0:01 Hi, everyone. Great to have you joining us today. I'm Steph. I'm a lead customer success manager at the Blow Voice. I'm dialing in from London today, so live from London. 0:11 I've been part of the team for over four years now. I've had the pleasure of working with brands and retailers across so many different industries. But if there's one that I've got particular experience in, it plays within FMCG and CPG, and that's following on from my experience at a retail media agency as well previously. 0:27 This session is with SJ from Plattice, a company I work with as a strategic partner, understanding their objectives, realizing business value, building joint plans together to really maximize their UGC efforts, all of which we'll dive into today. 0:41 SA in Paris' digital shopper team, and I'll hand over to now, SJ, to introduce yourself. Hi, everyone. I am Sarah Jane or SJ, and I'm dialing in from Manchester in the UK. 0:52 I lead the cross functional efforts on content, brilliant basics, and digital shelf, upscaling the team in this fast evolving space. I have been in FMCG for about seven years, starting as a graduate in Nestle in IT and then finance, and then moving to Plaidus. 1:09 For those of you that don't know, Plaidus is one of the world's fastest growing snacking companies, housing iconic brands like McWhitties, which is the third most chosen brand in the UK, Jacobs, Cars, and then more globally, Godiva, Olkur, and more. 1:23 Thank you, SJ. So today, we'll cover how Cadence drives choice through UGC in an AI driven market with a strong focus on grocery retailers. 1:32 Now unlike high consideration products like electronic, beauty, fashion, which understands we need a good level of reviews to help consumers make their purchasing choice, those of you who might be thinking, okay. 1:44 Well, snacks are lower stakes, right, in comparison. But having low reviews or a handful of negative reviews versus competitors is still going to be costly for your brand at the shelf and how you're discovered. 1:55 Review content feeds into AI search algorithms, retail algorithms, etcetera. So in stacking, it's all about that be chosen moment as we can see here, that point of conversion amid fragmented journeys, social, retail media, AI search, retailers own search. 2:09 And a strong UGC strategy really helps brands to cut through in this landscape, and I know that's been a huge focus for Gladys, hasn't it, SJ? 2:18 Yeah. That's right. I think shoppers burnt across channels, but UGC makes us unmissable. With low ASP products, like the products that we make, building instant trash is crucial so that our brands aren't just seen but picked every time. 2:30 Absolutely. And there was a clear job to be done in terms of showing up more strongly on the shelf, looking at, you know, syndicating your content out across the retailers. 2:40 I know that reviews are viscous often seen as kind of an impulsive buy, but I know the data actually says otherwise, doesn't it? Yeah. So whilst we are a category leader, we realized that ecommerce was an opportunity that we hadn't tapped into enough, especially as we became more competitive post COVID. 2:56 We must ensure that we not only drive customers to the category, but that they choose our products over competitors. COVID really stepped change the online grocery market, growing eighty percent year on year from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty. 3:09 With twenty percent of our sales going through online, we have been on a real journey to fix the basics and ensure that our digital shelf metrics are appropriately monitored, reviewed, and maintained. 3:18 And I think this is what really kick started our partnership with Bizarre Voice. Absolutely. Got some great brands in there. And sorry, I know I've just mentioned about biscuits, the category kind of being quite different to shop, and we've got some more thoughts on here. 3:32 I think one of the things that you tried to do here was not fix everything at once. You're actually very strategic in your approach. Yeah. For sure. 3:41 So in fact, sixty three percent of shoppers actually conduct research before they buy, and that's inclusive to all categories. So we found that only having three stars or less than ten reviews was quite a major concern for us in terms of visibility in digital shelves. 3:54 So we had to form our strategy by prioritizing brand by brand. Otherwise, this just wouldn't have been realistic. So, yeah, we kind of started from the first step moving from ambiguity to clear and measurable benchmarks. 4:07 We reviewed our current position, which was about three and a half stars and eighteen reviews as an average, and then we worked with Bizarre Voice to benchmark ourselves. 4:15 This was really the starting point to building out the framework for ratings and reviews. The strategy was built from the ground up based on our internal insight, ways of working, industry data, and a deep understanding of shopper behavior. 4:27 Firstly, we prioritized the core portfolio because this is our baseline, our foundation. It was imperative for us that our brands and products appeared to a gold standard across all of our retailer sites. 4:39 We then looked at new product development, and we knew that with the need to gain traction and a fast start that we needed reviews from day one. This will support retailer algorithms and also drive organic ranking. 4:50 I think once you get to the point where you feel happy that you have healthy ratings and numbers of reviews, there's also recent safety consider as fresh reviews, favourite algorithms and consumer perception more so than older. 5:02 Exactly. I know that to get there, you had a phased approach. So if we can start with phase one and how you kind of got these household names to show up more strongly online. 5:12 Yes. So phase one was about clarity. So after an extensive data review, we used to benchmark our digital shelf against competitors. We took a three pronged approach to ensure that we not only had enough reviews, but that they were relevant and authentic. 5:26 So firstly, we have the number of reviews. So we like to check that there is a baseline of forty reviews per SKU and a minimum of four stars. If this baseline is not met, that's a flag to generate more reviews with Bizarre Voice. 5:38 Next, are the reviews fresh? So are they less than six months old? If not, again, this is another flag to generate further reviews. And finally, are they fair? 5:47 So are the latest three ratings, sorry, within one and a half stars of SKU average? If yes, then we would consider that optimized. If no, then again, this would be a trigger to generate more reviews. 5:57 We focus on high impact brands to securely to ship buy in and then liaise with our marketing teams to share what goes on in the background and how we maintain and boost visibility to drive the all important conversion. 6:08 And I think this flows quite well into the flow that we have on the screen here. So audit, analyze, prioritize, and then align. Perfect. 6:16 And then phase two was more about execution at scale. So Yeah. You carried out a sampling campaign, provides our voice to generate review content targeting your ideal shoppers through all the touch points available that we've got about our community, demographic data, social presence, product data. 6:32 Could you bring that second phase to life for us a little bit as well? Yeah. I think this was a real journey. So when we first entered phase two, we were perhaps naive to the importance of precision targeting. 6:43 It was important for us to understand the differences and the input that had across our various brands. This is where the authenticity piece comes in and the value of listening to our consumers. 6:52 We reach shoppers whose profile matched our core, our NPD, our seasonal products, but we also were really strict in ensuring that they were authentic and high quality reviews and that they landed exactly where they drove visibility and, of course, sales. 7:06 Perfect. So something really acts as a scalable engine. Right? It's fueling volumes, indicating that across to your key retailers, right, where shoppers are deciding. 7:16 Thank you, SJ. Another thing that I'd love to touch on that really stands out about Plattice is how you've integrated UGC into your culture as well. 7:24 You've got different teams involved, e com, digital, brand marketing. Yeah. I wonder if you could share a bit more about this. Yeah. For sure. I think internal collaboration for us was key. 7:33 So brand managers owned the process of briefing our campaigns directly in the portal with Boys Out Voice, whilst I will review the data and recommend which brands to boost throughout the year. 7:44 This is done preemptively at the start of the year when we build out a plan brand by brand, SKU by SKU, across both core MPD and seasonal. 7:52 However, unsurprisingly, with the nature of FMCG, things do change. So working with Bizarre Force closely enables us to remain agile. We also must remain collaborative both internally with our senior leadership teams and our brand teams, but also with our team at Bizarre Voice. 8:06 At Platus, we have a bit of a terminology that we use called taking others with you, and it's an approach that we have taken with with Bizarre Voice, and I think it's been really vital to this partnership. 8:17 To embed the strategy, we brought the Bizarre Voice team into our offices, and we had a few e com rundown session sessions for our new starters and our brand teams, ensuring that everyone understood how UGC directly contributes to the business goals that we have internally. 8:33 This was followed up with further internal sessions with sales, marketing, and all levels of seniority to ensure that they are aligned to the ecom strategy and our ways of working. 8:42 To be clear, this is a continuous process that moves with brand, product, people, technological, and legislative changes. It's important for us that the business understand that sampling isn't just product in hand and that it's scalable revenue. 8:56 At this point, when review sorry. Review generation is now standard practice within our organization, and it forms a part of the fundamental route to access market for RMPD. 9:07 Absolutely. It's that understanding that this is rich content that's driving your performance online. Let's talk about the impact that we had. So together, we know the Brilliant Basics. 9:18 If you could take us through some of the results that we saw. Yeah. So we prioritized our digital shelf and utilized it from an untapped opportunity to a competitive powerhouse. 9:27 We set a new excellent standard of four stars and forty reviews across our entire portfolio. That foundation is now, you know, really driving choice at scale, and it what is a very crowded snacking space, and it makes retail media work harder for you as well, as we can see in the day cabs example that we've got here on the slide. 9:43 Yeah. When it came to quantifying the impact, because I've always collaborated very closely with Fattis to measure the impact of the re the review generation campaigns on sales performance across the four largest UK grocery retailers. 9:56 And as we can see on the slide, we saw some amazing results here. Yes. We really did. And we saw this kind of strong results, and we continue to quantify the impact. 10:06 At Standard, we look at scorecards monthly, reviewing digital shelf metrics and Brilliant Basics end to end. So this includes titles, imagery, review ratings, number of reviews, availability. 10:18 We also track shade of search across key search terms. So from the increase in our star ratings and reviews, we saw a six percent uplift in the biscuit search term and a five and a half in snacks. 10:29 To note, this was organic ranking as well. This was not sponsored. At a total level, we saw a six percent RSV value uplift across our top four retailers, and we've moved from sixtieth ranking to eighth in the top a hundred and fifty FMCG digital shelf metrics. 10:43 Without the partnership with Bazaar Voice, it would have been quite challenging, I think, for us to quantify our successes, but through sharing our Epos data with the Bazaar Voice team and then the hard work of everybody involved, we managed to build a really high impact value case that was really well received by our senior leadership team and our marketing colleagues. 11:02 Absolutely. It was, yeah, fantastic to collaborate with you on this and articulate the value being driven across your retailers. You mentioned leadership there. Yeah. 11:12 I know that getting the results wasn't the end. It was very much about how we could tell this story internally within your business too. Yeah. Absolutely. 11:20 The results actually does fuel for us, particularly when sharing updates with our team and leadership team. Gladys have a really strong ROI focus, so delivering tangible results is really crucial for us. 11:30 Ultimately, the generation of UGC not only drives performance, but it improves our organic ranking visibility on retailer sites. With increased visibility, sorry, comes increased performance, and with that comes conversion, which is proof of return on investment, a stepping stone to us investing more in the future to improve our digital presence. 11:50 Absolutely. Amazing results and by no means the end of the story. I know we've touched on getting the reviews to retailer sites. Yeah. 11:58 Something else that we've been focusing on quite a lot is enabling your teams to maximize the value they're getting from the reviews themselves and all the insights available from your consumers about your products. 12:08 Yeah. So the value of reviews and and ratings extends far beyond the shelf as we discussed earlier. It's direct, authentic, channel feedback and influence of our consumers. 12:19 They contain so many insights for brands to review, lift, and leverage across other channels. So Gladys and I are looking to leverage this data to inform strategies across the business from MPD creation to execution and further research as to what consumers want and need from our brands and products. 12:37 Absolutely. And I know you've also been using our new AI insights tool, which you can see on the screen. Have. Yeah. We've been active in the pilot of the ask anything feature over the past few months. 12:49 The adoption of AI in this way really allows us direct access to the voice as a consumer, and it prefer, like, it provides a space for quick and reliable insight for our marketing teams that can be used to support not only the marketing teams but beyond as well. 13:02 The AI insights tool enables our teams to ask both broad or really specific questions about whatever it is that they need that data for without the need for, you know, late lengthy data reviews. 13:13 So, for example, what are consumers saying about a new flavor variant or what research can we have on, you know, the flavors being requested by consumers, for example. 13:23 This could inform NPD research and consumer insights projects, you know, the list kind of goes on. It's an extremely handy and efficient tool, especially with the number of demands on us in the fast paced FMCG world. 13:35 We have been working with the close with the development team and are providing feedback to further optimize the tool. And, yeah, I'm just really looking forward to the go live, to be honest. Fantastic. Yeah. 13:44 Great to hear you're using the tool and, yeah, your partnership on this as well. Now I know at the summit today, we talked a lot about changes in the landscape, obviously, now that Discovery is increasingly AI first and how UGC is a a really key part of driving that visibility. 13:59 You, as Plattice, also have had another challenge to navigate within the HFSS regulation affecting the UK market, which limits the advertising and visibility for a huge part of your product portfolio. 14:11 Yeah. With these two new challenges, how is Plattice building resilience for your organic discovery? So the regulations for HFSS will affect how all snacking brands can promote their products within the UK. 14:24 So HFSS is quite restrictive, to say the least. It affects many media types and channels, including sponsored search, multi buys, front of store execution, TV, social media, meaning that boosting organic SEO through review content couldn't be really more important at this point. 14:40 For context, we're not able no longer able, sorry, to promote our HMSS products on a product specific basis. Only master brand led comms are compliant. 14:50 So the official go live of this was January, I think it was the fifth, but we've been compliant since October twenty twenty five and are tackling it head on with a robust review framework and using authentic content boosting reviews and rankings, be it on retailer sites or on AI search results. 15:07 Also, our Bizarre Voice compliance sampling strategy keeps us building trust and visibility under the new restrictions. Absolutely. It's certainly going to change a lot in the retail media space as well for your brands, but reviews become even more important in delivering that scalable proof there, drives visibility and choice, which is fantastic. 15:25 Moving on to our last section, which is the wrap up. We are sending everyone away with a quick Catalyst playbook, if you will. Thank you so much for sharing all that you have here with us today, SJ. 15:34 We've covered quite a lot, and we just wanted to summarize the few key takeaways for everyone to take forward and into their own planning as well. So you've got a recap of the three phases from audit and goal setting based on data to targeted execution and measurement. 15:47 This is a great framework to win in that kind of crucial be chosen moment. What would you say is the biggest takeaway, SJ? I think just simple scalable wins. 15:55 Build the foundations of the strategy from the ground up. Start with the data backed audits. Execute and then measure. And most importantly, take the business with you. 16:03 Ensure that they are on that journey too and understand the importance of what it is that you're doing. I think that's absolutely vital. Hello. 16:37 So in terms of the questions and answers then, let's have a look at the chat. So we've got a few questions coming, which is great. 16:48 We've got one about you mentioned that four stars is your standard. What happens if the reviews don't come in as four star reviews? 16:56 Do you just keep generating more reviews until you get to that four star rating? Great question. Thank you, Tanya. Do you maybe wanna take that one, Estee? Yeah. For sure. So no is the short answer. 17:10 In that kind of situation, thankfully, it's not something that we see very often, which is great. But if that does happen, then we tend to take that feedback to the product development team and have that discussion internally. 17:22 If further consumer research needs to be done, then we will do that. But as I say, it's not something that we've seen very often at all. 17:31 But, yeah, it would be more of a learning opportunity than just kind of funneling more reviews. Absolutely. I think, yeah, I'd really underscore that point in terms of the reviews are obviously live consumer feedback. 17:44 And I know you obviously do a lot of collection of reviews for MPDs before they've even hit the retailer site, and that's such valuable feedback that you can then share and almost get ahead of any potential issues that products are facing as well. 17:59 So, yeah, totally agree on that one. And I think, you know, goal is to have sorry. The goal is to have four stars. Right? 18:08 But if that isn't the genuine feeling of our consumers, then that's something that we that we want to know. Yeah. 18:16 But as a framework, we have to kind of benchmark, and and the four star is our benchmark. Absolutely. Fantastic. Moving on to the next question. 18:27 So we've got one about how do you see the role of reviews with shoppers increasingly using AI? Do you wanna take the the first on that one, Sarah? 18:38 Yeah. Yeah. Sure. So I think with with AI, it's making sure that the reviews, there's gonna gonna be a tool for us to be more visible. 18:48 So it's going back to the kind of brilliant basics digital shelf metrics. So reviews are one of the key metrics in that space to drive organic ranking and also visibility through LLMs. 19:01 That's probably the biggest one for me. I think what we've also done is from taking those reviews that that we get and then trying to repurpose them to also drive our kind of AI search strategy. 19:15 So whether that's putting kind of quotes from reviews onto a plus content that we can then put onto our website and onto product display pages. 19:26 But, yeah, it's it's all about, you know, remaining visible in this new era of AI and and the search within the l l m's. 19:35 Sorry. Yeah. No. Absolutely. It's almost, you know, these AI agents and AI summaries are now appearing in search. These are becoming the new front door for brands. 19:44 You know? They're almost kind of acting as gatekeepers as well as these really curated suggestions. Apparently, I think twenty percent of all retail sales globally are now going through AI and agents, and that that's what they influence anyway. 19:57 And, you know, they really seek that authentic content. They know that reviews are authentic content, but also rich, descriptive. 20:07 That really helps them when people are asking questions as people tend to do. But these AI searches, quite longer questions. And, yeah, to your point, we've it really helps with that visibility in a world where, you know, having the largest ad spend doesn't necessarily guarantee the same visibility that it might have done in the past. 20:24 And, yeah, that's something that Bazaar Voice is also working on right now, which is, you know, optimizing everything so that reviews can be picked up and crawled by the LLMs. 20:33 Lots going on in that space as well. So, yeah, great question. Thank you. We then got maybe maybe slightly related question in terms of that Yeah. 20:43 With visibility yesterday, which is around the the strategies for prioritize strategies you're prioritizing, sorry, as a snacking brand to maintain visibility now that there's these HFSS regulations in the UK, which I know we touched on. 20:57 Do you wanna just make a little bit about that? Yeah. So, again, it's going back to initially your brilliant basics. So whether that's, know, your your taxonomy, your tagging, your content, your titles, I think depending on the specifics of where the visibility is will depend. 21:17 I think what we're looking at right now is visibility kind of off-site through LLM. So that AI search strategy, we're very much at the beginning of that journey, which is, you know, really, really interesting, but it's definitely a process that we've kind of just embarking on now in terms of on kind of PDP traditionally on retailer sites. 21:38 It's, yeah, going back to the basics. So making sure that your titles are optimized, that you have a plus content outside of mobile optimized images, then hugely, hugely important, tagging as well. 21:52 So ensuring that, obviously, we can't do paid search anymore. So ensuring that we have our products tagged with the right search terms and things, make sure that we show up in the right areas, and all of that combined make sure it's organic ranking is much better, and that we appear within the first three lines, at the right moment. 22:10 So, yeah, that would be my biggest, piece of advice is just focus on the basics. And then, obviously, with review generation as well, all of these things are are hugely important to your organic ranking. 22:21 Absolutely. Fantastic. Thank you. No worries. I believe that is all the questions that we've had through in the chat, which is great. So, yeah, thank you for your engagement, everyone, in the webinar today. 22:32 And if there are any more questions that flow through as well, the chat is monitored, so a member of our team will reach out in due course. Good. Great. Thanks, everyone. 22:41 Thank you. Bye.
