x
READY TO BECOME A MEMBER?
Stay up to date on the digital shelf.
x
THANK YOU!
READY TO BECOME A MEMBER?
THANK YOU!
"In order to stand out, in order to win customers' consistent business, you need to create connection with them." — Tom Cohley, Co-Founder and CEO, Cohley
Look up the definition of "authentic" in the dictionary, and you’ll find this: "Of undisputed origin, genuine."
Authenticity has become a crucial currency in a world transformed by artificial intelligence (AI) and social media, according to MikMak’s "2024 Instacart Benchmark Report," so much so that Merriam Webster anointed it the word of the year in 2023.
Infusing customer experiences with authenticity was one of the top strategic priorities for brands this year, and many of them are turning to user-generated content (UGC) to achieve this goal, according to Tom Cohley, co-founder and CEO of Cohley, a creator platform.
Logan joined a recent episode of the "Unpacking the Digital Shelf" podcast, "Driving PDP Performance Through Authenticity at Scale," to share why authenticity has become a differentiator, how brands are using user-generated content (UGC) to connect with customers, and best practices for how your brand can unlock this resource to drive authenticity, customer engagement, and growth.
Authenticity has become crucial for brands to set themselves apart in an increasingly crowded market.
"In order to stand out, in order to win customers' consistent business, you need to create connection with them," Logan says.
Cohley works with firms to build this connection through user-generated content on social channels and product detail pages (PDPs). The platform connects brands and agencies representing those brands with large swaths of content creators, regular consumers who want to review products, professional photographers, and influencers who have first-party profiles on the Cohley platform.
Brands then use the platform to find the right creators for their activation and manage the end-to-end process, from creative brief all the way through execution and performance tracking.
"You can't really picture one of your favorite brands without thinking of the content that they create and the content that you consume," Logan says. "What we help them do is leverage trusted third-party voices."
Cohley’s creator platform offers several capabilities that help brands curate and optimize UGC.
The platform is designed to get real people to talk about a brand’s products, how they use them, and how they help them in their everyday lives. As consumers move through the customer journey, UGC gives companies a way to tell a more compelling brand story.
"You think about every touch point that goes on there, whether it be online or offline, and you need to be thinking about the content that you're putting forth to usher them through that journey and give them the confidence, trust, and education they need to feel confident in making a purchase." — Tom Cohley, Co-Founder and CEO, Cohley
Building trust and connection with consumers isn’t as simple as uploading a sponsored "get ready with me" video on Instagram or TikTok. It takes a carefully thought out strategy, one that balances content velocity with well-crafted storytelling.
Logan says to maximize UGC, brands need to partner with creators and put out a fire house of content that's going to connect with consumers. Brands just starting out on a new channel, like TikTok, for example, need to publish high volumes of content. However, Logan says it’s also important for them to let data guide their UGC strategy.
"You need to introduce a variety of different creative concepts, put them out in the world and start to understand what's working," he says. "You can do things like consumer insights or understand what's worked well in past product launches that the brand may have done, but you still need to constantly be testing and constantly be learning. It's a never-ending feedback loop."
Content quality also has become crucial for brands to drive better PDP performance, especially reviews. Data from BazaarVoice indicates that if a brand doesn't have at least 50 reviews on their product detail page, their conversion rate drops by 30% minimum, Logan says. Review recency also can boost PDP performance.
"That is just as important to consumers as the quantity of reviews or star rating," Logan says of review recency. "If you go on a product page and if there are no reviews left within the last three months, what do you think as a consumer?"
One-star reviews — believe it or not — provide a proof point for brand authenticity. Consumers are less likely to trust a brand that doesn’t have any negative reviews.
"When someone sees a product that has nothing but five-star reviews and there's 10,000 reviews, do you really believe that?" Logan asks. "There wasn't one person who thought maybe it was just three out of five. I'm not sure I really believe you, right? So is that authentic?"
Consumers also use one-star reviews as part of the information-gathering process when making a buying decision. Details included in the negative reviews may not apply to them, like delayed shipping or an allergic reaction to an ingredient.
That said, a brand doesn’t want to have too many low ratings — but a healthy balance can add to its credibility.
Logan says there’s a fascinating battle brewing between TikTok and Amazon Inspire, both of which are using UGC and short-form videos to help consumers discover products.
"TikTok is trying to convince their users that this is a place to not only discover products but to actually shop," he says. "Now, what Amazon is trying to do is say, 'Hey, why don't you stay a while? Come interact with this user-generated video that you see on the category pages or hop into the Inspire component of the Amazon app and discover new products.'"
TikTok and Amazon hope to attract influencers, creators, and regular consumers, but each platform also has distinct advantages for brands. Logan says TikTok has the user engagement advantage, while Amazon has a massive logistics and fulfillment advantage.
Social commerce is a growing market, with sales set to exceed $100 billion by 2025 per eMarketer, which is why TikTok and Amazon are proactively investing in this area. It could prove to be fertile ground for brands who want to convert authenticity and connection into sales.
Some brands have already unlocked the power of UGC. Nature’s Way, a vitamin company, has used the Cohley platform to authentically share its brand story.
The company has posted short-form videos on its Amazon product page, highlighting more aspirational, lifestyle-oriented content instead of the typical utilitarian product content. As a result, the brand has experienced a 20% increase in conversions across Amazon.
Nature’s Way also has become an early adopter of Amazon Inspire and Amazon Post, which allows brands to share product content such as images and videos with shoppers in a social media-like feed.
"It's partially them making a bet that Amazon is going to continue to give brands more of a voice, that it's going to be more of a discovery platform, and cart size expansion opportunities will be more abundant than they have been," Logan says of the company’s long-term strategy.
With more channels than ever before, brands are creating more product content than ever. They can use this content to boost PDP performance by focusing less on selling and more on authentic storytelling. UGC allows them to bring the voice of the customer into their brand story, transforming them into their most effective advocate.
A UGC strategy ultimately could pay more dividends for brands than any splashy, multi-million dollar ad spot because, as Logan says, "you can’t fake authenticity."
To hear more of Logan’s insights about the value of UGC for driving better PDP performance, listen to the full episode.
