We’ve recently received coverage in Mediapost, Retail Customer Experience and Website Magazine around a study we completed with the e-tailing group. Some of the findings seem to have struck a nerve in the industry – especially around what is sometimes called “the 30-second myth.”
OVPs (Online Video Platforms, the technology-only side of the business) are fond of publishing viewing time metrics showing how long viewers watch before clicking away. They then characterize that as insight into consumer behavior and urge retailers and brands to create shorter videos – regardless of the message to be conveyed or the quality of the content.
The problem, of course, is that their approach assumes that all content quality is the same, all product categories have the same level of complexity to communicate, and all audiences are equally engaged. Pretty big assumptions. That’s why we commissioned the research as a consumer-facing study. Rather than guessing about consumers based on clicks, we thought we’d directly engage them to find out what makes video content valuable to them. By combining that research with data mined from our network of close to 100 major brand and retail sites, and tempering that with insight from researcher Lauren Freedman, we hope to form a more complete picture.
Here’s the cool thing: we haven’t even formally released the study, and it’s already generated quite a bit of industry dialog. The findings on video length are only a small part of what we learned. We’ll have a better industry discussion when we can put that data in context. We’ll do that, with Lauren Freedman’s help, on Wednesday, February 8th during a Webinar, “Captivating Consumers through Cross-Channel Video.” We hope you can join us!
If you’ve been to a playdate recently, you know our client The Step2 Company. They’re the largest US manufacturer of preschool and toddler toys and the world’s largest largest rotational molder of children’s and home products. Like many parents, I have several of their products (a playhouse, a sand and water table, and a gourmet cafe play kitchen) in my home or backyard.
Tena Crock, Online Marketing Director for The Step2 Company, recently answered a few questions about what Step2 is doing with video. Her answers make it clear that Step2 is doing some great work across video, social, and cross-channel mobile campaigns in major retail stores.
Q: Tell me about Step2’s target customer. What do they care about when they shop? Can video help them choose the right product for their children?
A: Step2’s target customer can easily be described in one word, Mom. She is all about convenience, finding quality products for the right price, and having the peace of mind in knowing that she is making a purchase that will last for years to come and will be enjoyable for her children. The quality of our products, we feel, is what sets us apart. The videos do a nice job of showing our products in use and highlighting the features that we know Moms care about. How do we know they care about them? We ask. We have a group of MomShare panelists that we survey and ask questions to on a pretty frequent basis. From that, we know what is important to them. That is specifically why we feature children playing with our products in the video. Moms want to see other kids having fun with our toys so they know that their children will have fun too.
Q: Step2 does a great job connecting with customers via Facebook. How do social and video marketing work together?
A: Moms are a savvy bunch. They enjoying connecting to others and to companies via Facebook, so they make the connection factor easy on us. Moms are looking for authenticity in any sort of marketing that we do. Video gives us the opportunity to talk to Moms from other Moms in “Mom Speak”. Of course our videos are scripted, but they are written and revised by Moms for Moms. We know that in order to keep that connection with our target consumer, we need to meet her where she is able to engage with the Step2 brand, and right now, that is predominantly in the online space. We also recognize that she doesn’t have a lot of time, so we like to keep our video content short, sweet, and to the point.
Q: After getting video on your site, what’s the next step? How will you use video to connect with shoppers who may be on retailer’s sites, on social networks, or even on mobile devices in store aisles?
A: We have already started a poster program with Toys R’ Us for 2012. Since our products are often big and bulky, in store retailers often don’t have the space on their shelves to feature our products. Our solution to that was to create a large poster that features Step2 items with a QR code that links the customer to the product video. This allows them to see the product in action and have all of the details to make an informed decision about their purchase while in store. We know that it is imperative to have our videos featured on every retailer’s website that carries our products. We hope to have all of our videos pushed out to our online retailer sites in the upcoming months. Additionally, we intend on using videos to announce an email promotion or to introduce a new item to market on Facebook. Linking the potential purchaser to a video showing the product in use is a lot more powerful than a static photo.
2012 is here, and pundits are already making their predictions. (We are too). But first let’s look back on an amazing 2011, with a focus on Q4 and the holiday season.
This was a record-setting season for online retail. Cyber Monday was the busiest ever, at $1.25 billion according to Comscore.
To dive a little deeper into the record-setting activity that occurred in eCommerce video, we dived into data from across the Invodo client base. That’s the largest network of video-enabled retailers in one place. Tens of thousands of videos across about 100 retailers and major brands gives us a good read on how shoppers used video during 2011 and during the holiday season. Key learnings:
Today’s shopper relies on video more than ever – and more experienced shoppers lead the trend. As previously reported, Cyber Monday video views increased by 897% and Black Friday video views increased by 337% over 2010. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Looking at all of Q4 2011, video views increased by more than 3x. Why was Cyber Monday even bigger? Good question. My take – Cyber Monday shoppers are the most sophisticated and dedicated online shoppers. They know how to take full advantage of the tools available to them, from reviews and free shipping to video and 3D interactive experiences.
Shoppers prefer Facebook and email for sharing. 46% of Q4 video shares were on Facebook. Email was nearly as popular, accounting for 40% of shares, and Twitter was used 14% of the time. If you don’t have sharing enabled for your videos, you’re missing out on an easy opportunity to get additional views and sales.
Today’s holiday shopper is wired, multichannel, and multiplatform. Mobile browsers accounted for 12% of holiday season video views on Invodo client sites. Over half of that – 6.3% – was iPad, and Android was 3.5%. I saw plenty of people using their phones in store aisles to check prices and availability as well as to get product information without waiting for a store associate.
That’s a lot bigger than any discussion about HTML5 versus Flash. The same shopper may research on a laptop, stop into a store to kick the tires, view a product video on their phone while in the aisle, and ultimately purchase on their iPad. Are you leveraging your videos and other content smoothly across these touchpoints?
A final point: if this season was groundbreaking in terms of tablet usage, I can’t wait to see what happens in 2012. Reason: the Kindle Fire’s adoption rate has overtaken the iPad’s. Amazon has planted an Amazon-connected storefront in the hands of millions of consumers. Am I the only one who sees eCommerce implications there? How will that affect Apple’s iPad strategy?
Shoppers are vocal about which videos help them shop – and which do not. Shoppers using Invodo’s Ratings and Comments feature rated videos an average of 4.19 out of 5 stars. Apparel, do-it-yourself and toys received the highest marks, but multichannel retailers scored well across all product categories.
In a subset analyzed for content, videos that included a demonstration of product features receives almost a full star more than videos that did not. User comments on videos without clear product demonstrations included responses such as “I expected to see the product in use.” This is a “video coming of age” phenomenon. Consumers expect video, like any other site content, to provide value above and beyond simply creating motion to catch the eye.
Video drives conversion across product categories, but does so differently depending on type of product and type of shopper. Given the size of the Invodo client base and the depth of our analytics, there’s some surprising and useful data there. Stay tuned – that’s coming in a second post as soon as I have an hour to crunch the data and an afternoon to put it in context. If you’re not subscribed to the blog, this might be a good time to sign up.
Step2 is the largest manufacturer of preschool and toddler toys in the United States, with brands including Step2™ and Infantino™. The Invodo production team had recently wrapped up production of a large number of product videos for Step2 at our production facility in Dallas-Fort Worth. Rather than asking that the products be shipped back, the Step2 team asked a great question: “are there any charities in the area that would benefit from having $3,500 worth of these products donated?”
The Step2 and Invodo teams quickly identified the Children’s Medical Center of Dallas as a place where such a donation would have a positive impact. Step2 offers active, real-life play experiences with product such as play kitchens, climbers, and children’s activity desks. Such experiences are vital to the growth and development of all children, and providing outlets for active play can be especially important in a hospital environment.
On the morning of Wednesday, November 16th, team members from both companies delivered the products to the hospital. The toys were immediately put to use in the hospital’s lounge and play area, where they’ll provide a lasting benefit to many children and families.
As Invodo client partner Brandon Sockwell put it, “We’re proud to work with a client like Step2. They’re a great team who understands the importance of giving back. It’s fantastic to be able to do something like this, especially during the holiday season.”
I had the privilege of sharing the mic with Bizchair.com founder and CEO Sean Belnick as well as Internet Retailer editor Don Davis. Sean shared insights about Bizchair.com’s strategy for success with video, and Don and I shared some industry information and best practices. Want to see the full thing? We’ve archived the Secrets to Video for Retail webinar on our site, or you can view it here.
A group of hundreds of retailers attended, so we took the opportunity to quickly survey the crowd. Here’s what we found:
1) Producing video content is the single biggest barrier to retailers (38%), followed by budget at 21%. Getting internal alignment on a video strategy also ranks highly at 18%. Only about 12% of the group found implementing a video platform or managing content to be the biggest barrier.
2) Almost 30% of retailers will have a dedicated budget for video in 2012, but they’re outnumbered by the 64% whose video budget is drawn from a line-item for social media, emerging media, and other new initiatives. And the number of retailers who plan to have a dedicated video budget in 2012 is almost twice what it was in 2011.
3) 76.7% of the crowd believe that the single most important thing to measure is impact on sales. 17.4% voted for customer experience metrics. Very few retailers were concerned with the viewing metrics (number of views, for example) that most video platforms focus on measuring.
These results drive home that content production is a key pain point, an increasing number of retailers are budgeting for video, and measuring sales impact is key. Take a look at the recorded Webinar if you’d like more information.
Invodo CEO Craig Wax recently took time to contribute a couple of articles to industry publications. Just in case you missed ‘em, here they are.
Measuring Beyond Conversion: The Impact of Video on Customer Experience was just published in Retail Touchpoints. Video does more than drive conversion and SEO. It’s also a key lever for improving customer experience, as Craig details in the article. RTP editor Amanda Batista added a nice video interview with Craig as well, shot at the Shop.org Summit in Boston.
Additionally, Video Strategy: 5 Steps for Success just ran in Website Magazine. Worth checking out as well. Any successful program starts with a well-thought-out strategy, and Craig walks through key learnings from Invodo’s Client Partner team.
Both are worth reading for any retailer or brand intent on driving results through video. We’ve learned a lot through our experiences building video programs for some of the best businesses on the planet, so we hope the information’s helpful to you.
At the recent shop.org Summit in Boston, Invodo CEO Craig Wax took a few minutes to talk with Retail Touchpoints associate editor Amanda Batista about video. Check out the video interview below, or click here to visit TouchpointsTV.
While working through your Monday morning email inbox, take a second to ponder, “What is Devin warning us about?”
The Invodo team recently asked themselves the same question. We brought the Austin team to Invodo’s state-of-the-art video production facility in the Dallas metroplex for a recent all-company team meeting. We were instructed to watch this video upon our arrival. So we did…and we asked, “What is Devin warning us about?”
Want to see what was in store for the Invodo team as we arrived at the Dallas production facility a few hours later? Sign up for our monthly eNewsletter and find out.
View content for Bus Prelude Clip.
At the shop.org summit a few days ago, Invodo CEO Craig Wax had a few minutes to sit down and discuss our new feature, Video Ratings and Comments, with Tim Parry from Multichannel Merchant. Here’s a quick video of what he had to say.
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Three Key Insights from Video Ratings and Comments
This new feature allows Invodo clients to capture consumer feedback on their videos. In short, end users can tell us exactly what they think of video content. This feedback, combined with the quantitative insights from Video Conversion Tracking, lets us continually measure and improve the video experience for our clients.
Since we launched on a number of client sites, what have we learned? A few key insights:
1) Video Quality Matters. Is that obvious? Maybe. But the quality of video on retail sites varies widely. You don’t have to surf too far to find Flipcam-produced video with poor lighting and sound, or animated slideware scrolling through images while robotically reading marketing copy through a text-to-speech engine. One can understand why retailers would look for cost-effective options to cover key products with video. But consumers rate well-produced product-focused video much higher than any other category. On a five-star system, such video receives an average rating of 4.08 stars. Other types don’t perform nearly as well. Clearly it’s worth investing in video quality.
2) Consumers Will Tell You What They Need. To close a sale online, you must close your site visitor’s information gap. Those information gaps are easy to identify in a brick-and-mortar environment; simply ask salespeople what customers are asking about. Online, it’s a different story. The Ratings and Comments feature lets us learn what shoppers want to see (“Not enough info on the treadmill’s quality, build, accessories. Auto incline? Fold for storage? How heavy?”). These information gaps can be filled out in subsequent rounds of video production, or even in product page copy or overlays.
3) High Enthusiasm for Video Translates into Participation. For every ten video ratings, there is one comment. That’s a 10% participation rate. Sometimes it’s positive (“I love the close up shots of the handle bars. Definitely buying this bike!”). Other times it’s not positive, but calls out an information gap such as the earlier treadmill comment. In either case, you want to hear it.
We’ll continue collecting and analyzing this data. Two areas I plan to explore are cross-category comparisons and for how well it correlates with sales data from Video Conversion Tracking. If there’s a particular area you’re interested in seeing research on, let me know in the comments.