and baseball savings dot com. 2:22 And we are three leading d to c retailers of both outdoor gear and sporting goods. Super happy to share, some of my experiences and stories with all of you today. 2:32 Thanks for having me. I guess I will go next. I am so excited to be on this panel today with Joe and Audra. 2:43 I am Lindsay Aiken, and I've been at the Coca Cola Company for almost ten years. I currently lead our ecommerce strategy, planning, and capability efforts for North America, and our team's big priorities are broken out into three big buckets. 2:59 The first is digital shelf execution, the second, measurement and analytics, and our third is capability building. So I'll talk a little bit about that throughout, our time today. 3:10 But at Coke, we support about seventy plus retail partners with driving ecommerce growth, specifically in North America. But as you know, Coke is a global brand sold in two hundred countries with more than two hundred brands, and we sell one point nine billion servings every day. 3:28 Outside of outside of work, I live in Atlanta. I have two kids. They're seven and four, and they certainly keep me busy when I am not here doing these exciting things. 3:38 But it's nice to be here with you all. Amazing. I am so excited to be joined by two amazing industry experts who represent very different sides and different facets of digital media and and and digital shelf. 3:51 And so, I want to jump in because I get so many questions from, from brands within the industry, about meeting the content demands across the digital space, the sheer volume of content needed, and not just content, but content that resonates, and how you bring all of these pieces together. 4:10 So how you how you complete that compelling consumer journey with content that resonates in all of these places. If you guys wouldn't mind, Audra, I'll start with you. 4:19 How do you start to think about planning that full content strategy? How do you how do you engage? How do you develop the amount of content that's needed in the digital space? 4:27 And then how do you connect all the dots and make sure it's a compelling journey for the consumer? Yeah. Hey. Great question, Joe. I would say one I've been working against my entire career. 4:38 And when you and I worked together at Pinterest, remember, we actually had a narrative to brand advertisers that we call multi objective because everybody has more than one marketing objective. 4:49 And I think at the time, there were so many assumptions that pinners were just coming to Pinterest for consideration. But in reality, right, pinners like consumers on any platform, they were engaging along the entire funnel. 5:00 They were coming to discover, to decide, and to do. And we saw that brands that planned content for and advertised full funnel, they saw a kind of double the performance of those who didn't. 5:11 So, I've lost control of the number of funnels that I've drawn on a whiteboard or put in slide decks over the years, but I I thought I would share today my new favorite one with all of you, which kind of juxtaposes brand communication objectives with content along the funnel. 5:26 So thanks for pulling that up. You know, at the end of the day, we're all trying to just reach more people, give them more reasons to buy our stuff so that we can drive more sales. 5:35 But I'm telling you, any brand that thinks they can do all of this on their own, they're probably kidding theirselves or they're going to absolutely go broke. So I've recently adopted a new model that you can see here on the the right side of the screen for building content along the funnel that I kind of call build, borrow, and buy. 5:52 And if I'm being honest about where we're at as a marketing organization, we're still really figuring out the right mix and investment in each of these buckets. You know, as marketers, we're we're pros, right, at partnering with agencies and publishers to buy awareness or custom content for our brands. 6:07 But I have a really strong point of view that where brands really need to invest as in owning or kind of building their content at the bottom of the funnel. You know, there's so much value in getting your features, your benefits, your ratings, reviews, programs optimized for converting the sale. 6:23 And now that I'm in the d to c retail space myself, we've been doing a lot more borrowing of content. Right? Borrowing our manufacturers, partners, their their branded content, even for the bottom of the funnel. 6:35 You know, we're probably not going to make a better video about Ping's new g four forty golf club than they will. So let's use theirs, and let's save our money to do something different. 6:46 And I would deploy that there's so much utility in having real people. Real people show use cases for your products and services. 6:55 How might you think about who you can buy or borrow more content from? You know, partnering with influencers, creative, or even everyday consumers to showcase your products and services. 7:06 People want to hear from other people. They wanna, you know, see how something works or looks. You know, what what others like about it. How it solved a problem in people's lives. 7:16 How it's made them feel better. The list goes on and on. And this idea of, you know, people buying from people, it's been going on for almost a century now. 7:25 And I'm gonna share just a quick story. Joe, you asked me to share it of a beloved consumer brand that I had the pleasure of leading content marketing for, which is Betty Crocker. 7:35 A lot of people think about Betty Crocker as being the first lady of food, but I could easily make the argument that she was the first lady of content and influencer marketing. 7:46 So way back in, the nineteen twenties, gold medal flower read an ad in the Saturday Evening Post that included a jigsaw puzzle. 7:55 And for any, you know, person that decided to cut that puzzle out and mail it in, they could get the worthy prize of a pin cushion that was actually shaped in, you know, the shape of a bag of flour. 8:08 And what happened was that along with those puzzle submissions, General Mills or Gold Medal Flour received hundreds of letters from consumers with questions about how can I use the flour? 8:20 If I do this, will it make my cake rise? How can I make this type of bread with it? Can I do this? Can I do that? And a brilliant advertising manager at the time decided to personally respond to every single one of those consumer letters or inquiries under the pen name of Betty Crocker. 8:38 And that turned into, General Mills and the Betty Crocker brand starting to publish recipe content in newspapers, over the radio. 8:47 You know, eventually in cookbooks and now online. And for more than a hundred years, you know, Betty Crocker has been an influencer in what to make. 8:55 I think, you know, content with true consumer utility. People looking to other people even more than they do to brands for what to make, do, or buy. 9:04 You know, that is still as important as it was a hundred years ago. And so I would, you know, again, encourage everybody. Think about who might be the face of your brand or the faces of your brand. 9:15 Who can you buy and borrow content from? Because if you try to do it all yourself, you'll never get it done. So thanks, Joe. 9:25 And, Lindsay, over to you. From a from a content development strategy and use your thinking through digital shelf, how are you approaching that space and especially as you're pulling in creator and user generated content? 9:36 Sure. So, Audra, I love the Betty Crocker example of influencer marketing and the power of humanity with people trusting other people. 9:45 I also completely agree with your full funnel marketing approach. My team is in charge of making sure that the digital shelf is executed with excellence. 9:55 And we say that all the time that we can't have all the fancy marketing programs if the digital shelf isn't set up properly. So we have to make sure that we are thinking about that full end to end experience and how to make sure that it's working at a hundred percent. 10:11 So that's essentially where my team comes into play from an ecommerce digital execution perspective. We focus on four main digital shelf metrics. 10:19 We call them the cars, content availability, ratings and reviews, and share of search. So not only do we need to make sure that our products are available and discoverable online, but we have to have the right content, whether it's product content, pricing information, or user generated when consumers come to the site to look at reviews. 10:41 Not only do we have to make sure that the digital shelf is accurate, but it also needs to be consistent with what our consumers are seeing everywhere else. 10:50 So we've been continuing to reiterate the importance of an omnichannel strategy at Coke, and we are getting better. We must think about how everything works together to drive conversions, and we're we're doing that, and we're seeing some huge growth in our ecom business because of this focus. 11:07 It's amazing. I love the idea of leveraging consumer voice and digital shelf and all the way up through. Audra, I love the Betty Crocker story. You know, as someone who spent time, probably too much time with the archivist at Unilever, brand history is just such an incredible, incredible space. 11:23 And I think it really is just such a testament to the power of consumer, the consumer voice and consumers wanting to learn from others. And so, as we as we talk through showing up in the right places, the other the other piece that always strikes me is it's not just about showing up, it's about how we show up. 11:40 And, you know, we we we think about the commerce journey and the shopper journey. How are we inspiring? How are we capturing intention? How are we doing things above and beyond traditional commerce assets in this space? 11:52 You know, I'm I'm reminded my my good friend, Jeff Malmoud, at Mindshare, who will be, on a panel with me tomorrow talking about retail media, talks a lot about brand building happening on retail dot com. 12:05 And I think that's an incredible shift in the industry because we've traditionally thought about brand building happening in different places, perhaps in media and beyond. 12:15 Lindsay, I wanna I wanna start with you on this one. What role is this playing? How are you starting to reframe that conversation and thinking about your strategy as you as you see brand building really playing a pivotal role on retail dot com and consumer traffic really driving to those spaces? 12:31 How are you approaching that? Good question. And and you're exactly right. When we think about our consumers now, we have to remember just how much content they're seeing on a daily basis and how much they're on their phones. 12:44 And I have this stat that I think is just so fascinating. In the US, only two percent of shoppers do not have cell phones, which I it's just crazy. 12:56 Eighty seven percent of shoppers have used their smartphone to help them shop in store at least once, and ninety one percent of shoppers research products online prior to purchasing. 13:06 So we have to remember how much these consumers are on their phone looking before they're buying. So I love that no matter where a consumer is, they're leveraging that technology to research in the moment. 13:18 So we have to be very purposeful about what content we're building that solves the consumer need no matter where they are in their purchase journey. So we're essentially marketing and creating content for two sets of consumers. 13:31 So one is our traditional consumer, and the other is the retailer algorithm. So for their traditional consumers, they need to get content that breaks through the clutter like you talked about, or they need to be able to find the exact content that they're researching. 13:47 So how do we make sure that they get the content they're searching for? And that's really up to us and my team and what we're doing, and this is all about the retailer algorithm that I referenced. 13:56 We have to make sure that we're optimizing our content on our retailer sites in order to win the algorithm and show up on the first page of search results. 14:05 This content really must work hand in hand in order to not only satisfy our consumer, but also finalize and drive that conversion. 14:13 Yep. I couldn't agree more. I think it's just such an incredible opportunity, and brands really need to think about how they're showing up there. It's so important, especially when we think about retail media, and and the proliferation of that investment that's happening. 14:27 You know, the the content is not only driving the algorithm, it is, it's driving discoverability. It is the landing experience for that massive investment. And also, it populates sponsored search ads. 14:37 And so the PDP essentially becomes a media asset in that case. So I think it's an incredible shift in the industry, and now we start to think about how all of these things come together and impact one another. 14:47 And then, Audra, as we're thinking through, even some of the the consideration activity, mid funnel activity, using video assets, leaning into creators with that sight sound motion, longer storytelling assets. 15:01 How how are you starting to think about how we build, widen the aperture on those usage occasions or driving the need states and connecting the brand authentically, leveraging content creators and and and everyday consumers to help tell the story of a brand and really driving that inspiration? 15:19 Yeah. So, hey, Joe Joe, I love that you use the word inspire. I think we're all looking for that from brands and retailers. And, you know, if you're to think about it, inspire is actually another word for consider. 15:30 So super important that brands and retailers both have consideration in mid funnel content that shows, you know, different use cases for their products and hype helps widen that aperture of how something can be used. 15:42 And creators and video absolutely play a role in helping get that done. And I'm gonna go back to recipe and food content for a minute, in my time at General Mills. 15:51 So when we were launching a new product, like a new baking mix, right, we would focus on the product itself or product as product content. 15:59 You know, we wanted to break through to drive awareness, elicit trial, and household penetration. But when we were trying to drive the buy rate of a product, particularly with maybe a more established product, let's say, like, Pillsbury crescent rolls, we don't wanna focus on inspirational recipe content. 16:16 Content like, you know, ten unexpected uses for crescent rolls. So sure, everybody knows that you can serve crescents as a side bread, but did you also know that you could make appetizers, and egg bakes, and puff pastries, and more with them? 16:30 So we would publish collections of content that we made on our dot coms, and for retailer websites, and for Pinterest and social media, but then would also partner with creators so that we could reach a different audience, find even more differentiated use cases, and to also help us scale video, which was harder for us to produce at the time. 16:49 And, you know, to make it easy for consumers to go from inspiration to purchased, we added capability to our content, like, shop the recipe. 16:57 Right? It would allow a consumer to put all the ingredients directly from a social post or from a video into their shopping cart at, let's say, a Kroger or a Walmart. 17:06 And I could make the argument that food is no different than fashion or any other product category. Right? Instead of ten unexpected uses for crescent rolls, think about the five ways to wear it. 17:17 Right, with the ability to shop the look. You know, if a consumer knows that they can use a product, right, whether it be a food item or a pair of pants for more than one occasion or outfit, it gives them even more reasons to wanna buy it. 17:31 So at the time, you know, we partner with everyday consumers on things like our Pillsbury Bake Off contest. You know, share your recipe with us, and we'll share it back out with others. 17:41 And I think bringing products to life and and showing how they can be used, in more than one way, you know, leveraging creators, influencers, or even everyday consumers is critical in driving inspiration and ultimately consideration. 17:56 Yep. I love it. And I think, as something you just mentioned, when we hear from consumers and they happen to leverage a product in a way that maybe we didn't think of as marketers, we start to pick up on trends and we can start to, really build off of that and and and lean in as brands to to what's going on in in in market and in social. 18:16 And I think it's just an incredible opportunity, not only for them to lend their voice to the to the brand and and talk about what they liked, or didn't like in some cases, but also to inform on new new ways to use the product. 18:29 And so I think I've seen so much of that in my career, and I just I I love the idea of picking up on those trends and really leaning into them as brands too. And so we've talked about content planning. 18:39 We've talked about delivering inspirational content. I wanna get your perspectives on now leveraging that content across touch points. 18:49 All of this wonderful content we've generated, how do you really leverage it and make sure you're getting the most use out of it? Are Are you leveraging it in different places against different objectives? 18:57 Are there multiple uses for different types of content? I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Okay. I can start here. 19:07 I'll switch gears, I think, from baking to baseball for this one, and I'm gonna talk a bit about consumer reviews as both content and advertising. 19:16 And I'm gonna ask thank you for bringing up the baseball slide for me. So, at Cracera Brands, you know, baseball savings being one of our brand, we work hard with partners like Bazaarvoice to build sampling programs and to incentivize our customers to help us, you know, bolster reviews of the products that we sell so that we can make marketing claims such as, you know, the batting helmet that has more than five hundred reviews or five hundred five star reviews, which, by the way, this EvoShield helmet that we sell that you see on this the page here, it does. 19:47 And the review content that consumers have posted on this helmet is some of the best content that we didn't have to make ourselves. It's literally five star content. 19:57 So much so that we're using it along every stage of the funnel. So we strategically include review content in our product feeds that go to Google to serve our product listing or shopping ads. 20:09 You see an example of that here. And by leveraging reviews in our feeds, we get served our ads get served ahead of other retailers. In this case, ahead of Amazon, right, which drives higher conversion rates for us. 20:21 And we all know that people, you know, wanna see what other people are doing, especially on social media. So, you know, we recently took a consumer review for this helmet, and decided to, you know, boost it on on social and of course, made everything shoppable. 20:37 And in less than twenty four h, we increased our daily sales of this helmet product, you know, by over twenty five percent. And then, you know, let's talk upper funnel for a minute. 20:47 The reviews on this same helmet are so fantastic that we decided to put it on the back cover of our season opener print catalog. 20:55 Really, as we go out there, you know, prospecting, you know, new consumers and audiences. And interestingly enough, yesterday, I received another catalog from a well known outdoors retailer that almost exclusively leveraged UGC content. 21:10 Even the image on the cover was a real cons customer, Yvonne, that was using their products for a camping adventure. And so, you know, other useful content for us that goes beyond kind of the traditional commerce assets are things like we have a the ultimate guide to buying a baseball bat. 21:27 If you have any kids in baseball, you know that trying to figure out what what bat they need, if they need a BBCOR or USSA, it can be absolutely a bad thing. 21:35 So we wanna take the guesswork out of that by providing, again, true consumer utility and then, of course, serve up the bat that's right to buy for them. 21:44 So I I put a snapshot of an upper funnel YouTube video here, you know, featuring the hottest new bats for the season. Well, what do we do there? We link through to our bat buying guide. 21:54 And I think the point here that, you know, user content or utility based content, you know, reviews, photos, use cases, true utility. 22:03 Mhmm. It doesn't just add value to your PDP. The content can be used for consideration, for awareness, for social, and for print. So, hopefully, an example of, how, you know, even lower funnel content can be used across the funnel to inspire. 22:19 Yep. I couldn't agree more. Lindsay, how about you? Just a quick any quick notes on how you're leveraging this content across different areas. Yeah. Totally. And I completely agree with you, Audra. 22:30 This content needs to be used beyond just the PDP, and it's definitely an opportunity for us at Coke. Currently, we're only leveraging these reviews and these u g this UGC for only one of our brand dot coms, which is great. 22:44 And I wanna say when we launched, on our brand dot com with this our sampling program, we saw upwards of a thirty percent increase of conversion, so we know that this works. 22:55 It just now we need to to scale, and we know what we need to go do. So I would say we have a lot of opportunity in that area. 23:03 Yeah. Absolutely. And I know everyone always likes to hear me say, my favorite phrase in the industry is sweat the assets. And so if you can think of all of the different places that you can put this content, where it works, adapt it, fit for platform across all of the channels and the needs that you have, it's it's absolutely critical. 23:22 And I think they just play such critical roles in different places. Using review content in ads, drives performance. At Unilever, we saw twenty to thirty percent performance, uplift when we used, review content within some of our ads. 23:35 And I think that there is just a massive opportunity to continue those conversations. Now I'm looking at time. We have about two minutes left. Any just to wrap up, any parting thoughts from you all? 23:45 Anything any advice you would give to brands as they're looking to future proof, their content strategy and think through all of these elements that we covered today? 23:56 Audra, I'll start with you. Okay. Okay. Great. I think my parting words would be, you know, think about your mix of what you need to build, what you can borrow, and what you want to buy as it relates to to content. 24:09 You you know, where you'll get the most value, the most utility for your money. And, you know, don't assume that content has a singular role in the funnel. Try to squeeze as much juice, or as much value out of those investments by, you know, turning things like reviews into advertising or by putting influencer content on your PDPs. 24:26 That's really what we're here to talk about today. Mhmm. Yep. Lindsay, how about you? I'll be, yeah, I'll be a broken record here and say two things that I've already said, but I do think that they're super important. 24:37 So the first is to make sure you have an omnichannel strategy that's consistent across all channels. And then the second is make sure you're marketing to both the traditional consumer and the retailer algorithm, and I will leave you with that. 24:50 Amazing. Thank you. Thank you both so much for the time. I've had a blast. I love talking to both of you. This has been incredible, and I hope everyone, really enjoyed this session. 25:00 Thank you so much for spending time with us as well. I'm gonna turn it back over to Ed and Emma. Thanks again.
