The E-commerce Content Creation Podcast

Summary Last week our episode featured some high level discussion about automation in the studio with Marc Berenson. This week Marc is back and he brought friends! In a first for this show we had 4 guests, the team at Stanley Black and Decker that Marc worked with to find ways to automate their repetitive tasks, and save time and effort. As Dan Berzak, head of this efficiency team,  tells us, it’s...

Summary We’ve talked a lot on this podcast about agility, scalability and automation. It can sometimes sound like a huge undertaking to pivot a large in-house studio towards automated processes. Automation doesn’t have to be a huge project. Automation can begin with the tools any studio is using today. Marc Berenson joins Daniel on the podcast for this episode to talk about some of his learnings d...

Summary Over the last year, we've learned a lot by doing this podcast. Discussing topics covering creation production, through all stages of the process and with key stakeholders, we've started to develop a better understanding of the evolution of creative production and that's helped us make some educated guesses about where the future might take the industry. Recently Daniel had the opportunity...

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...

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...

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 reall...

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...

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 th...

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 pla...

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 dis...

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...

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 con...

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, rea...

Summary Kevin Mason of studio workflow is back for another round to discuss Process Improvement. We start at the beginning, how do we get the perspective we need to evaluate the process, and the how do we drill down from there. Spoiler alert, many recurring themes that you’ve heard on this show play into success process review. Not the least of which is how we set and communicate business, studio,...

Summary Think back to 2015 and you may remember, The Dress. A viral phenomenon that taught us a lot about how we as humans perceive color. As a photographer during that time, it sort of felt like watching the world learn a lot about what we already knew. Color can be deceiving and you never know what someone else ACTUALLY sees. In e-commerce, color is a constant topic, partially for this exact rea...

Summary Rob Regovich of Malouf Companies joins Daniel to take on the topic of planning for your studio in the face of disruption. We touch on the core challenges of planning for any studio, how your team and studio size impact the planning process, on how data and analytics plays a role in this.  Key Takeaways The single biggest planning problem for a studio is getting the sample in the studio. Be...

Summary Tejs Rasmussen, Chief Product Officer of Creative Force sits down to talk about the growth of the platform in the last year, and what 2022 may hold for the product and for the Creative Force team.  Key Takeaways Creative Force launched a brand new module for editorial production, built from the ground up and put the company right back in the chaos of learning what works and what doesn't Th...

Summary Feedback is a gift. It can be scary, it can be hard, but when given in good faith it helps us learn, grow, and can make us feel good about the work that we’ve done. For this Christmas week episode of the e-commerce content creation podcast, Daniel is joined by Terence Mahone of Farfetch to discuss the gift of feedback. Even though it can be hard, if the goal of the team is growth, it is ab...

Summary Phillip Kirst, founder of Spice Media, joins Daniel to talk about efficiency. Everything from starting small to measuring and evaluating, to fostering process improvement from your team.  Key Takeaways Efficiency is ever-evolving. Experience and heuristics helps find efficiencies in your process. Low hanging fruit or big wins aren't the only way to get efficient. Small improvements in the...

Summary Creative Force senior product specialist James Lewis joins Daniel in this clip show style look back at a few topics from the past year on the podcast. We listen to and discuss clips on KPIs, strategic planning, continuous improvement, and more! Clip List Understanding and Supporting your Creative Teams with Tony Baker of Stitch Fix Process vs Product with Scott Willson of Patagonia Making...

Summary Joining Daniel for this episode is JR Curley, VP of Brand Marketing at Fab Fit Fun. We talk about what Social Media really means to e-commerce in the new era of selling online, how brands can leverage social listening to give their customers what they want, and why your Social Media teams need your support and investment.  Key Takeaways Social Listening through data analysis and customer i...

Summary Over the last 35+ episodes of this podcast, we’ve had a handful of book recommendations come up over the course of an episode. As we approach the holiday shopping season and begin to think about gifts for our family and friends, here are some book recommendations that may be just the thing. Key Takeaways Radical Candor by Kim Scott - Available at Amazon or Bookshop.org 4DX by CHris McChesn...

Summary Mark Stocker is Senior Creative Manager for The Very Group, a collection of high volume retail brands based in Liverpool England. Mark was a speaker at the Henry Stewart Photo Studios Ops Forum back in October of 2021 and we invited him on this episode to discuss how the proverbial pendulum needs to (and is!) swing away from the lowest cost per shot possible, to a true strategic considerat...

Summary Kevin Mason has been in photography for a long time working for organizations like Amazon, TopShop TopMan, and most recently consulting in creative production with his company Studio Workflow. Kevin also has a degree in interior architecture, and having consulting on some big studio builds, Daniel sat down to discuss with him his approach to building a new space.  Key Takeaways Identifying...

Summary Rick Allen of Hogarth Australia joins the show to talk about the current biggest segment of computational assets in use today, the 360 spin, and we explore some other things the future might bring with regards to AR, VR, GAN Generated Imagery, and we talk a bit about Rozy, Korea's virtual influencer.  Key Takeaways 360 rotational assets seem to stop and start as content that brands want to...