The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast

Summary

How much photoshop is too much? At one point does image retouching become dishonest or unethical? These questions in similar form have been around, since even well before digital took over photography. In todays world it can be hard to have a conversation on this topic that includes the kind of nuance required to really understand where the line is. Mercedes Castaneda joins Daniel for this episode and they do their best to deliver nuance and thoughtfulness in a roughly 30 minute episode. 

Key Takeaways

• There has been a persistent and passionate conversation about retouching in media and what it does to our senses. While it's hard to have a nuanced conversation about it sometimes, the answer isn't always the same, context is important. 
• Mercedes' rule of thumb is "Is this thing temporary?" A temporary skin blemish, and out of place hair, these are temporary and become distractions in a still image. 
• Consent plays a roll in how much change occurs in post, and what types of changes occur. When talking about celebrities, they may have a lot of control over the retouching and in some cases push for some extensive changes. 
• Even if you want to present a natural beauty in your photography, there are many reasons why an image still needs to be retouched. There are technical limitations to what a camera can see or what it shows us, that needs to be corrected in post because of how can impact perception. 
• Production constraints can also lead to an image requiring more post. A studio shooting a whole bunch of eye shadow colors, but only book 2 models and not every color may work. In this case you may want to adjust skin tones or eye colors to coordinate better with the product. 
• One good rule of thumb may be "can you explain why you changed this?" If you can answer it, you're probably in the clear. 
• Working with intention most likely means you will avoid being guilty of over-manipulation. 

Resources

Mercedes Castaneda on LinkedIn

Henry Stewart Photo Studio Ops New York

FLOW New York - Pixelz

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Christopher Kern is Program Lead and Assistant Professor of Photography at CBU in Riverside, CA. Chris joins Daniel to discuss the program, the students, the studio he's built out for teaching and chat about their shared backgrounds growing up in Riverside. 

Key Takeaways

• Chris' passion for photographic education stems from his own background, pursuing an MFA in commercial photography.
• CBU photography focuses not only on teaching students how to be photographers, but how to maintain and relevant and impactful portfolio in order to enter the job market as competitive as possible.
• "The magic is not in the medium [...] most of us are in love with photography because imagery that made us feel"
• Photography is a tool to investigate curiosities, build worlds, and  express ourselves
• CBU's footprint is about the same as USC in Los Angeles
• CBU Photography lives off site in an industrial complex familiar to many photo studio pros
• The program makes photography as accessible as possible to students from all over

Resources

Support the CBU Photography Program

Learn about the program

CBU Photography on Instagram

CBU Photography on Linkedin

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Art Director Jessica Lopez joins Daniel to go deep on inclusive casting for e-commerce. The discussion ranges from the current state of inclusiveness in e-commerce media, to the ground we have yet to cover, to what future technology might enable for shoppers of all shapes, sizes, abilities, and needs. 

Key Takeaways

• Inclusion has become a much bigger topic in recent years, but we can really expand and embrace a broader definition of inclusive.
• Some brands have been at the forefront of inclusion and going so far as to give the user a choice of what skin tone and body type they would like to see. 
• While there are some agencies that specialize in adaptive model talent, they are few and there is an opportunity for new agencies in the industry that can advance this effort. 
• Campaigns have often used non-traditional models, but sometimes it can be seen as tokenism, especially when the product offering is inaccessible to certain people or communities, or its used to generate buzz. 
• Ecomm is still often left out of the diversity initiatives, sticking with a certain type and size of model. 

Resources

Jessica Lopez on LinkedIn

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

In this episode Daniel recaps the FLOW Event at Hudson Loft in Los Angeles. Creative Force sister company Pixelz hosted the event and organized an excellent slate of speakers. Daniel takes you through the day and includes brief interviews recorded onsite at the end of the event. 

Key Takeaways

• Are you using technology for technologies sake, or is it truly adding value?
• TROVE believes that people, products, and brands have stories, and stories are culture. Brands can capitalize on this idea as well as billions of dollars in resale revenue by controlling more of the resale of their products. 
• Sef Mccullough presented on the science of creativity and the effect that viewing imagery has on how our brains organize information. Daniel sat down with Sef for a few minutes after the event. 
• Benjamin Grimes, past guest of this podcast, presented on new and emerging technologies for the e-commerce studio. Fascinating to hear from Ben what some of the trends have been in equipment purchases over the last few years. 
• Ryan Roberts of Pixelz moderated an excellent round table discussion on planning from pre-pro to post.  Mercedes Castaneda, Erin Pederson, Jason Wheeler contributed. 

Resources

FLOW New York - May 5, 2022 - Save the date

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Mark Stock of The Very Group returns for a discussion on the future of relatable content in a post-covid world. Customers that were previously hesitant to shop online have become quite savvy over the last two years of almost exclusively shopping online, and our content has reflected the values that we all found solace in during a traumatic world event. Now that we seem to be moving past the COVID era, how do we as content creators respond?

Key Takeaways

• In direct response to COVID, many retailers and their studios did what they could to keep commerce moving, shooting at home, letting go of the perfection of the merchandised studio shot and embracing an aesthetic that was more real.
• Relatable and authenticity could be here to stay for a while, as the world slowly begins to open up again.
• Focusing on the customer journey, and being authentic could be a trend that we see a lot in e-commerce.
• If there's one thing we've learned, it's to be forward facing. Expect everything.  Be brave and try things.
• Video is going to be BIG for the future of relatable content.
• Data can help drive some relatable content efforts, but you have to be careful because data can lead to content that lacks emotion.
• Daniel made too many movie references.

Resources

Henry Stewart - Creative Operations London 2022

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

User generated content probably isn't going away, certainly not after it became a critical part of a content strategy for many retailers in the pandemic era. But the current state of gathering, processing, reviewing and approving UGC is manual, slow, and comes with risks sometimes. Vyrill aims to change that. Ajay Bam, CEO and co-founder of Vyrill joins the show today to talk about the platform they've developed that uses "in-video search" to tag user generated videos with the content thats in them, making the videos easily searchable for almost any enterprise or customer facing application. The implication of this technology are vast for the e-commerce world, so don't miss this episode. 

Key Takeaways

• Video isn't going anywhere. 700 million hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. More video content is being uploaded in 30 days than what major television networks in the US have created in the past 30 years.
• Vyrill solves the problem of how to catalog the actual content of a video, and then makes it all searchable. 
• Users can search from influencer or brand videos of a product they are thinking about buying, and search to find segments of the video that shows features they are interested it. 
• Vyrill has capability to crawl videos to find videos that feature a brand or product, and can gain key insights about the video that brands can use to leverage for marketing, product development and content needs. 
• Vyrill also has a platform that allows brands to license user generated videos for use on their website. 
• Vyrill also provides meaningful and deep insights into engagement into videos 
• For the record, we were not paid by Vyrill for this episode. This is genuinely a powerful tool with the possibility to dramatically improve your video marketing strategy and effectiveness. 
• Vyrill can also provide competitive intelligence, and find out what people like or dislike about your competitors. 

Resources

Vyrill on the web

Vyrill at Tech Crunch

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Positivity is a powerful tool. Keeping a positive attitude can make or break just about any situation we might find ourselves in. This is equally as true in a photo studio as anywhere else. Cathi Singh is one of the most positive people I know and as a result, is a beloved figure on every crew we've worked together (it also helps to be an extremely talented make up artist). Cathi and I discuss her approach to keeping a positive attitude on set, why its so important to protect our emotional state when creating content, and her go-to methods for keeping calm and carrying on. 

Key Takeaways

• Makeup artists have a special skill, to create a bubble of calm in an otherwise chaotic situation. In a photo studio, this is a valuable resource that should be protected. 
• Positivity isn't always being chipper and upbeat, a big part of developing this skill is to have incredible self-awareness and know how to read the room. 
• Even for the most positive person, a bad day can be really bad. Have tools to help get you through, such as removing yourself momentarily from the situation. 
• Expectation setting can go a long way toward protecting an attitude of positivity. Ask the right questions and feel confident that the answers are clear. 
• Ego is one of the biggest killers of positivity on set. The crew must all work together to achieve their goals, there is no room for ego. 

Resources

Cathi Singh on the Web

Cathi Singh on Instagram

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in e-commerce has been a topic that we’ve wanted to explore on this podcast since almost day one. During and following the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, many brands and retailers acknowledged the events by posting imagery in support of our friends and neighbors who’d had enough of not being heard. 

When I met my guest for this episode, Photo Art Director Karen Williams, I thought the conversation would focus on that, how diverse and inclusive was the content itself. It quickly become apparent that we needed to talk about the diversity of the crews creating the content. From there, it’s really hard to have the conversation about team diversity if we aren’t talking about opportunity also. Specifically, how we can create more opportunities for a more diverse team that makes our content better. 

Key Takeaways

• DEI (Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion) are important in all facets of work, but with content creation, its important not to simply consider the diversity or inclusiveness of your model casting, or what appears in the media itself, but the diverse perspectives of the crew as well. 
• This can be a challenge, because people tend to bond on shared experiences and common interests. People tend to want to be around others with those common connections. This can create a challenge when building a diverse team. 
• The crew imparts a lot of itself on the content, and that can in and of itself create perspective issues when creating content. 
• It's hard to talk about diversity without touching on opportunity. Do opportunities exist in your studio for a diverse set of people to excel and succeed? Or even get a shot at trying?
• Building a foundation that creates opportunity can be very difficult, especially at legacy retailers or brands that don't necessarily have DEI baked into their policies. 
• Equipping managers to be effective moderators of conversation can be one way to ensure that diverse perspectives aren't being overlooked. 

Resources

Karen Williams on LinkedIn

How to Become a Diverse and Inclusive E-commerce Brand

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

It might seem kind of unusual to have an episode about Customer Success for our podcast, after all this is a podcast about creative production, not sales or SaaS or some of the other things you might think of when you hear the term Customer Success. But think about it like this. At the end of the day, customer success is really about asking the right questions, expectation setting, and continuous improvement. Being the person or team that asks “Why?” in order to determine what is the root cause and what is a symptom. Our Guest for this episode is Ryan Roberts, Customer Success Director, North America for Pixelz. We talk about all of these ideas, and we discuss how Customer Success connects with and overlaps other customer touch points, and what their ongoing role is in ensuring customers keep coming back. 

Key Takeaways

• What is Customer Success? In the modern age of SaaS style companies, customer success is about retaining customers beyond the initial sale, and making sure that your service is adding value to your customers, and retaining them for the long term.
• Definitions of success can change from day to day. It's about priorities and expectations.
• In a service business, success is deeply personalized by the customer.
• The modern take on customer success was born out of the rise of Salesforce. Salesforce realized that without retention, continually adding customers would eventually reach a dead end.
• It's not exclusive to software or SaaS. Anyone contract based business should concern themselves with the success of their customers.
• You're always in a sales position with a company like this.
• Customer Success is also about remembering to remove the bandaids. Use root cause analysis to drill down and uncover the why, to understand the correct solution.
• The goal for a customer success manager at Pixelz is to figure out how things can be better for a customer.

Resources

Pixelz FLOW Event

Pixelz.com

Ryan Roberts on LinkedIn

Customer Success

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com

Summary

Imagine a world where a creative director walks over to a workstations and says “We need a family, two parents and two kids, sitting down playing a game together.” The person at the workstation punches a few keys, adjusts a few things, and boom, out comes a unique image that is exactly what the creative director asked for. Not a mock up, not a set of casting photos. The complete image, ready for use because you already own the license. You paid to license the technology, the algorithm that uses an ever growing library of hundreds of thousands of images (which also have been properly licensed) to generate this unique imagery. Our guest for this episode, Mark Milstein is Chief Operating Officer of a company called vAIsual and with the tech they’ve developed you may not have to imagine this world much longer. 

Key Takeaways

• vAIsual is a company that has created an algorithm and interface that creates entirely synthetic "models." These people do not exist in the real world, and are available for licensing without the legal considerations that come with hiring a real world model.
• This technology can and will manifest in a lot of ways - SaaS, PaaS, and white label services are all in the future of this technology.
• vAIsual shoots hundreds of thousands of images of real people every year. These individuals have signed model releases that release the rights of their biometrics to the company in order to be used as reference for the generations of synths.
• The e-commerce photographer of the future may become something more of a synthographer, able to leverage their skills to generate content exactly in line with the creative brief.
• This technology could allow for the extreme localization of content, allowing global brands to easily represent the various demographics they serve.

Resources

vAIsual on the web

Mark Milstein on LinkedIn

Koreas First Virtual Influencer

These are the first 100% AI generated stock photos of people

Credits
Produced by: Creative Force - creativeforce.io
Edited by: Calvin Lanz Sound - clsound.net
Hosted by: Daniel Jester - danieltjester.com