This week, Walmart looks at your face, Xero Shoes looks at your feet, and RVshare takes your whole body moving closer to home.
Walmart brings content to digital aisles
Walmart has focused all its efforts on “content for commerce” this year with purchasable live streams that entertain while allowing viewers to discover products.
But during the holiday season, Walmart will thrive. Its content-to-commercial campaign “Joy. Full." will allow consumers to use AR lenses to discover products that “trigger joy” to them, based on their facial expressions as they watch. The Lens Project is a partnership with Facebook.
The campaign will also feature shoppable live streams and other content, including a large-scale launch of Pinterest shoppable recipes.
WHY IT stands out: Consumers can flock to Walmart and Facebook's AR lenses to see which products really "ignite joy" through facial recognition because it's a new and innovative experience. Will they stay to buy? May. After all, your face can't lie, right?
Using content to enhance the shopping experience is a trend that we predict will only grow over the next few years. The key to a brand's success will be to create a content experience that doesn't look like a hard sell.
An AR lens from @Walmart helps consumers find joy in shopping by #video. But will those smiling faces open their wallets while they're on the screen? Via @CMIContent Click to Tweet
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Xero Shoes gives its YouTube channel a boost
CEO Steven Sashen told us about YouTube channel for his company, Xero Giày Shoes . More than 5 million people have watched their videos in the past 15 years.
He mixes humor and fun to create videos centered around his company's minimalist shoe mission – to let feet “bend, move, flex and FEEL the world. ”
In this video, [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9RQdBUSdek[/embed] Why I don't wear comfortable shoes and why you shouldn't wear them, Steven spends more than five minutes explaining the problem of “motion control” shoes. His conversational tone almost made you miss the moment he explained how Dad's thick "comfortable" shoes caused him to travel, fell, and died two weeks later.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9RQdBUSdek[/embed]
The video has been viewed almost 40,000 times in the past year. It also received over 650 reviews – from extremely negative to extremely positive, including many debating the merits of minimalist shoes.
Still, Steven remains undaunted in his mission: “The polarizing nature of something essentially innocuous is unbelievable. Also, feedback negative comments allowing us to tell the story even more fully,” said Steven.
The channel includes videos of TV appearances mentioning the brand, along with educational videos such as this one where Steven discusses why Your feet can change shape during a pandemic and another place where he responded to an article about run barefoot .
WHY IT'S HOT: Xero Shoes' YouTube channel is a great example of how companies can use it video content to create brand personality, educate and entertain while tying everything back into their product. You don't need high production values to connect with your audience. In fact, in most of these videos, the camera is stationary and Steven is sitting behind a table (you never even see what shoes he's wearing).
Steven also realizes the power of communitycreates conversations in the comments that encourage engagement and provide additional opportunities for him to educate his audience.
The @XeroShoes #YouTube channel showcases the brand in CEO videos that educate, entertain, and engage consumers in insightful, product-centric debates through @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
Hop on a plane to travel locally with RVshare
While the tourism industry as a whole has been a hit in 2020 and 2021, the RV sector is on the rise. Abandoning planes, trains and hotels, people seek to hit the road in a more self-contained way. However, they did not go beyond the reality of the pandemic world.
“It is irresponsible to encourage people to travel far and wide, especially in the face of high COVID limits. We had to pivot,” said Megan Buemi, head of content at RVshare, a service that pairs RV owners with RV renters.
The RVshare content team has grown local travel guide to encourage audiences to explore their own backyards. And they've taken seriously that role as local tour guides, covering all 50 states - from lesser-known towns like Palmer, Alaska and Buford, Georgia to big cities like Los Angeles and Washington DC
Each guide provides an overview that covers the same ground – the reasons we love to travel and the benefits of traveling locally. Then it drills down to the specifics of the location. While categories like parks and hiking focus on outdoor experiences, there are also plenty of tips on restaurants, activities, and day trips.
WHY IT'S HOT: Before the pandemic, the RV community tended to stay for long periods of time, taking their mobile homes longer than vacations to places away from home. But when that became dangerous, if not impossible, for health reasons, RVshare changed content strategy. “Don’t get caught up in thinking your content strategy has to be a certain way,” says Megan. “Always ask yourself, 'What would be good for the audience to see this content?'”
The RVshare content team also creates a great user experience – they realize that readers will only go to their local landing page, so the referral content stays the same for everyone. Plus, these guidelines will have a long shelf life, as the text can be updated easily after the pandemic effect is over.
@RVshare takes a turn with its #ContentStrategy, filling consumers with ideas for pandemic-friendly local excursions. Chances are, they'll keep these instructions in their glovebox for years to come via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet
How does your brand deliver its message home in new or surprising ways to accommodate the lifestyle shifts that pandemic-tired consumers are still adjusting to? Leave yourself down in our comments section and let us know.
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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