0:16 Hi, everybody. Thank you for attending this Bazaar Voice webinar. My name is Doug Straighten. I'm the Chief Customer Evangelist here at Bazaar Voice. I've been with the company for just over six months and prior to this, I was a two time, Bazaar Voice client, both as the Chief Digital Officer of the Hershey Company, as well as the Vice President of Digital Ecommerce and Data for Unilever. 0:39 Today we'll be talking about the content supply chain. And, this is a relatively new concept. So this is one of those things, if you've never heard the term before, it's because it's something that, is a relatively new concept. 0:51 But I can guarantee you that if you're on the webinar and it's caught your attention, you are already dealing with something related to content and how that's part of your overall marketing initiatives. 1:02 So there's plenty for you to chew on as we go through this and let's get started. So the first thing I wanted to do is just talk about content creation versus content consumption. 1:13 We're going to start in the creation realm and I wanted to show you what great brand content looks like. So these are just three examples. Of course, there's thousands of these worldwide, but just a couple that I think are really well done. 1:26 So the first one is Coca Cola where you've got the iconic Coca Cola bottle shape, obviously the red and the ribbon, but then it's talking about you as an individual by having the display of all the different names on those bottles. 1:42 I think that's really beautiful. Like it's a way to express how everybody recognizes Coke, everybody has memories of Coke and a feeling about Coke, but what they're trying to do is really tie it back into you as an individual. 1:55 So I think that's a really amazing piece of content. On the lower left there, Nike, Greatness is scary until it isn't and then find your greatness. 2:05 I love this because there's no product. It's just a little boy considering whether or not he's going to make that jump. And I think that's just, it's a beautiful piece of creative and I think the copy that goes with the creative is absolutely fantastical, very inspirational and aspirational. 2:22 And then on the right hand side, I will admit that a little bit of sentimentality here. This is the Dove Real Woman, Real Beauty campaign which was something that really came out of a study of how people were talking about, thinking about and discussing things as related to the Dove brand through digital channels and the realization that, you know, there's more than one type of woman and we should be catering to all of those. 2:52 And so this has been a phenomenal campaign. But what I love about it is it's a spectrum of people of all different types and really being proud of what they are all about. 3:06 And this really extends itself because it came out of a natural outgrowth of studying how consumers are really talking about and relating to each other into, it just relates itself and leverages what user generated content which is all about, which is really authenticity. 3:24 So on the right hand side is content that is connected to the Dove Real Beauty campaign, all different types but different types that are all relatable and quite frankly on brand. 3:37 I think they vary in quality, they're all high quality but I think they vary in quality up to the degree that you maybe couldn't tell in some of the examples what was a professional creative design versus something that's coming out of the users, the people that are actually shopping for or buying and then using Dove products. 3:59 And I think that's really, really interesting and it sets us up, I think really in a great way for a couple slides here which are about content consumption as opposed to content creation. 4:12 And I believe content consumption has been really for ten years but really picking up speed over the last two, two and a half, three years. It's just a huge sea change. 4:23 So we're going to do two things here, and I would like you to hold in your mind that the left hand side, Netflix, is more brand oriented. 4:34 In other words, very highly polished, produced content for very specific reasons and very specific audiences versus TikTok, which is a user generated creator contented environment with all different types and spectrums of content. 4:50 But just look at the engagement, the number of minutes watched on Netflix versus the number of minutes of TikTok over the last year, nine point six trillion over on the Netflix side, which I would call the brand side versus TikTok, twenty two point six trillion minutes. 5:09 And this is something that, and that's just one social platform. I know that's only one network but you can kind of quickly do the math in your head and think, oh, this is really amazing. 5:18 And most of the consumption of content is really coming from the parts of the digital world that are user generated and creator generated. 5:34 And then if you look at the investment models to generate those types of content, they're radically different. So twenty twenty two estimated content budget, Netflix versus TikTok, dollars seventeen billion for Netflix and two hundred million dollars for TikTok basically used to seed, content creation. 5:53 It's just a vast, vast difference. And then think about the engagement numbers that we saw on the previous page, basically two to one in favor of TikTok. 6:01 Now, the interesting thing here is that, you know, Netflix is, I think everyone knows, not necessarily making money. Their real strategy was to build and build and build an audience so that they are kind of an indispensable part of people's content consumption. 6:17 And they have succeeded fantastically at that. But they're really pivoting right now to less acquisition of shows and moving towards a partial advertising model to really make the business model work. 6:33 Now, I'm not saying that we're in the same business, this is a bit different. But it is interesting that you've got the highly polished produced content on the left hand side with less engagement and far higher cost versus the right hand side. 6:49 And you can really see another thing in relief on this slide, which is the ability to address discrete audiences at scale. 6:58 So Netflix can address many different audiences through the acquisition and the buying of highly polished produced content. TikTok just uses the law of numbers, the amount of creators they have to create tons and tons of content all the time and that content in some way, shape or form finds its audience. 7:15 Again, a little bit different but I think the key thing here is if you look on the Netflix side, a little bit of a misnomer here because this would be global TV and film employees in totality across all networks is one six hundred and fiftieth the amount of creators essentially that are doing work on TikTok. 7:34 So again, you think about where the engagement is, what people are consuming versus the investment needed to get that consumption versus how many people and the variety of content that you can get on the left hand side versus the right hand side, and it's just immense. 7:50 So keep those things in mind as we talk forward. And then let's talk about like the big, you know, things that are challenging us in our business environments right now, which are the economy and the fact that there's more and more channels, both retail and media, that need different types of content that we by necessity need to play in. 8:15 So it's just to take a look at these two graphs. So on the left hand side, you've got the economy under pressure, but at the same time, retail and marketing channels increasing. 8:26 The economy has an impact on obviously our budgets. So sales going down, budgets. 8:34 Costs going up, that puts pressures on your budgets. But again, your content needs, because retail and marketing channels have been exploding and they're demanding this content, your content needs are increasing as well. 8:46 And it takes the form of many different types of content. And also, this is the type of content that very specifically, depending on a shopper's journey or a consumer's journey through the digital environment, are a bit different. 9:04 They need different types of content or different type of mashups of content to really speak in an authentic way and an engaging way to that consumer wherever they are on that path. 9:16 And so the ability to, really build, reusable fit for purpose content that drives ultimately ROI is a really, really difficult one. 9:26 And this is just an example of, some of the things that we do as Bizarre Voice where we can curate images from one environment and then deploy them in multiple other environments ultimately to get you to a product page and to buy. 9:41 And these are really impactful because again, this is the type of thing that's usually highly authentic, highly relevant and it's the type of content people more and more like to engage and consume. 9:55 And then along with just being able to do that, you need to be able to scale that acquisition of content. 10:05 And the more volume of content you can generate, the more engagement by definition you will have and also that drives conversion. 10:14 So what we see, whether it's reviews or some of the visual curation that we do, is that the more content you have, the more conversion goes up. And a lot of that has to do with, again, doubling down on people's ability to engage with content and make them feel good about their purchase. 10:31 And so consuming more content makes them feel better about their decisions and that's why those conversions go up. 10:39 And then the other thing, and as brands, of course, we think about this all the time, is you think about creative wear out. Like how long can you use a piece of creative before it's no longer doing its job? 10:52 And it actually is no different in user generated content. Would say the decay rates are very different but it is a thing. And so you always need to have fresh content to make sure that you avoid that wear out. 11:05 And we can see this really, really specifically in our data and research that we've done. Fifty four percent of U. 11:13 Online shoppers indicate that a review's recency significantly factors into credibility. So again, if you have a one year old review versus a review that's thirty days old, you're gonna put more weight on the more recent experience that someone's had with a product that you may be considering than on something that's a little bit older. 11:31 So ultimately when you think about these things, you really need to focus on what your content supply chain looks like. 11:40 So what's that balance of branded content and user generated content that you need to effectively and efficiently really meet the demand of all those channels that you need to activate through. 11:57 So from that standpoint, let's just get started and talk about this. And the first thing that I would ask you to do is just think about your mindset when it comes to content. 12:08 So I'm going give you a definition first and the definition is provided by IDC which is great analytics company. 12:18 And content marketing, this is their definition. Content marketing is any marketing technique whereby media and published information or content is used to influence buyer behavior and stimulate action leading to a commercial relationship and or business outcome. 12:32 Optimally executed content marketing delivers useful relevant assets that buyers consider a beneficial service rather than an interruption. 12:40 In the digital era, no one piece of content will serve all customers. A spectrum of content is required to best connect with customers and drive loyalty. 12:50 So essentially, as marketeers, we naturally focus and are trained to care about the things that we have one hundred percent control over and probably the things that we're putting the most investment into. 13:00 And typically that's our branded content. But think about that definition from IDC. No one piece of content is gonna answer everything and particularly true because of the reality of all the different retail and marketing channels that we actually have to have people engage through with our brands. 13:22 So think about that. It's a bit of a, I would say, content bias. We focus where we spend the most. There's also a channel bias. 13:30 We also focus in on where we're spending the most money to actually activate. So if you think about traditional media channels where you're spending maybe the bulk of your discretionary budgets, we put the most focus there because we're putting the most money there. 13:45 But in fact, if you think about your broader retail and marketing channel environment and where and how people are engaging and where the decisions are taking place, they're sometimes not always equally balanced. 13:58 So it's just another thing for you to think about. On the slide here, what you have is effort by brand, branded content, which I've been talking about, the thing that we're trained to care about the most, but then also the preferred consumption of shoppers. 14:10 And this goes back to what I just said, the different channels and the different types of content that people are actually interacting with that drive them to make a decision about whether they're gonna buy you or not. 14:21 And what we find in our research is that people are more apt to make their decision based on that type of content than they are on branded content alone. 14:31 Not necessarily earth shattering news maybe to all of us, but I think when you put it up on the screen like this and you talk about it in terms of like the actual balance of both our time and our resources, we have a bias, we overweight because of where we're investing. 14:47 So just think about that as a way to maybe reset your mindset. And then let's talk about people, process and tools. 14:58 So from a people perspective, if you've gotten your head around what we think about that overall balance between branded content and user generated content and then the channel bias between the things that we spend the most money on versus the things we spend a little bit less on, you'll have a point of view. 15:20 And then what you need to do is you need to align your organization around that and then on content strategy. And that's a combination of who's gonna own certain types of content, the mix of that content, how you're gonna deliver that content and the metrics. 15:36 So assuming you can all agree on that and you've thought about the importance of the different types of content, then you need to get the balance between what supply you can activate against versus what's demanded. 15:53 And ultimately, what content does what and where and how does this drive each metric is gonna be really, really important. So I'm repeating myself a little bit, but for good reason. 16:05 Ultimately, you need to understand what's being consumed and how that consumption drives your overall business. And then you can have a better, broader discussion around who should own what, how those things should be connected. 16:19 And a way to do that from a process perspective, I believe, is to visualize a traditional supply chain. So once you understand what's important, what needs to be created, where it needs to go, who's responsible for it, you can step back and you can talk about a unified process. 16:36 And I would say that, like, if you take a look at it from this standpoint, the first thing you can talk about is what a traditional supply chain does really well. 16:44 So with the right forecast, it allows a company to make the products or deliver the services to that demand, store those products, distribute those products to the outlets that sell them, where they get bought and consumed, and then that type of data can be pushed back into the next forecast to understand, how much of what needs to be made to meet further demand. 17:10 And it's a really simple concept and then you can just apply it to content. So design a content supply chain that delivers content at scale. 17:18 And, you know, this is a way once you have the process, have the benefit of turning that process into efficient system or platform that takes the inputs which are the content being delivered by those different functions and in accordance with what you've agreed with, from a couple slides back. 17:37 And then it turns them into those business outputs. So in this case, I typically think about, the outputs being reach, conversion, revenue, trust, experience, and then ultimately the most important thing being ROI. 17:53 The beauty about a system like this too is that once you go through this exercise, you can start to think about eliminating distinct processes, so processes that live within functions or sub functions, and tools as well, and then integrating only what's really needed into this one platform that rules them all and then you govern it appropriately. 18:17 And ultimately this should reduce a lot of handoffs because you can run things in parallel as opposed to as a relay. It eliminates a lot of complexity, though it's complex to get it going. 18:28 It ultimately does relieve a lot of complexity. It also eliminates a lot of hidden costs. So again, just by stepping back and thinking about the overall process in a bigger way and then going back in and drilling in, you can start to see these things kind of to tap out. 18:42 And then the last thing I would say is, you know, these are fair these last couple slides, fairly simple slides, but this is not easy work. 18:52 You'll have to go through this. There'll be a lot of argumentation and whatnot, but it's really well worth it. Just make sure that as you're doing the work, you're developing robust business case around this because there might be some changes that you might make to both your organization, your tech stack, and you're going to need to validate those and get buy in or evangelize those, I should say, and get buy in from the broader organization to make this type of thing really, really work for you. 19:17 And just to give you an example of turning the process into one platform, this would just be for e commerce. The broader content ecosystem would be a little bit bigger than this, but that would be a really overwhelming slide. 19:30 But basically you take that process and you design it in a way where you can build one platform that takes inputs and delivers outputs. 19:42 And, you know, the beauty of what I've thrown out here, this is actually color coded to the previous slide. So once you've got a pretty clear view of what you think your overall process needs to look like, and it could look a lot like what I just showed, it could be a little bit different, what you're going to want to do is you're going want to map your current solutions to that and really look for the redundancies of those solutions and the gaps that you may have in capability, what you need to add to the platform. 20:09 You know, look at the areas that are still really manual, what would prevent scaling, in other words, the areas where you've got bottlenecks, what's going to add cost, what's going to remove cost, what's going to drive speed as opposed to slow things down. 20:24 And then take a look at the overall thing that you're designing and just ask yourself, is this going be able to is this going to allow me to react faster to any changing market conditions? 20:33 Again, really difficult but really worthwhile. And I would say from a bizarre voice standpoint, we of course have many solutions, some of which you're probably aware of, like our core business and ratings and reviews and review syndication, but many other products and services that we have that can allow you to fill in, the gaps in your content supply chain. 20:57 So I won't drain these, but they're here on a slide and, to the degree that you have any questions, then of course just reach out and we'll help you as best we possibly can. 21:08 All right, just a couple of examples of brands that are already killing it. You know, we can take a look at a different Unilever brand, is Hellmann's, and looking beyond just the core marketing impact and the leveraging of UGC across the business. 21:25 So a little screenshot here and just some success, you know, purchase intent left of Hellmann's one hundred and fifty percent, fifteen percent to twenty five percent increase in search traffic as it relates to that category and product. 21:40 And then a twenty percent to thirty percent improvement in social and display ad performance. There's a lot to unpack there and a lot of details. I can almost see the questions popping up above your heads. 21:49 But we do have detail on what this like in particulars of what Hellmann's has successfully done and we're happy to consult with you on those. 22:00 And then from a smaller brand, River Island, using social content to increase sales, you know, helping shoppers envision themselves wearing River Island products to boost their average order value. 22:12 So you see conversion depth of one hundred and eighty four percent, forty five percent average order value increase and two times on-site. And that's just really moving from purely a branded content experience to a hybrid branded content along with user generated content experience. 22:29 Now the next thing that you might be thinking is, yeah, there's a lot of really interesting stuff that I saw, seems really complex. 22:38 I want to do that but I'm nowhere even nearly close to that in my current state. What can I do? And what I would say is, it's okay, don't worry. 22:46 There's plenty of things that you can do get on the right path. And for sure, I've had experience building these things in the past, you still have a day to day job to do. 22:58 It's still going to involve content. And in many cases, you're going to have to do those things, both run your business and build things at the same time. But to the degree that you're thinking about that mindset change and that rebalancing, there's many tactics that you can do you've already contracted with us or if you're thinking about it, and that would be around what you can do on your website, social media campaigns, what you can do through CRM and email, and what you can do through what we call content acquisition, which typically involves product sampling but can involve a number of other tactics as well. 23:35 So we can help, just let us know what your individual needs are and of course we will help you fill in the gaps. And then ultimately, I would say, you know, if you haven't thought about it before, start thinking about content, more holistically, start thinking about, across functions, that is, across enterprise, and then thinking about your content supply chain and just, you know, four key takeaways that hopefully you heard during the last thirty minutes or so. 24:05 You know, your customers are really itching for a large volume of great content. By customers, I really mean consumers and shoppers. And they're discovering that your products and engaging with your products through a lot of new retail and marketing channels, all of which have some distinct needs. 24:22 It's impossible to really fill those needs just with branded content. And even if you wanted to do that, you'd put yourself out of business probably by trying to afford that. 24:31 So utilizing UGC to achieve the quality and the quantity required, we think is a huge solution. Obviously, there's guardrails that go along with that and there's systems that need to be built around that, but we can help you there. 24:44 And then ultimately, thinking about it, from a content supply chain perspective, we think is really key to winning the content race. 24:53 So I hope this has been helpful. I know super fast, a lot of information in a relatively short period of time. We're going to move on to questions and, you know, I'm ready to take anything that you guys are gonna throw at me. 25:09 Thanks for listening.
