The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast

Summary

In this episode Daniel talks with Scott Willson of Patagonia about the unique difference of an e-comm studio when compared to an Editorial production. In an e-comm studio, it's all about building a process and allowing that to drive the product, images and videos produced at the end. In editorial, you make a plan, but ultimately the variables are too many, sometimes without a way to control them, so you adapt and react on the fly, in service of getting that shot you need. 

Key Takeaways

• Effective studio teams and a well built process can make production look easy, because in the e-comm studio, you strive for as few interuptions or unexpected blockers as possible. 
• Constantly reviewing the process, and anticipating and removing those blockers before they come up, is one of the keys to success for an e-comm studio that produces quality content. 
• In editorial, planning is critical, but during the shoot, there is little time to do the same kind of root cause analysis of a given problem. You do what you need to do to keep production moving, to some extent, embracing chaos. 
• As has come up on the show before, communication is critical in understanding how the unique nature of an e-comm studio  adds value.  When things are running well, it can look easy, but there still is a need for resources to help continue improving. 

Links & Resources

Scott Willson on LinkedIn

Patagonia on LinkedIn

Patagonia.com

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

Summary

I, Daniel Jester, in my position as Chief Moneybags of Brand X, have retained Shanna Ferris and Benjamin Grimes to consult with me and my company in order to build video capabilities to compliment our stills production studio. Benjamin Grimes brings his insight as General Manager of Samy's Camera CinemaWorks and Pro Sales, while Shanna Ferris shares her wealth of knowledge from her experience as a video operations specialist. 

Key Takeaways

• Space is a significant consideration for video. Everything from ambient light to ambient sound to power to temperature control all needs to be considered when identifying space for video production at scale.
• Building or renovating a space from the ground up gives you the most ability to get the right amount of power, the right lighting, and the right controls to set your studio up for success.
• Architectural lighting (overhead light fixtures) can be built to be used for video, using full spectrum video ready light fixtures.
• Consider not only video space, but storage space, workshop space for set building, space for storage of data, and video editor space requirements.
• Building infrastructure for remote art direction (and other work) up front can help mitigate business interruptions, but also more strategic decision making in your content. Emerging tech makes this more doable than ever.
• Your first hire should probably be a hands on leader with video experience. Some stills staff can be used, but you need that person whose hands on and has experience to initially lead the team. Something like a video creative director.
• As always, evaluating current processes is a great way to build a new process, including with hiring a new core team for video.
• Much of your equipment purchases are going to be similar to your still production. Lighting is the area where you want to be thoughtful. Changes have come so quickly in LED tech, it makes sense to learn about what could be coming.
• LED lights have effectively no measurable shelf life. The consideration really becomes output and modifiers.
• Camera movement is a huge unexpected cost. Moving the camera consistently over and over again gets expensive.
• The key to scalability of video production is using a data driven studio. Understanding what you've accomplished so far, and where you need to go in the context of business goals.
• Pulling still images from video footage is being tested and may be close to reality, as a way to integrate video and stills capture. 
• Hollywood film and TV production often informs video production for e-commerce, which could mean technology like rendered backgrounds could come to the e-comm studio. 

Links & Resources

Samy's CinemaWorks

Benjamin Grimes on LinkedIn

Shanna Ferris on LinkedIn

Read about The Mandalorian and Unreal Engine

Glossary
There were a ton of technical terms in this episode about video, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by the information. Here's a handful of definitions to help, but you really don't need to be an expert in terms, hire the experts instead!

Video Codec - software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. Used to manage file size of video content or live streams. There are many different types of codecs for different use cases. 

Solid State Media - In the context of this podcast, a memory card. 

Full Spectrum Lighting - Light fixtures or bulbs that contain more than the typical light spectrum. Generally better color rendering and capabilities for creative production. 

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

Summary

In this episode of the show, Heather Johnson of Rent the Runway breaks down her approach to elevating the creative for Rent the Runway. They wanted to help their customers understand what Rent the Runway can help them achieve, and slowly started to change the creative direction a little at a time, to help the companies assets become more agile, while resonating more with their customers. 

Key Takeaways

• Rent the Runway was interested in moving their images from functional to more emotional, bringing the product more to life. They started small by adding some new styling guidelines within the existing art direction.
• When shifting to a more dramatic change, they started by setting goals around what the creative should do.  Not only what they WANTED to accomplish, but specifying what they AREN'T trying to do. 
• Rent the Runway recognized that their images are one of the only ways to educate their customers about style and fit. 
• Once goals were settled, they used free time in the studio to do a test shoot. Using the current studio processes, they were able to illustrate the vision for the new imagery, and understand how it impacts the current state of the studio. 
• Studio teams, post production, and leadership all had opportunities to provide feedback on the test shoot. They used learnings from this test shoot and feedback process to adjust some lighting and process, with some different backgrounds. 
• Rent the Runway had a goal of 35% image re-use (using in other channels aside from PDP), they are surpassing that goal, using PDP imagery in email campaigns, on social, etc. 
• The elevated imagery helped brand partners of RTR feel more comfortable engaging in more strategic campaigns. 

Links & Resources

Heather on LinkedIn

Rent the Runway Website

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

Summary

Adam Parkers returns to talk about reporting for your production studio. Adam is the author of KPIs, Reporting, and Dashboards for E-commerce Photo Studios found at CreativeForce.io/kpi-guide, and we talk about how to provide robust reports, relevant context, and key insights to all stakeholders inside of the studio and out. 

Key Takeaways

• When it comes to senior leadership, serve your data up on a platter. Easy to digest and only include absolutely necessary context. Also, be prepared with more detailed information when/if you get questions. 
• The KPI guide breaks down how to tie your reports back to leadership/org goals, and trace them all the way back to where to get the data. Building your reporting this way helps you easily contextualize and understand the background. 
• Robust data and visibility to the data are what help teams succeed. You may meet some resistance to public studio dashboards, and you should definitely hear those concerns, but this is key to high performing teams. 
• Be humble when making assumptions about data, and ask for insight from colleagues or others with a different perspective. 

Links & Resources

KPI Guide

4 disciplines of execution

Adam Parker on LinkedIn

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

Summary

In part two of Daniel's conversation with Lindsey, we shift topics to sustainability in the studio. What is Trove doing day to day in the studio to support the overall company mission of sustainability and what can we look forward to in the future as new technologies allow us to make better decisions. 

Key Takeaways

• Lindsey and the studio team at Trove takes sustainability into account when making decisions for the studio. Things that shorten working time, and ideally are purchased second hand, are big wins for sustainability in the studio. 
• The studio team tries to use every inch of a consumable before re-purposing to another use. Once foamcore are completely used up for styling, they become fill cards or V-flats, or are even used by the samples team to reinforce sample shelves. 
• Even with re-use at front of mind, things have to get thrown out eventually. Trove is looking to sustainable production processes for consumable, like foamcore derived from mushrooms, etc. 
• Reducing the lifecycle of items in the studio is another key sustainability effort. Get things in and out quick, so that it's not using resources of the studio. 

Links & Resources

Mushrooms are the new Styrofoam - New Scientist

Ecovative sees a Fungal Future for Fashion - Tech Crunch

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

Summary

For part one of this conversation with Lindsey di Ruscio of Trove, we talk about Trove's mission of keeping goods out of landfills and how that impacts creative production in for re-commerce. Stay tuned for part two, where we touch on what the studio does day to day to support the mission of sustainability. 

Key Takeaways

• Trove views re-commerce as another sales channel that brands can own. Trove allows them to take control of the lifecycle of their products by receiving returns and trade ins, cleaning and repairing, and then enabling the resale channel. 
• Condition grading adds a new dimension to sample management for creative production. It's not enough to have a photo of a sample, Trove needs to have images that accurately reflect the condition of a specific item. 
• Trove not only accepts returns and trade-ins, but unsellable returns go into a robust recycling program, to avoid sending items to a landfill. 
• Post-production for Trove needs to accurately depict condition. Where traditional retouching strives to make an item look perfect (removing dust, reflections, styling issues, etc). Trove needs customers to see the flaws clearly. 
• Trove has learned a bit about who buys used and what they like to see, and has adjusted creative direction accordingly.
• Re-using images when possible is another way that Trove works to minimize energy use. If they don't have to reshoot something, that saves the time and energy of the process. 
• Across all of Troves partners, they estimate that they've saved over 1 million kg of C02. 

Links & Resources

Trove.co

Lindsey on LinkedIn

The Rise of Re-commerce - Wharton.upenn.edu

Recommerce On The Rise - Forbes

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

Summary

In this bonus episode, we have part two of Daniel's conversation with Thomas Kragelund and Tejs Rasmussen. In part two we get deeper into Creative Force, and what Thomas and Tejs are most excited about for the future of the company. 

Key Takeaways

• In order to tackle simplifying the complexity of creative production, you have to root cause many of the problems. Its no use to build a better spreadsheet, if it isn't solving the problem deeper below. 
• Building Creative Force, started with capture. You have to have images. You can deduct a lot of things from that step. You can work in both directions. 
• Some of the biggest issues that created  problems in creative production stem from the capture step. Misnamed images, mishandled files, status updates, all occur at the capture step.
• Removing the possibilities of mistakes, while giving room for flexibility, became the core mission of Creative Force. 
• Thomas is most looking forward to solving more and more of our customers problems in creative production. 
• Tejs is most looking forward to supporting video, copywriting, and editorial (coming later this year!)

Links & Resources

Thomas Kragelund on LinkedIn

Tejs Rasmussen on LinkedIn

Creative Force on LinkedIn, Creative Force website

Pixelz on LinkedIn, Pixelz website

Glossary
Flow Production - Flow production is also known as continuous production. It is defined by the continuous movement of items through the production process. Large numbers of the same goods are produced continuously in this production process. There is often an opportunity for a high level of automation on a flow production assembly line.

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 is joined by Thomas Kragelund and Tejs Rasmussen to talk about the background and history of Creative Force. Before founding Creative Force, Thomas and Tejs founded Pixelz along with Janus Matthesen. While providing retouching services to e-commerce studios, they learned that each studio had different methods for tackling the complexity of creative production, and often that meant introducing more complexity. Creative Force was born out of a desire to reduce complexity in the studio, and enable the teams doing the work to focus more on being creative. 

Key Takeaways

• Thomas and Tejs met during the early days of e-commerce. Thomas headhunted Tejs to work as a designer for his e-commerce consultancy.
• In the early days of e-commerce, if wanted to launch a web store, you talked to the head of IT. It was considered a technical issue to be solved.
• After building some store fronts, Thomas and Tejs observed that product images that were being used were lacking in quality, they decided to bring a solution to market in the form of Pixelz.
• Pixelz started off with a phone and an FTP site, and was built up from there.
• Amazon came to Pixelz and became a client, enabling lots of re-investment into  the company, and being able to scale up
• In scaling up, the team discovered that flow production was the key to serving more customers, faster and with better quality. Pixelz learned all of the same lessons that production of physical goods  learned, but with some different challenges.
• Learning lessons from Pixelz really shaped the view and perspective that became the Creative Force philosophy.

Links & Resources

Thomas Kragelund on LinkedIn

Tejs Rasmussen on LinkedIn

Creative Force on LinkedIn, Creative Force website

Pixelz on LinkedIn, Pixelz website

Glossary
Flow Production - Flow production is also known as continuous production. It is defined by the continuous movement of items through the production process. Large numbers of the same goods are produced continuously in this production process. There is often an opportunity for a high level of automation on a flow production assembly line.

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

Summary

Joining Daniel for this episode is Tracie Smith of Zumiez to discuss ways to build cross-functional relationships between the studio and other departments. As content creation shifts from being a service that is performed on a transactional basis, to a more strategic part of a businesses plan to capture market share, we need to build better relationships between the studio and external stakeholders. 

Key Takeaways

• Content production will go from being transactional task that needs to be completed, to a more strategic part of the business.
• When studios are too siloed, the effect can be negative in both directions. Outside of the studio, people are unaware of what the studio does or how it impacts the business. Inside the studio, employees feel cut-off and like the work they do isn't important to the business.
• Your company culture plays a large part in your ability to make cross-departmental connections. The stronger and better defined a culture you have, the easier it can be to bridge communication gaps.
• Supporting internal creative needs for your company is a great way to get your studio involved in  helping other departments and share skills. Things like employee of the month portraits can really help build positive culture AND elevate the profile of the studio team.
• Hosting an open house in your studio can help build interpersonal relationships across departments that can help make meetings and future projects more efficient through more effective communication.
• Effective communication helps make it easier to keep goals and expectations aligned.

Links & Resources

Tracey Smith on LinkedIn

Zumiez

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

Summary

Rob DiCaterino joins Daniel to discuss post-production at scale and how to demystify the process for key stakeholders in your organization. 

Key Takeaways

• Post production is an often misunderstood element in an already complex process. 
• Post Production encompasses everything that happens to an asset after the production (photo/video shoot) has occurred.
• Post Production does include retouching and photoshop work, but also MANY technical steps are included as well. Before an image is ever opened in Photoshop, many technical aspects of the asset need to be addressed or confirmed. 
• A big part of post-production is Quality Assurance - Making sure the images are correct in every way. 
• Post production needs to be involved in the content production process as early as possible. Every decision that happens in pre-production and on-set can have a HUGE impact on post production teams, and often can result in budget overruns or missed deadlines. 
• To keep post-production on time, and manageable, you MUST have a process in place that is followed. It sounds like common sense, but it is often overlooked. 
• A robust process with automations can help prevent errors in a process that moves quickly and simple errors are magnified. 
• SET EXPECTATIONS FOR POST PRODUCTION. This is critical to a smooth process and staying on budget and hitting your deadline. 
• If you're going to promise to the client, provide the resources to meet that promise. 

Links & Resources

Rob on LinkedIn

Post Production in Creative Force

Glossary
Metadata Tagging - In content production assets can be "tagged" with text information that helps describe the image or usage. This text info stays with the image and carries through to asset delivery

Rounds of Review - An opportunity for a client or stakeholder to review images after editing and make notes or changes. 

Technical Image Requirements - All of the objective characteristics of an image. Pixel Dimension, Resolution, Aspect Ratio, Metadata, Colorspace, etc. 

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