productplayblog

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Are Brands listening?

We have been working with Retailers for the last few years to showcase product review videos from YouTube on their e-commerce sites. But, when a consumer has a rant, is anybody listening? We think Brands should start listening and make notes on why some products work and why some fail. Our technology can help aggregate negative and positive video reviews, and thus help brands make better products.

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How powerful user stories can be in promoting a product.

Here is a user story from Amazon.com about how much they love their car seat and why.

“I very rarely do reviews but I HAD to review this product after our experience. My family was in a very bad car accident a couple of days ago where we were T boned by a large truck going about 50mph. It hit right on the passenger side where my infant daughter was sitting in this car seat. The door was bent in pushing this seat over. Thankfully she was in securely and properly but this seat saved her! She did not have a single mark on her and was 100% cleared health wise at the emergency room. I will be buying this seat again and will recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat!!!” 

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The time is yet to come!

According to Internet Retailer, “Many online retailers aren’t happy with their current e-commerce platforms, as nearly half of them say they are in the market for a new one.” 

We have been working with Retailers since 2014 and if there is one thing we learned, it is Retailers are actively looking at new e-commerce technologies and are hungry to innovate. The challenge is that their current platforms do not have the bandwidth to accommodate new technologies. 

The good news is Retailers are going through a digital revolution. According to this recent article by Internet Retailer, 17% are in the process of making a change and more than 72% Retailers are planning to switch their e-commerce platform within the next two years. 

When e-commerce platforms upgrade, video content will become much easier to integrate and we think 2019 and later will be a great time for ProductPlay.

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When moms and dads have those I-want-to-know, I-want-to-go, I-want-to-buy, I-want-to-do moments.

Moms and Dads are constantly tackling parenthood and nothing gets them more engaged than another Mom or Dad tackling the same issues. ThinkwithGoogle research shows that Moms are tackling complexities of parenthood by watching online videos. They are visiting YouTube more than any other site to plan their next vacation, fun activity for kids or stuff to buy.

We think placing the videos on the e-commerce website can make these engaging videos as videos that drive conversions.

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The delicate side to User generated videos.

Videos are a powerful medium and user-generated videos are a step further in influencing an audience. User-generated content is very powerful because of the authenticity it brings. 

When brands or marketers employ user-generated video content, it is important that the content is appropriately and ethically used with rightfully crediting the content creator. At ProductPlay, we help brands, marketers, and retailers to find the rightful content creators that work effectively for their brand. The content we pick and choose is vetted algorithmically and manually. After the videos are chosen, we introduce the relevant video creators to our brands. Our collaboration with influencers ensures that they completely understand how their content is bring used.  

Article inspired from here.

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Curated by Artificial Intelligence

Benedict Evans’ “Mobile is Eating the World” presentation has become very popular ever since it was first presented a couple of years ago. The recently updated document briefly mentions scaling curation using machine learning in a slide.

We at ProductPlay pioneered algorithmic curation of video reviews. By leveraging the latest developments from the ongoing AI revolution, in particular deep learning, we built Sentient, our smart curator that has a wide variety of skills including computer vision and voice recognition.

Sentient helped us in adding video reviews to webpages of some of the major retailers at scale. We will share the inner workings of Sentient in a series of blog posts in next few months.

The full presentation of “Mobile is Eating the World” is here.

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Trusting Stranger’s Reviews

Few weeks ago, we pointed out that reviews are the most important component for consumers, in choosing a product.

This TED talks attempts to explain why we started trusting strangers. Although it doesn’t talk directly about product reviews, it is still fascinating to note the shift happening right now in sharing / peer-to-peer economy. Services such as AirBnB and Uber showed how ready we are, in trusting strangers solely based on reviews on them.

To us, this means people started placing trust in user reviews more than brand names.

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Online vs In-store

Where do consumers spend most money, online or in-store? The answer, it turns out, depends a lot on the product category. 

For books, electronics and office supplies, consumers shop more online than in-store. The rest of the categories are quickly catching up.

No wonder, more people shopped online than in-store over the black Friday long weekend, according to the survey released by NRF.

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What? Reviews?

Have you seen the survey run my Amazon on what matters most to consumers when choosing a product?

It’s been known that, for an e-commerce site to be effective, it has to crack the 3 pillars of online shopping: 1) competitive pricing, 2) easy discoverability of products, and 3) reviews. While retailers have been spending lot of time and effort in getting the first two right, looks like they have to focus even more on the third one.

Yes, reviews is the most important component in online shopping, according to consumers.

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The next big thing: Social Video

At Business Insider’s 2016 IGNITION conference, Henry Blodget delivered the “THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL: 2016” presentation, put together by BI intelligence team. 

The presentation starts by outlining the current trends in digital world. Can you believe YouTube’s ad revenue is now higher than CBS’s?

Then, it predicted the next big thing. Is it smart watches? or glasses? VR / AR? No, it’s not watches or glasses. While VR/AR has potential, it is too early. The next big thing according to BI is Social Video.

In 2015, daily video views on YouTube have gone up from 6.5 billion to 8 billion, 23% increase. During the same period, Facebook has seen a growth of 150% in daily video views, up from 4 billion to 10 billion.

They proclaimed that “Social videos can change behavior and compel action”. We agree, we have seen this happen first hand, in particular, with product review videos. The engagement on video reviews is off the charts when embedded on retailer web sites and the increase in conversions is quite significant in our pilot studies. 2017 is going to be a good year.

Here is the link to the full presentation.

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Video is the next Social E-Commerce Trend.

We agree with this huff post article, that Video is the next social e-commerce trend and why we think Brands and Retailers alike should begin to embrace video.

The article also states that Facebook Video is going to lead the pack with better engagement techniques over YouTube. While Facebook may be successful with gaining views with the video content available on the platform, we believe YouTube still wins with the massive content available and being uploaded. In regards to Product Reviews, in particular, YouTube has a higher reach with the variety of reviews available across multiple product categories.

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Find out how the world’s leading e-commerce player is embracing video.

Do you know of anyone who hasn’t shopped at Amazon? Amazon continues to be one of the strongest players in e-commerce giving its peers a tough race for owning today’s shopper. All retail players can learn a lot from how Amazon has executed low prices, prime shipping or consumer’s text reviews. 

Today we look at how Amazon is at the forefront of bringing video to its platform. Below is an email marketing campaign Amazon sent out to its customers requesting a video review. The campaign is a clear indicator of why Amazon thinks video is the next important thing. 

This email dates back to 2012 and Amazon.com is yet to see video reviews in comparison to text reviews in 2016. With Amazon struggling, we believe e-commerce players should utilize a source like YouTube that has over a million channels making product reviews.

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A peak at how we find YouTube Influencers for our Brands and Retailers.

According to Nielsen, 84 percent of consumers say they trust peer recommendations above all other sources of advertising. So, we are on a mission to help Brands and Retailers find the right influencers and improve conversions.

1. When Brands and Retailers approach us to look for video content for their product data, we first process the product info using our machine learning algorithms and then look for video content using YouTube API. Because we analyze product info, our technology finds YouTube influencers for each product. This helps brands to provide highly targeted user generated video content to their shoppers on their e-commerce product pages. 

2. After the videos are aggregated from YouTube API, we search for spam videos, sponsored or brand videos, obscene videos, language specific content, and negative videos.  This search is completed algorithmically and manually by our in-house team of curators. The final set of videos is provided to our clients for their review.

The above two steps give you a glance at how we arrive at our influencers. Video content from these influencers has helped our clients achieve SEO lift of 17.78% and conversion lift of 12 to 46%.

For more details, please reach us out at support@productplay.com.

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Unboxing or How-To videos may not be as sexy as Creative Ads.

According to ThinkwithGoogle article “Why Online Video is a Must-Have for your Mobile Marketing Strategy”, Unboxing or How-To videos may not be as sexy as Creative Ads but they help consumers quickly predict the experience of ownership.

The article also states that smartphone viewers were 2 times more likely to have a personal connection with brands that show video content or ads on their devices and 1.3 times more likely for desktop users. 

The article concludes that mobile video should be the place for brands to build personal connections with their consumers.

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Internet Minute

Do you know what happens in an internet minute? The following infographics answer this question.

We want to highlight two data points.

In 2012, 30 hours of video was uploaded to youtube per minute. Users are now sharing 400 hours of video per minute in 2016. That is more than 12x growth!

1.3 million video views per minute were recorded on youtube in 2012. The video views more than doubled to 2.78 million every minute in 2016.

Here is an infographic from Intel, published back in 2012.

In comparison, look at the data from Excelacom and Domo, both from 2016.

Sources: Intel data, Excelacom data and Domo data

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Millenials are a big deal. Are you a Retailer? Learn how to keep up with them.

By 2020, Millenials will spend 1.4 trillion annually or 30% of all annual sales in the United States. Here are the trends to follow to stay up with Millenials.

1. User Generated Content

If you are still into traditional advertising, it is time to switch. Bring YouTube and Instagram to your web pages to start attracting Millenials. Millenials trust user generated content 50% more than other media. With UGC, you are pushing those Millenials to Conversion.

You should talk to us today about how ProductPlay can bring User Generated Content from YouTube to your web assets.

2.  Influencer Marketing

Millenials get inspiration and motivation on Clothing, Cooking, Crafts, LifeStyle and much more from their favorite Blogger or YouTuber.   

Bring those influencers today and attract their audiences. 

3. Live Streaming

Millenials love authenticity. Nothing brings more authenticity than a live streaming video. Use Periscope, Meerkat or Facebook Live video to stream your products live and to attract Millenials.

4. Social Good

Millenials are a socially conscious generation. If you are part of the social issue or a good cause, talk about it.

5. Mobile First

We have heard this for a while, make sure every aspect of your business is mobile-friendly from email campaigns to your website.

Get ready to get them.

Adapted and concisely written from here.

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Do videos drive conversion?

According to Animoto, 73% of all U.S Adults are more likely to purchase after watching an online video that explains the product or service. The above picture is a perfect example to show that consumers trust and buy products when a video is available.

With ProductPlay, we believe bringing video is a lot easier and quicker for eCommerce players.