It’s been nearly a week since our North American Launch Event, and now that we’ve had a few days to digest and reflect, we’d like to look back and recap the event for those who couldn’t make it.
L2: Observations of a Bystander
What an event it was! The evening kicked off with a presentation from Maureen Mullen, chief strategy officer and co-founder of L2 Inc. Maureen gave us a look at the digital performance of many leading brands, how that performance is measured and the challenges that arise in using content well. Some brands – like Kate Spade and Burberry – are already doing amazing things with their content, and they set the bar high. For many others, there’s significant catching up to do.
There are huge shifts happening in the ecosystem that are altering business today, and ecommerce providers are faced with a new content paradigm. A key factor to consider: content generation is growing by leaps and bounds. In the year 2000 there were 86 billion photos taken each year, while today the number is up to 657 billion. That’s 1.8 billion photos taken every day! The implications for this content are huge, but content marketing for ecommerce brands has not yet caught up.
Another interesting takeaway from Maureen’s presentation was the power of Instagram. According to L2, 90 percent of all interactions in both the beauty and fashion spaces in 2015 happened on Instagram. That’s astounding engagement for a platform that’s only a few years old. It has truly become the most powerful ecommerce platform in the world, and smart brands are looking for new ways to utilize it to connect with consumers.
Yet another interesting takeaway was around user generated content (UGC). The use of UGC is growing and the quality of contributions is improving. Smart brands are integrating UGC directly with their internally generated content, and in many cases it’s impossible to tell the difference. UGC is growing as a way for shoppers to engage with brands and Amplience’s UGC tools give brand marketers, merchandisers, and content professionals the ability to integrate high value customer images into their customer experience strategy – all from a single platform.
Content Authoring Launch
Following Maureen’s presentation, Amplience CEO James Brooke took the stage to introduce the Amplience’s Content Authoring solution, an exciting addition to the Amplience Big Content Cloud.
The Content Authoring Solution is set to transform ecommerce content development and deployment. The solution slashes content development time by up to 90 percent by enabling retailers to seamlessly update content across devices and screen types with just the click of a button – no complex front-end coding necessary. Amplience’s Rory Dennis and John Williams wrapped up the presentation with an engaging demo of the solution at work.
You’ll see more from us on the Content Authoring Solution in the coming weeks. It’s an exciting addition to our portfolio that has the potential to revolutionize ecommerce content management.
Finally, the event wrapped up with a brief panel featuring Jordan Lustig, VP of digital product management for Saks Fifth Avenue, and Scott Lux, VP of digital and ecommerce at John Varvatos. Maureen also returned to the stage to round out the panel, and CEO James Brooke took the helm as moderator before opening it up for questions from the audience. The trio offered commentary on the state of content and commerce in today’s ecommerce space and shared some experiences from their respective organizations.
Then it was on to drinks, networking and many lively conversations with some of the best and brightest in the ecommerce world. Thank you to all who attended and helped make this event possible. It was a great success, and we hope you found it as informative and exciting as we did.
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