#467 – Amazon Product Video Production in the Age of AI with Rob Wiltsey
Rob Wiltsey, founder of VideoFresh, takes us on an engaging journey from his high school days as a video enthusiast to leading a top-tier company that revolutionizes video production for e-commerce. He shares how VideoFresh ingeniously combines the artistry of video with the structured efficiency of lean manufacturing principles, a synergy that has transformed how Amazon sellers and e-commerce platforms utilize video content. Rob’s approach not only optimizes production efficiency but also offers cost-effective solutions that don’t compromise on quality, an aspect that has positioned Video Fresh as a leader in the field.
As we explore the multifaceted e-commerce marketing funnel, Rob and I discuss how strategic video content plays a vital role at each stage. From creating emotional connections with top-of-funnel content to crafting tactical videos for deeper engagement, Rob emphasizes the diverse video types essential for different marketing objectives. We touch upon the significance of cost-effective strategies such as batching product shoots and choosing the right video format—whether for branding, direct responses, or educational purposes—to align with specific goals. Personal anecdotes enrich our conversation, illustrating how VideoFresh’s creative strategies are applied in real-world scenarios.
The discussion also ventures into the future, examining the intersection of AI and video production. Rob shares insights on how AI is currently enhancing creativity and efficiency without replacing the invaluable human touch in video production. He describes the exciting potential of AI to revolutionize how brands test and create content, while cautioning against the risk of AI-produced work becoming lackluster if not strategically managed. By balancing the technological advancements of AI with human expertise, Rob paints a picture of a vibrant future for video content strategy, one that e-commerce sellers can leverage to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving digital landscape.
In episode 467 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Rob discuss:
- 00:00 – Video Production for E-Commerce Sellers
- 07:28 – The Power of Video Marketing
- 08:56 – Video Production Strategies for E-Commerce
- 13:39 – Creating Effective Video Content Strategy
- 19:14 – Video Strategies for Shopify vs Amazon
- 25:29 – Optimizing Testimonial and VSL Videos
- 30:08 – Effective Testimonial Video Creation Tips
- 34:41 – Amazon Video Production Process Overview
- 37:35 – Optimizing Video Production for E-Commerce
- 39:07 – Video Content Planning and Scripting Process
- 46:32 – Clarity in Visual Content for AI
- 49:17 – The Future of AI Video Production
- 51:04 – Rising Interest in Generative AI Videos
- 55:38 – Embracing AI Technology in Videos
- 58:13 – AI Advantages in Video Marketing
- 1:06:01 – Innovative Motion Capture Workflows
Transcript
Kevin King:
Welcome to episode 467 of the AM/PM podcast. This week, we’re talking about video. That’s right. Video is a major component to actually lift your response rates and to inform your customers and to really stay in touch with your customers and do all kinds of cool stuff beyond just making the sale and with all the changes that’s happening with AI and people using AI to create videos, can you do that or can you not do that? Or how does AI play a role in all the video production for e-commerce sellers? That’s what we’re talking about today with Rob Wiltsey from Video Fresh, so enjoy this episode.
Kevin King:
Welcome to the AM/PM podcast, Rob Wiltsey, with a Video Fresh. How are you doing, man?
Rob:
Doing good. How are you?
Kevin King:
I’m good, it’s good to see you again after back, what about six months ago or so, I think, we ran into each other at the Prosper Show.
Rob:
Yeah, yeah, that feels like forever ago. Lots happened since then, but that was a good show. I enjoyed it. Good to see you guys.
Kevin King:
Yeah, that was a good show. You doing the one next year?
Rob:
Yeah, we’ll be there next year at the Wynn. We should be doing a lot of fun stuff with the show from a video standpoint too, so that should be a lot of fun.
Kevin King:
Awesome. So let’s talk about this. Let’s talk about this video stuff. But before we get into that, what’s your background? Do you come from like the television or video production world before you started the Video Fresh? Or what’s your story there?
Rob:
Yeah, like a lot of people, my background’s like kind of all over the place, right. So, video was always a vein, kind of running through everything I did. So back when I was in high school, like 16, I think was the first time I got, you know, collected like a real decent check from somebody to make a video, like I was always. I was that kid in like middle school that had a video camera in my hand and like would make all my friends act in like videos and I would be like, okay, so we’re in space, you’re the, whatever, you know, we’ll make a Star Wars movie. You’re like a stormtrooper, you’re the. And then my friends would just go along with it and I would. I was obsessed with making videos um, my whole life. So then I, you know, started doing. I did everything. I started doing wedding videos. At one point, like anyone like where, where are there people that will pay me to? Just, I just want to make videos, it doesn’t even matter what right? Then, um, but I went to school for industrial engineering.
Rob:
So, I went to school for not anything related to, uh, videos or anything like that, or marketing or anything. Um, so I learned about things like Six Sigma, lean manufacturing, you know, process improvement kind of all these, all these concepts that really allow you to systematize and scale and like really make a process more efficient. But I paid my way through that kind of making videos for people, right, and I never really thought I was going to 100% go in into industrial engineering. I just thought, oh, this is like an interesting thing to be learning. I kind of always wanted to maybe own my own business or something. So, after I graduated, I realized no one was applying those lean manufacturing principles to creative video content. Like because in the video world, a lot of people are very artistic, they’re very sentimental, they’re very, you know, every video is a real work of art, which is great and I get that. I’m kind of that way too. But I’m also kind of left brain, right brain. I’m like no, let’s like systematize and scale like a creative video factory, like let’s like what, what would that look like? And there back then that was kind of like not there’s. There’s probably some more companies now that have that approach, but that was kind of like an uh, an unorthodox approach to, uh, creative marketing content. And so that is where Video Fresh was.
Rob:
So back in 2016, I started Video Fresh. So it’s been a minute, um, and that’s kind of how it all, how it all came together. I also I also did make a feature film along the way, uh, with some friends that got distributed. Uh, I won’t go too much into that, but that was fun. So maybe at one point I thought I was going to go into the film industry or I didn’t really know. But yeah, here we are and now we’re kind of like we’ve really found our home in the Amazon ecosystem and kind of that factory we built and the way that we approach videos ended up being like kind of the perfect structure for an e-commerce company that needs, you know, 150 product videos and they need it to kind of be like at a good price and like detail oriented and all the rest so.
Kevin King:
So when you started Video Fresh, it wasn’t for e-commerce. It kind of evolved into that. That’s where your clients were coming from, and so then you doubled down on it. Is that right?
Rob:
That’s pretty, that’s pretty much right. I mean in 2016, I don’t even think Amazon, you know, had videos on the platform 2016. So, yeah, when we started, um, we, it was a lot of marketing storytelling, it was a lot of testimonial videos, it was a lot of stuff. We worked with, um. We worked with Nike. We’ve worked with, you know, Cuties, the little oranges, uh, that you might see in the grocery store. Um, we worked with the Girl Scouts. We worked with, like Goodwill and like all these. You know, we were trying we got some like really cool contracts with a lot of companies. But, yeah, it was e-commerce kind of found us along the way and we got a ton of e-commerce companies reaching out to us and so I kind of saw that signal and kind of leaned in. I was like, wait a minute, like what? This is kind of fun. Like the e-commerce was so different from, you know, nonprofit storytelling, which I also love, but e-commerce just seemed like this, this starving crowd, if you will, at the time, where it’s like man, these people really don’t have a lot of great partner options for their videos, like they’re kind of hiring freelance people or whatever else or trying to do it themselves.
Rob:
So, so, um, I think somewhere, somewhere, probably, you know, somewhere before COVID I mean probably 2018, 2019. We started seeing that signal really strong, uh, and people find it because we had like SEM and things going on, uh, and the types of people that would reach out to us, and so, yeah, as soon as we leaned into e-commerce, it just like blew up, like you know, and we really started to fill our calendar with that kind of stuff.
Kevin King:
So, instead of getting producers, you got people that don’t know what the heck they’re doing, and they expect a masterpiece for next to nothing. So yeah, I get it. That’s a good shift, Rob.
Rob:
It was a good shift in what an e commerce seller, what an e commerce brand, cares about, is so different from what our previous clients cared about, you know. And so that was a big learning curve. I remember trying to go oh wait, they really, I mean as they need to be, I mean an e commerce brand that’s made it to 5 million, 10 million, 20 million, which is a lot of who, a lot of who we work with is like kind of on the larger and we do work with smaller sellers now. Um, a lot of which has to do with gen AI, which we’ll talk about. But, um, but what was funny is like they there’s a reason they made it that far, and that’s because they’re extremely committed to the bottom line make, adding up and making sense along the way. So, um, these videos, more than anything else, they are tools to do a job. They this, this content needs to get a click at this very specific stage of the funnel and get the client from, or get the customer from here to here and then from here to here.
Rob:
That is not how a nonprofit thinks about content. That’s not how you know a lot of companies that kind of want branded TV ads and stuff that you know, branding videos. We do a lot of training videos; we’ve done all kinds of stuff. So, to me a video has always been like a tool, Like it’s just a tool. And the reason I love videos is because it’s like the most powerful way to influence people, like at scale, to do anything, right. Like it’s just such a powerful. There’s nothing else that captures. Like, let’s say, you’re a brand and you want to really make an emotional connection with your customer base. There’s no way to capture an emotion and kind of put it in a bottle and deliver it at scale than like a video. You know, and we’ve made some real tearjerker videos through the years for companies that really have, you know, non-profits and things like that, we’ve made funny videos make people laugh. You know you’re like you’re delivering an emotional package and like that’s what I think is so cool about a video. Nothing else is going to do that, and that’s because you have music, you have a story, you have a character. There’s so much in a video that no other medium has.
Rob:
So with e-commerce you have this huge funnel and you need to do different things along the way on that funnel. At the top of the funnel you do need to make them kind of feel something about the brand, about the product, and then, you know, invite them to click through to learn more, right, and then, once they’ve opted in, tell them a little bit more about the product and kind of, and you kind of you kind of work their way down the funnel where by the end of it they understand everything, they connect with it and then they make that purchase decision. And so the content gets a lot more tactical as you go down the funnel and it’s a lot more related to, you know, their search intent. You know they’re retargeting what have they seen before and nurturing that lead along the way. So it’s like, yeah, it’s like a puzzle kind of.
Rob:
That whole funnel is like a puzzle and it’s like what would be the perfect video to connect this dot to that dot in their funnel, and so that’s kind of how I like to think about it. I do kind of take an engineering um approach with it a little bit, and I also love puzzles and that’s kind of what a lot of these projects feel like, I guess, um is, you know, you got complicated products with complicated nuances, and so a lot of times we’re trying to like tap dance over different types of messaging points and whatever else. So, yeah, that’s what we’ve been doing, definitely since 2018, I would say, in the e-commerce space.
Kevin King:
That’s awesome. I mean, my background is some people know this, a lot of people don’t, but it’s in video too. I ran, uh I’m not a video editor, uh, but I know, you know, I know Premiere and I know, uh, Final Cut and I know some of those older tools that people use before the new generation of tools. But we did uh. I had four video editors working for me full time for like 15 years and we did a lot of television stuff pay-per-view television, a lot of DVD and I was one of those guys I’m a little bit older than you but when I was a kid I was getting my buddies to come and film too. And back when MTV first started around 84, 85, somewhere in there, I had a little camera that had film on it. Actually, you know the old, kind of like old school, like you see in the movies your great grandfather had or something.
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
Um, it’s on a reel on. You know a spool um and I, we got them all together and we set up a little drum kit and uh guitars and air band. Air played uh, uh to I think it was Motley Crew and my in my driveway, but I was like we need some pyrotechnics, so we just poured gas on the driveway and set it on fire and neighbors freaked out the fire trucks come. So that was my first little video production thing. Got in a little bit of trouble for that one, but I was trying to make a cool little music video. That’s awesome. Yeah, so I understand the value of video and on my brands when I launched a bunch of brands on Amazon in 2015, and video was a major component back then, like you said, it wasn’t on Amazon just yet, but I was using it in social media, I was using it in UGC, I was using it on my website and I would put it as part of the production. When we’re doing the photos, I was spending serious money because I knew the value. So I was spending probably about $5,000 a day in just production costs, with my buddy, who’s a photographer from the video side, basically comping his day rate and stuff and giving me discounts. But we would group everything together and so we would systemize it so that we can knock out a whole bunch of different content whether it be stills or be video content all from the same shoot at the same time. So instead of $5,000 to shoot this product, maybe we were doing seven different products at once and just changing outfits or changing a little bit around, and then it becomes where, okay, production costs on each one of these is now whatever 500 bucks, a video or whatever it was, and so trying to do it like that versus one-off type of things.
Kevin King:
Um, so what? On video, though, I find that there’s different types of videos, and you just kind of said it there, but let’s talk a little bit about that. On the funnel where you said, there’s the, there’s the branding video that a lot of the brands do, that’s your, that’s your, um, normal television type of stuff typically. Then there’s a direct response video and then there’s there’s educational video, there’s funny video, there’s just make you brand aware, uh. Then there’s uh, informational how does this thing work? There’s demonstration, there’s all these different levels, and I think a lot of people don’t understand it. They just probably say, hey, I just need a video, um, yeah, and they’re like, no, which there’s videos for different things.
Kevin King:
Cause, can you talk about that a little bit? About? Uh, because I know, like for me, just as an example, when I read about 30 newsletters a day and sometimes there’s a one of the links you know and one of the newsletters might be. I don’t know how to uh, how to crush it on LinkedIn or something like that. Uh, and I click it and think it’s going to be an article that I can skim in a couple minutes and get the nuts and bolts out of, but it goes to a podcast. And I’m like I ain’t watching no damn hour-long podcast, even at 2x, because these guys, I know this guy, he’s not very exciting, so I want to be entertained on the video. I either want to know information like how do I do this, or how does this thing work, or show me how to fix a problem, or what am I getting into, or I want to be entertained and then if you want to sell to me or teach me something, that’s okay. Otherwise I don’t want that. So how do you work with your clients and explain to them? All right, this is what you need to do in regards to all that.
Rob:
Gosh. Yeah, I love this question because, um, there are so many different ways to model, uh, the landscape of video content. One of them and this is broad, this is going beyond e-commerce now, right, this is just, but I would say this is going to how video plays a role in marketing in general. So, you have there’s, there’s a book that um, is really famous. The marketing world that is. I can’t remember the name right now, but it has it’s Hub Hero Hygiene Content. So, I like this one a lot. So, hub content. Well, let’s start with Hero. So Hero Content is like your big top of funnel. Back in the old days. This is like not a word anymore, which is funny, but like, remember viral videos, we need a video to go “viral”. Like that’s, there’s a reason that that’s not a thing anymore. I could talk about that, but that was once a thing. We need a video to go viral. We need a video that millions of people see, that just gets us a ton of exposure. Um, hero content is a big top of funnel thing that you remember the dollar shave club, like ad that really popped off. Like that was there. That was like a hero video. Hero videos can also just be ads, tv ads, anything that’s like top of funnel and it’s really. It’s a real brand introduction to the uh, to the customer base. So I think we all kind of understand what a hero video is, right.
Rob:
Um, then you have uh hub content. So hub content is essentially you have social media followers, you have newsletter subscribers, you have, you know you, you know people on YouTube that follow you, um, people who are subscribed to you in some way. Your hub content is what you serve them to keep them engaged and nurture them over time. So that is a great. When brands are doing social media, organic social media, YouTube, like I said, newsletters, anything like that, that’s going to be hygiene, I’m sorry. Hub content which keeps them engaged and keeps them like super top of mind between purchases right, maybe they purchase from you once a year. Well, you got to keep them red hot during that 12 month period right before that next purchase. So that’s what your hub content is. And then hygiene content is one of my favorites and it’s really overlooked but it’s really powerful. I use it a lot in Video Fresh.
Rob:
So what hygiene content is is, people are on Google, people are on YouTube, people are on these different search engines and they’re searching for things. And when they’re searching for something like, let’s say, they’re typing it, let’s say you sell pet food. Well, your customers have pets. Maybe they’re not looking for pet food, but they’re looking for pet related things as well. So you, you as a pet food brand, uh should have, you should look at what our pet owners, what our dog owners searching for. And maybe one of the things they’re searching for is, like you know how to, uh, you know, keep my dog uh healthy with exercise, like what? What type? How much exercise should my dog be getting? Whatever, some random question. So, then your pet food brand should have the video on YouTube about that question, even though it has nothing to do with dog food and it’s not even about, um, your products at all. You are serving your, your customer base by giving them the information that they are wanting, whether or not it has to do with your product, and that is your hygiene content. And when you, when you and I go and search for stuff online uh, random questions, the links in the videos that come up are a lot of times made by companies that are doing this exact thing right, and then suddenly we find ourselves on this company’s website and we’re like well, what is this company?
Rob:
And all of a sudden, you’re getting exposed to that company. So it’s a great way to funnel the traffic that you want. So, in a way, sponsored brands videos on Amazon, could be a form of hygiene content, in the sense that people are searching for something, people are typing in an Amazon keyword and your video ad can sort of intercept that search intent and deliver them value. Obviously, they might be searching directly for a product, in which case you’re like here’s the product. A lot of times it’s like, with your keyword strategy, people could just be typing in fun kids’ activity or like fun birthday ideas or something, and then, like, your product is almost like the inspiration and things like that. So you’re kind of hygiene content is a way to like intercept the traffic from your, your customer. So Hub Hero Hygiene, I think, is a powerful, a powerful combination and most, most brands are not doing all three as well as they could, and I think that that’s a good way to frame it from a marketing standpoint. Yeah, so there’s other things, there’s other rabbit trails. I could go on but-
Kevin King:
Is there a difference, then, between a video that I have you guys create for my Shopify site versus Amazon? Is there a different psychology in the buyer because they’re different places in the funnel or they’re different places, so should I be using a different video if I’m doing Shopify and Amazon?
Rob:
Hundred percent. So Shopify. So the biggest difference. So if the question is like once they’re on your Shopify store, there’s like a video there, right, yeah, versus Amazon. So, what I would say is, once, I would say the listing page video on Amazon and on Shopify, probably not much difference there. Um, I think that once, once a customer has opted in and clicked all the way through to your listing page, I don’t think there’s a huge fundamental difference between what an Amazon PDP video needs to be and what a Shopify listing page video needs to be. I think both of those videos are doing the same thing, which is they have opted in, they’ve clicked all the way to your page of all the things they could have clicked on. There they are, they’re on your page, they’re this close to making a purchase. They essentially want your product to be the one. You know what I mean like they’re trying to shop, they’re trying to find something. So, by the time they’ve clicked on a listing page, what that PDP video needs to do, what that listing page video should do, is just what it’s like. Why are they just going to the buy box? They opted all the way into the, to the page, right. Why aren’t they just buying. Well, there must be something that they need to validate about the product either a fact about the product, a compatibility thing about the product, an emotional connection to the product, like there’s something that that video needs to do to get them all the way to the buy box, cause they’re that close.
Rob:
A lot of times it depends on the product, what it is, um, you know, there’s funny. So, uh, just to go down the rabbit hole a little deeper here, there’s something that we’ve we uh have kind of formulated which is like the product utility spectrum. Okay, so you have, on one end, you have a very low utility product, um, and which, uh, so I have this, um, it’s like bonsai tree, it’s like a fake bonsai tree. This product has literally zero utility, but I, but for some reason I spent like 60 bucks on it. Um, so, so that product, so the video about that product. I don’t need to know what it’s made of, I don’t need to know like, but like this, that’s not a features benefits purchase, right, that’s like a low utility. It just needs to like wow, this is a cool looking bonsai tree thing. So, like, a lot of products are like that. Where it’s like. What that video needs to do is just incite desire for the product. It just needs to make you want the product like show it off in cool settings, show something you know. Show you someone working at their desk and there’s just like pretty bonsai tree next to them. So, on the high end, you have like a socket wrench set or something right when you have it’s, it’s, it’s a hundred percent a need product. Um, it’s something you need. It needs to do a job. What someone needs to do to go to the buy box for that product is to understand every piece that like say everything there is to say about the product, every piece that’s in the box, all the different sizes, like the. It’s durable, it’s the. The carrying case is convenient, whatever. Like it’s that they. They need all their questions answered about that product to go to the buy box.
Rob:
So, I think, um, that’s what I think a good listing page video does. You don’t really have to like hook them so much at the beginning. You don’t really have to like be super entertaining about that video. You just have to be really, really informational and clear and efficient. Um, at that stage, uh, whereas I think a sponsor brands video ad, for example, um is a whole different thing. Where that is like there’s a they’re, they’re typing in a keyword, um, and they are ready to buy, like intent is 10 out of 10. That video just needs to mainly appeal to that keyword search and be like you found the one that you were looking for. You know, here it is kind of thing so.
Kevin King:
What about talking about the hook uh for from an advertising point of view, for advertising videos and the six second story, uh, you know that a lot of people say can you talk about that a little bit?
Rob:
Yeah, the six second story. Um, so is that like a? Is that for like the ads, like sponsor brands video?
Kevin King:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rob:
Yeah, yeah, um so yeah.
Kevin King:
Ads or wherever.
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
More top of funnel advertising.
Rob:
Yeah, I think that you know the model that I that I like to use for that is you hook them with eye candy. So, in the first, like one second, if it’s a top of funnel video, that means they’re not searching for anything, they’re trying to watch a show or they’re doing whatever, and this ad comes up. So usually what I like to say is the first one second needs to kind of appeal to their subconscious brain because they don’t want anything yet, right, they’re not. They don’t want what you’re selling, they’re, they’re, they want to watch something else, probably. Um, in that moment, and so psychologically it’s like that split second opening of the video needs to like appeal to their caveman brain or whatever like. So that’s things like we, there’s like a bunch of tried-and-true things. So it could be like human eyes, right, like that’s a very, you know, strong hook. Uh, delicious food, cute babies, cute dogs, beautiful landscapes, some sort of action, like a shot that really grabs your subconscious brain as the very, very opening shot. Then their conscious brain is coming online and going why am I watching this? What is this? And then so in like seconds, two, three, four you need to like really, you have their attention now is to be like what is this product? What’s the point, why is it relevant to you?
Rob:
And then, at the end is just like an invitation to click to learn more. So, it’s like you don’t need to educate them all about the product, but you need to make it clear what it is. And then there’s that invitation to click through and learn more, and I think that’s probably about as optimal as a top of funnel video gets, as opposed to trying to give them all this information that they they’re not ready for. It’s just like um, hit them with a one, two punch, uh and you know whatever that call to action is after that, if it’s clicking or if it’s a QR code or whatever. But that’s kind of like I think a lot of times top of funnel videos brands lose people by saying too much. That’s what I’ve noticed.
Kevin King:
So what, what makes a good testimonial video or a good, even taking it one step further, a good VSL?
Rob:
Yeah, ok, so, yeah, and those are definitely I can talk about each of those. So, um, I think, I think with a testimonial video, um, and those are going to be good like middle, those are like good mid funnel videos, right. So, after they’ve opted in, I think that, a VSL, I think that, um, it’s an opportunity to really humanize your brand. So I think that like having like we have these on our, on our website, where it’s like right now it’s me or whatever, but we’ve had other people do them, but like I think, um, humanizing the brand is having someone there, like having whether it’s you or someone in your company, like someone just explaining, uh, the product, that you have and like being authentic, not sounding salesy, sounding like cause. Behind every company, there’s like a very passionate founder or there’s a very passionate team of people, and I think that’s a great opportunity as to kind of speak to what your product is, why it’s special, why you’re passionate about it. I think people really respond to that. I think people respond to not just this faceless brand, but I think the VSL is a great opportunity for a human being If it’s your company, if it’s your product, like every single, like every single Amazon seller brand you know, owner or whatever that I’ve ever talked to is like obnoxiously passionate about their product and what it does, and that’s one of the fun, that’s like one of my favorite parts about working with e-commerce sellers is someone will have some product that like you and I might you know, just never really dig into, but they’re like they sell.
Rob:
You know they sell uh, towels, right, they sell, they sell these towels and there’s the softest towels and there’s the like everything you could care about a towel like this per like you know, a client’s just they just love their product and they’re so passionate about it and that is irresistible, I feel like, for a seller who’s interested in buying a towel right hearing that. So that’s how I would do a video sales letter. It’s just like capture your passion for your product in a bottle with that, putting the structure of it aside or whatever. I think that that’s really powerful. And then for the testimonial video, I would say that’s even lower funnel, probably, um, than the VSL. I would say I don’t know, maybe people disagree with that, but I would say I would say um testimonial video, kind of lower middle funnel. You know, like you’re convinced you’re interested and you’re like, yeah, but is it as good as they say? And then, boom, you’re hearing from a bunch of other customers that are all are all saying that the product was great, I use it every day, changed my life, whatever. So that that’s like a really strong kind of lower middle funnel uh thing with your testimonials and I think, um, yeah, testimonial videos can be easy to get. Just have people submit videos. You know, um, get your actual customer like, if you don’t have a lot of testimonial content right now, like just give them some free product for and then in exchange for, you know, submitting a video or something.
Kevin King:
Yeah, there’s lots of tools like Senja.io and a whole bunch of them out there.
Rob:
Exactly.
Kevin King:
Grab those. What makes a good test? Is there a way that you guys have you developed a system or a set of questions that gets the people to say what you want them to say in their words, but not sound scripted or not sound corny? Yeah, do you have a process? Because testimonials, two different people can be. I’ve noticed this in a lot of my stuff. Because if I, if I do the questioning for a testimony at one of my events to um, it’s a whole different testimonial than if, uh, I have my video guy ask those, even sometimes those same. If I write down here’s the questions answer, it’s just not. It’s not the same, because they don’t know how to play off of something or to go off of something. They just have a list of questions. So, what do you?
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
The testimonials can be super powerful. Those are basically your five-star reviews in the video world. So what-
Rob:
Totally.
Kevin King:
Do you have any, any tips or suggestions on how to get the most out of those?
Rob:
Yeah, I think I think that, like what makes an effective testimonial video? One of the first things is like you, you, you connect with the person talking. Like, so, um, like I’ve got two little kids or whatever you know, like three and seven. So, if I was gonna buy a product for them and I was hearing it from someone who’s like so I have two kids, or like three and six, so I’d be like, oh, I’m just like this person, like they know exactly my life, right. So when they say how great the product is, I care, because I know that they are just like me and have my exact kind of circumstance in life. So I think that’s like the first good step of a testimonial video is like they need to. They don’t just be like Hi, I’m Bob and I bought this product, I like it. They should spend the beginning kind of like laying out a little bit of a context of like telling us about their life in a way that resonates with who you know your customer is, so that they feel like they’re listening to someone just like them. So, I think step one is like making sure that the viewer feels connected to, to the person talking, and so I think, like, hey, tell us about and so that looks super different for every product, right? So, like, what would that customer have to say in the opener to be really relatable to the customer you want to be watching it? So that so, um, then I would go into like the problem, like what was kind of the issue or the thing they wanted to solve for with that product, and then move into the solution, hit them with a few features, of benefits and what they liked about it.
Rob:
Um, I also think that there’s, uh, there’s actually kind of a um, a subtlety here that I don’t know if everybody cares about, but when I, when I’m on, when I’m watching a testimonial, I think sometimes it’s authentic, you want it to be authentic. So, in other words, you don’t want the person to be overly whatever, like overly enthusiastic that no one would reasonably be about a product. Like I think you want people to just be real about it. Like, yeah, I like this product, like it does what it did, the thing I hoped it would do, like I don’t think. I think a lot of times I see testimony, like I see this with influencer stuff a lot, where it’s like it feels fake, it feels forced, right. So you don’t, you don’t want to pressure, in my opinion, and you could like split test this, right, I think, if you I personally think, if you were going to split test like a really authentic video where the person is like moderately enthusiastic about the product. Like you would be if it was like you know, if I bought a teapot or something, right like you know, as opposed to like a really forced kind of influencer style video about how this teapot like completely changed their life, it’s like I think, um, yeah, I think it’s okay to try more, more authentic, more grounded testimonials. Um, that, uh, because people can really smell authenticity, that’s what, like, no matter who you are, like, you can really smell authenticity in a, in a piece of content. So, anyway, um, that’s one of the other things I see a lot is brands trying to force a certain kind of, uh, testimonial content or influencer content and, um, I don’t know, I mean I guess the data would show what’s more effective, but I think I know what works on me, which is more of a much more balanced, grounded testimonial than like a super over the top thing. So, yeah, those are my thoughts, I guess.
Kevin King:
Yeah, I think a lot of people try to be on video, whether it’s testimonial or they’re hosting something or they’re doing a product. They’re an influencer. They try to be someone they’re not. Back to that authenticity. They’re like well, I need to be like Mr. Beast in my videos. So, they try to imitate and that’s not their personality, that’s not their true character. There’s a woman named McCall Jones. She spoke at one of my events and she does a whole training on called attractive character and she says there’s like 51 different prototypes or something like that, of characters and you need to figure out what you are. And she uses references to like celebrities, like, okay, here’s Rob Lowe, he’s this type. Here’s Tom Cruise, he’s this type.
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
So, if you’re not that type, don’t try to mimic them. Try to be yourself. You’re more like a I don’t know Chris Rock or whatever it is.
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
And figure that out and you’re going to explode the effectiveness of your video and of everything that you’re doing. It’s a really good. She was on an earlier episode about a year ago. If anybody listening wants to go back and check that out. I think it was like February of 2024 is when her episode came out, but it’s a really, really good so. So, walk me through the process of actually. Someone comes to you and like, hey, I need a video for my Amazon product. What am I looking at from at? I’m just I’m not a big seller; I’m not going to these guys that has 150 brands. I need, I got three or four SKUs, uh, and I’m like I need to, I need to up my game on the video because this iPhone stuff of me shooting it just ain’t cutting it anymore.
Rob:
Um, yeah.
Kevin King:
What happened, what happened? Walk me through the process.
Rob:
Yeah, first of all, by the way, I love that that 51 uh characters I’m gonna have to look into that. I love that concept. Um, yeah, so, okay. So a uh a brand comes to us and says, hey, usually what they say is, hey, we have products, we need videos and that’s kind of all they know, and so I usually say well, like what you know. If an Amazon seller comes to us and says we need videos, there’s the lowest hanging fruit is do you? Do you have a listing page video? Like, if they don’t have a listing page video, Amazon says that just having a listing page and I think this is 100 percent true, and people tell us this all the time. Like if you have a listing page video, Amazon says it boosts your conversions by nine point, seven percent. Like, that’s massive. Just by having a lot of products don’t have one, you know, um, or they don’t have a very good one. So, um, have a great listing page video that is worthy of your products and your brand. Shortly after, that would be a sponsor brands video ad.
Rob:
I, I’m a huge proponent of those ads. I think that, like, we see huge performance with those all the time. So I would say those two videos first of all. Like, identify what videos we need, right, I think sponsored brands video ad, listing page video, that is like our bread and butter, that we do and we do kind of a combo. So, the listing page video is like the full-length thing, and then the sponsored brands video is almost like the little teaser trailer for that longer video right. Um that kind of has the-
Kevin King:
How long is the longer video typically?
Rob:
I think. So it depends how much there is to say about the product, so usually between like 30 and 90 seconds. So, um, some products there’s a lot to say, right, like, if we’re going to say everything about this product, um, you know, a good example would be um, we, you know there’s a product like, like mobility products, like a wheelchair or a walker, or a or a you know different um things where there’s just a lot of features and functionality, different fitness products, uh, things like that. So, there’s really not much of a time limit on your listing page video. So I wouldn’t worry about how long your listing page video is, I would just make sure it’s thorough and comprehensive. Your sponsored brands video ad. Actually, I would say short, like 15 seconds max, which I know sounds very short. What we found is a video that is designed to loop, so the anatomy is boom, hook them with the eye, hook them with the subconscious eye candy, like we talked about.
Rob:
Step two clearly present the product with text on screen that is actually in the opening shot. Actually, I would include text on screen that is very relevant to the search intent, even like long tail keywords, which I could go into, but really big text on screen in that opening shot show the product hidden with the features of benefits. Products here are shot loop is something that is kind of designed to, so the viewer is actually likely to maybe watch, watch it through to the end and see that loop. Something about that tells the viewer this is all you’re going to get. You got to click through to the listing page to learn all about it. So it feels more like an invitation. It’s a little teaser trailer. It’s a little boom, boom, boom repeat. That gets them to take an action and click. If you give the whole thing away in the ad, they go oh okay, I get it and move on. So you kind of withhold some stuff, I think, in the ad a little bit.
Kevin King:
So then, okay, so I come to you and say, hey, I got some products, I need some videos, uh, and you’re like, okay.
Rob:
Yeah.
Kevin King:
You don’t have, we’re gonna do. You figure out that we’re gonna do these two for you. What happens next? Do I send you the product? Do, oh, yeah, you have people that write a script and I approve it, or do I give you some suggestions? Or are you interviewing customers to get feedback? What’s the?
Rob:
Yeah, sorry. I kind of forgot the question there along the way so so, uh, yeah, right. So first step we identify what videos we want. Step two um, we, they would, we would do a mastermind uh, do a mastermind uh process. So our video fresh mastermind, gives us all the information we need to know to write all the scripts for all the products. So we learn all about the features of benefits, all about misconceptions about the product, competition, whatever else.
Kevin King:
This is a question. This is a survey. A question there?
Rob:
Yeah, it’s kind of like a conversation.
Kevin King:
Okay.
Rob:
Um there’s a lot of nuance that comes out of the conversation. We probe a lot um to understand it as much as we can. So usually-
Kevin King:
Is this with a human or with an AI?
Rob:
This is with a human. This is like just like this, like on a call yeah.
Kevin King:
Okay, okay. So, it’s like a zoom call or something, okay.
Rob:
Like a zoom call um, and we use AI in our, in our process, um as well, uh, in a few key places for sure. So, then we write all the scripts for all the deliverables. So, the way that most projects go. So, a lot of who we work with is going to be a brand that’s doing over a million a year on Amazon. A lot of our brands do over a few million a year on Amazon, and so or just across the brand I guess it doesn’t have to all be on Amazon, but um in total, right, and so a lot of times what we’re doing is we’re batching products. So, if we’re doing a live production day, um, spoiler alert I feel like generative AI is here. It’s very impressive. It does a lot of stuff. Live production is still here for now. It’s not generative AI is not replacing live video production just yet, but it is able to do a lot of things which we’ll talk about. So, for now, a lot of what we’re doing is still batching products together. So maybe in one filming day, like you were saying earlier, we do the exact same thing. It’s like maybe seven or eight products in a day, right? So a lot of times, what our package would normally look like to get the lowest cost per video would be to do a filming day and just load it up with products and get all the ingredients that we need in that filming day to make all the different recipes right. To make, to make your sponsor brands, video ads, your listing page videos, maybe a top of funnel DSP ad, maybe some A plus content, premium, a plus content. You’ve also got storefront videos.
Rob:
So we’ll try to really be generous with that deliverables list. So, we’ll write all the scripts for everything that we plan to do as that next step and then we do a casting process. If there’s locations, we source locations, props, wardrobe, whatever’s going on um with the project. And then so it’s usually about a three week, a three-week process leading up to the shoot, of us kind of preparing for the day. Then you have the filming day and then, uh, on the filming day we actually send like a live feed out of the camera so the person could sit there and like watch every shot as it’s being filmed, give real time feedback. We’re like very collaborative um. That step is huge for us to like kind of always nail what they’re trying to do so-
Kevin King:
That’s good.
Rob:
It’s really good. And then a lot of clients, like, fly out to us from all around the country, which is always super fun, so, um.
Kevin King:
Your in Chicago right?
Rob:
Uh, we’re LA.
Kevin King:
Oh, LA, LA, okay.
Rob:
Yeah, yeah. So we have clients. We’re in a Pasadena area, which is kind of a cool, cool area of LA, so, um, so we have, uh, clients flying out to us all the time too, which I’m always kind of surprised. How many will get on a plane? And maybe people just like you know-
Kevin King:
They just want to go. They just think I’ve gone Hollywood, now I’m going to California. Shoot my video for my towels uh, this is going to be amazing.
Rob:
Exactly, and it’s so fun like we love it when people-
Kevin King:
My little baby’s going on TV.
Rob:
I know it’s good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it’s so fun to have uh clients come out because it’s very collaborative. We have just like so many great relationships with so many clients in every category, so when they come out, that’s great. They also, um, if they don’t come out, we’re still. We love to have real-time feedback throughout the whole filming day and then on the back end it’s usually about three weeks, maybe four weeks, depending on how many videos they have we kind of roll the videos out, we kind of edit them as in whatever order they want, but and we can like expedite that too. So, anyway, that’s like that’s the whole process. And I kind of skipped over a big piece of this, which is a lot of the content strategy that we do when we write the scripts. And so one of the things we do for the sponsor brands video ads, for example sometimes we’ll make multiple videos for one product, like we’ll make multiple sponsor brands video ads for one product, and we see a huge lift in uh being click throughs and conversions with this. So ,the way, the way we do that is, every product has long tail keywords and those long.
Rob:
If someone’s typing in black, foldable leather duffel bag, right, there’s a lot. If someone’s going through the trouble to type in, I want a black foldable leather, let’s just take one of those. I want a foldable duffel bag, right? So, whatever it folds and it rolls up in it, whatever, I don’t know. So, if someone’s typing that in, they will only click on a link, they will only click on a search result that clearly demonstrates the foldability of it. So in a lot of cases, you have a product where, when you type in that kind of keyword, your competition, all the results that are going to come up are not really going to do a great job demonstrating it’s foldable. Well then, your video. If you run a sponsored brands video ad and that opening shot is showing folding, folding, you’re going to earn that click because your video has an edge over all the other search results now.
Rob:
So what we like to do is deep dive into their keywords that have the highest impressions. And what are those keyword categories where, if we made the right video, we would have an unfair advantage? With that category, right? So with that long tail keyword category. So we’ve played this game with all kinds of different products and they always see a huge improvement in click through. So we use AI, we, we, we have a custom GPT that helps us, like, analyze those categories and find those opportunities too, but that’s. That’s like a fun little strategy that I don’t see. I haven’t run across a lot of other people doing it. Maybe they are, but that’s something that we’ve kind of developed over the years so.
Kevin King:
Now with Amazon, with Rufus and with Cosmo and stuff, they’re actually analyzing the videos that you post on Amazon for actually content and actually classifying it. So if I’m I don’t know if I’m doing a towel the towels example you gave and one of my top keywords is, um, I don’t know, uh, beach towel, uh, that I’m trying to go after and I maybe I have that in my listing somewhere, but I, I, which will give me some relevance, but if I don’t show in the video, if the video is not showing someone on the beach on a towel, it’s just showing them in the bathroom, it’s actually it’s actually going to actually penalize me a lot in the rankings because AI is taking a look and trying to figure out. It’s almost like OCR in the video.
Rob:
Wow.
Kevin King:
Um, and like what what’s in the video and actually then will that will have some relevance on what, how you appear and how you rank and how you’re recommended, especially going forward with, as AI search becomes more of the, the, the way that people searches versus keywords, so video is becoming even more important than ever before. And also making sure there’s no confusion in the video so that if it’s you know this the towel for some reason. Let’s say you’re a, the towel is a. It’s for a 4th of July towel and it’s decorated, you know, as a. It’s a flag of the United States, you know, as a towel. Someone wants to go to the beach for the picnic and sit on a 4th of a US flag looking towel. Well, how? The AI you have to make sure that you position it and you frame it such a way in the AI and the verbiage makes sure that it’s clear that this is not a flag, that you hang on a pole, that this is actually a flag. It’s a flag designed towel. So, there’s a lot of little idiosyncrasies that are coming that, some are already here, but that can make a huge difference in ranking and in relevance in this new AI world.
Rob:
Interesting. Yeah, I’ve heard that as well, that it’s going to really start analyzing video content, and that’s yet another way for the algorithm to validate what your product is and what it should be ranking for, and I think that’s so important.
Kevin King:
Intended use. I mean so it’s they’re, they’re looking for intended use type of stuff, and video is a perfect place to actually show in a story format or a visual format versus just a single frame. Uh, but still, what is the intended use of this?
Rob:
Interesting, yeah, and I think that, like you said, the AI algorithm is such a huge component of um of the future for sellers and understanding what that algorithm is going to do to their, to their ranking and um, yeah, it’s uh, that’s such a good, a good reminder and, of course, it’s always been doing that. I think with photos as well.
Kevin King:
Yeah, it’s recent. In the last year or two they started really doing that. It started with photos and now it’s going over into video. But let’s talk about the AI stuff. So a lot of people are like why do I need to pay you five or 10 grand or even more in some cases, if it’s a big production to do this and I can just go online? And last summer, tools like VO3 came out and you know there’s a lot. It seems like every day there’s a new tool. I mean, we’re recording this podcast, as a matter of fact, we publish it tomorrow. There’s probably a new tool that comes out if we talk about a tool now. So where are we going with this AI? You know you had what’s uh, Tyler Perry, I think it was that was going to build some 70-million-dollar production studio or 700 million, what I mean. It’s expensive, uh, outside of Atlanta. And when all this AI stuff and this is before it was getting good, um, he was like the heck with that. Well, I don’t need to do that. I’ll just be able to do it with AI. The AI right now cannot do as of now, it cannot do feature-length films, but it can do shorts. You know the number of how long you start off. You can do a three-second little video and then there’s a five-second, then there’s a ten-second and that keeps going up. And some people are doing that and then stringing them together to make like a five-minute video or something. But in five years, I think it’s Sam Altman recently said in five years you’ll be, or less, you’ll be able to do feature length films with all the special effects and everything all in AI sitting at your desk in a matter of hours.
Kevin King:
Off of a, off of a prompt. How does this affect? People are always saying well, all the video guys, all the photographers are going to be out of business. And I was like well I don’t know about that because actually, a lot of these creative people see this as a blessing because they know what an f-stop is, they know how to frame something, they know how to tell a story, they know how to set a scene, they know what a medium shot is, a wide shot and a close-up. They know all these different things and they can prompt that to actually get it exactly the way. And they’re just like this is amazing. I don’t have to go, spend all day and find a location, do all this stuff versus you, idiot seller that’s just trying to type in something make me a video for my product. Here it is. You’re going to get garbage, versus you guys that know what you’re doing. So, I see it, is it? I see it as being more of an accelerator for you guys to be able to knock out more videos and better videos faster, versus necessarily taking jobs. I mean, you know, a few people might lose their job here or there, but they’ll adapt and they’ll retrain on something else or whatever. But where do you see this going?
Rob:
Yeah, I love this and I’m about to drop a ton of my thoughts and via content about this cause um, I have some so many thoughts about it, but, um, we’ve been. First of all, we’re in that camp that sees it as, uh, a huge opportunity because, uh, for a couple reasons, but number one uh, we’ve been delivering, uh, generative AI videos for about 18 months to clients. So we, we were doing this before. It was cool, we were doing this before any. Actually, I’m sorry about two years now. Uh, cause it’s October, um and so and so, um, we’ve been delivering this stuff. Uh, people didn’t know what it was. We’re like, oh, we can do this with generative AI. They’re like what? And we were, we were able to do. Now, it was very limited, especially back then, but it’s getting better all the time. There’s so many nuances. Like you said, right now we’re in a hype cycle where people are seeing a lot of generative AI clips circulating on LinkedIn and YouTube and social media, and so a lot of people are thinking, oh, now it’s easy and free to make AI videos.
Rob:
It’s not the amount of human labor that it takes this is the irony right the amount of human labor that is actually involved to craft AI videos right now. There are many cases where it is simply still cheaper to pull out a camera and pull out a light and film your product, and a lot of people might be shocked to hear that. But we are delivering AI videos right now, depending on the needs of your video. One of AI’s biggest weakness is control. So the more control you need over your shot, the more specific. And if there’s one thing that our clients care about, it’s extreme control over details of our products. So, if you have a product that has features and functionality and details, here’s a great example. It’s like the towels video, right? A towel company. This client cares about the texture of the towel. They care about showing the exact patterns and the intricacies of this towel. Generative AI is not going to be able to just create that out of thin air. You’re effectively going to have to go capture your product the way it really is loaded into AI anyway. By that point, you may as well just kind of film a video about it.
Rob:
Now I would say that the short answer is AI is going to be able to do more and more and more. We’re going to stay at the cutting edge of it. I think that the amount of labor that it’s sometimes Because remember you were saying, 500 bucks a video that’s actually pretty easy to achieve with a full filming day 500 bucks a video with a with a real commercial, quality, detail-oriented video. 500 bucks is just like rough, like that, like from an AI standpoint, because you have to craft each and every shot one by one, by you know, through prompting, through whatever else. And if you’ve, I have two kinds of clients who have never tried AI and they assume, and they go. Well, this is going to be easy, like just to just do with AI. The, every one of my clients that have tried AI, they say the opposite, they go, they go. Oh yeah, it’s like it can’t do anything right, like it never makes one shot that looks good, like it just hallucinates. Every two, every, because that is what it does. When you actually get hands-on with these tools and try to try to have it do what you want with your products, um, you will learn very quickly where that, where the state of the art is and um, and so it’s an interesting moment right now where it’s has so much potential. Nobody wants it to a replacement for uh production more than I do. Like I would love that, because that would enable us to do so much more for our clients and help us reach their goals.
Kevin King:
No weather delays, no models not showing up on set.
Rob:
Nobody trips over cables, right, uh, nobody. Uh, you know we don’t have to order a lunch, right, I mean the, the amount of logistics that, as you know, that goes into that, goes into, um, live production, right, and the amount of, uh, you know, we got to put, we got, we got film permits, right, we have, uh, the amount of logistical-
Kevin King:
Location permits, film permits, model releases, makeup, catering.
Rob:
It’s, it’s absolutely it’s-
Kevin King:
Pre-production. Uh, everything’s lighting.
Rob:
I mean, it’s all, everything, everything, and it’s what we know, it’s what we’ve always done. We love it. Um, at the end of the day, if this technology is here, we know we only have one choice, which is to lean into it. And so, um, what I would say about generative AI is, like I said, it doesn’t, it does not replace all kinds of videos right now. It’s not ready to do that. The technology isn’t capable. I do think what I’m seeing right now is a lot of AI videos are going to create kind of a race to the bottom. Uh, have you heard of the term like AI slop? It’s kind of a so we’re in this interesting moment right now where everyone is enamored with AI slop, and I think that that is going to be temporary. I think that, at the end of the day, AI is not going to be able to um there. There is something missing from an AI video. So I have a hot take, which is people might disagree with me. I’m about to have a point of view on this.
Rob:
My point of view is people actually don’t want to watch AI videos. They want to watch good videos, and if AI is going to make a good video, the viewer better have no idea that it’s AI. And I think once an AI video gets so good that you can’t tell, and therefore don’t even wonder, whether it’s AI or not, I think AI has now crossed a threshold where it is ready for the real world. It’s ready to make your videos right, and so we have made videos with AI already that people could not tell that it was AI, with AI already that people could not tell that it was AI, and to me that’s like the standard, because I think, at least for me. I don’t know about you, but when I’m watching a video and then I notice that it’s AI, it throws me completely out of whatever.
Kevin King:
It takes that authenticity away.
Rob:
Actually, yeah, yeah.
Kevin King:
And you and I probably can tell I mean, I can tell just because I come from the world on editing like, okay, they just that that I’m watching just a TV show, I’m watching an ad, like, oh, that that’s a cover shot because this other thing messed up or it’s out of sequence, uh, or, or it, and you just, you just have that feeling. But there are tools now like um Mirage. Uh, it is one mirage.app that does some pretty amazing. You can do rap videos and stuff in there. It won’t do the background, so you either use stock footage stuff that you shot or use a different tool to actually generate, like the background, but all the movement of the person. It’s, it’s legit, um, and I won’t do the long, long, long form stuff, but it’ll do all the audio and all the syncing. So, it’s definitely coming along.
Kevin King:
And just on the non-video side, one of my businesses we publish wall calendars and it’s a seasonal business, so this time of year is when it’s starting to kick up, and I’ve been doing this for like 25 years and these wall calendars feature scantily clad women. And this year we decided we want to test the limits of AI with a calendar. So we do 10 different titles, we print these in Korea and sell them on Amazon. And we decided to actually do one called Pixel Perfect, which is all AI generated, and we had to play with it to your point like, okay, would have been just easier to shoot this, but maybe on this first one it would have been. But now we have the process down and we created a calendar with 13 different images that you cannot tell. I mean this, these are not women with six fingers and this is. You know, we couldn’t use ChatGPT. We had to use some special stuff and come up with a system, because you know of the amount of skin showing. I guess you could say, yeah, and it’s mind-blowing, and we had to give it just like to your point earlier, give it reference stuff. So we Mark, my partner and I uploaded a bunch of reference photos of hey, here’s my style, here’s my thing, and it’s, it’s mind-blowing what it did.
Kevin King:
Um, and just to see that, if we’re going to get to that point, we’re still on the cusp right there of of that, but we’re going to get to that point on video, I think, and I think one of the big advantages right now at least, uh, while we’re, while the technology is catching up to where we can create this authentic AI video is, I think, in testing. So, in your case, like if you have a client coming to you and say, hey, we want to run a sponsor video ad, I would use generative AI to actually create a hundred different ads you know 15 second ads all with a different positioning statement or a different thing. Run those on Meta or run those on Amazon or whatever, for a few days or a week and even if they do look a little janky or like, you can tell that their AI. You know that’s going to hurt your conversion a little bit, but at the end of the day, you’re still going to get some data back and go okay, these five right here were definitely working better and getting better feedback. Now let’s go shoot this with real people. Now we know which five are going to work and it’s like double down on these. So when we do our shoot, these are the five that we’re going to do. I think there’s major advantages in that. Uh, right.
Rob:
That’s interesting.
Kevin King:
Second for video.
Rob:
Yeah, I think that’s an interesting strategy is just to like, just volume, like just high volume and just testing, and I think AI does make that, uh, really convenient to do. Um, yeah, it’s like, at the end of the day, I think getting the video made has never been where we’ve seen, like our, our main value as a Video Fresh it’s. It’s been in crafting the it’s. It’s been in the content strategy to create a high-performance ad. And we actually are sitting on a ton of data for a lot. You know, we’re sitting on thousands of videos of data that tell us what is more effective to do, to do for different product categories. So the reason so one of the temptation here’s the flip side of that, I would say is one of the temptations is a lot of brands are going to go, wow, now it’s so easy to make videos, so we’re just going to like, like you’re saying, throw in a prompt and make a video and throw it. Well, well, you’re, you’re putting actual like ad spend behind that content and so it’s. It’s like the content may be and, of course, if it’s a sponsored brands video, it’s pay-per-click or whatever the case may be. But the opportunity cost of throwing videos on there that aren’t optimal right. There is an opportunity cost there. The temptation is going to be AI slop and just throw it up right, that’s going to be the temptation. And I think that AI can be wielded in a high- performance way and I think that your competition is probably going to be thrown AI slop up there. It’s actually. There’s an opportunity which is now it’s probably going to be really easy to actually stand out from that noise, right.
Kevin King:
Yeah, but you could still do that with the testing. You’re just testing and then, even if you get classified in with a slop, that’s okay to me as a seller because I’m figuring out what’s going to work. And then when I go hire you to do this right with your creative process and your writing and your systems, I know I’m much better chance of having a winner that’s going to convert. So, yeah, the opportunity cost I may be giving up if I go to you well, I got to. If I go to you, I’m looking at three to six weeks before I have something.
Rob:
Right.
Kevin King:
But I’d rather go to you with, like, I know these are what works. Now, let’s do this. And if it takes me an extra week or two because I put up some AI slop to test, I’m fine with that. That, to me, is an even improved process and a good use of AI. So, AI is not a replacement, which is basically what you’re saying right now. It’s a great tool to help achieve certain things, whether that’s testing or to create two seconds of a 30-second video. That’s just really. You’re basically your own uh, industrial light and magic, uh, studio or something, and creating your own little special effect or own little thing, or fixing a word uh, you know, if someone misspoke a word they misspelled, they misspoke your last name, you can fix that with AI in the video. Um, yeah, those types of things are the more practical right now, but it’s getting to the point down the road where it’s going to be, I think. AI first, and this is not now, this is a few years away still, but then then, uh, shooting second. I think we’re going to get there, yeah.
Rob:
Yeah, no, I think so too. And Video Fresh is kind of already moving that way. I would say we’re, we got videofresh.ai now for our domain. You know, we’re kind of going all in right now in that direction and yeah, we’ve got some links we could share or whatever, with kind of the latest, the latest stuff. And I think you’re right, it’s super exciting, it’s a new tool set that’s opening everything up. And I think that the one thing I’ll say is, like, because we’re talking about, like you said, sponsored brands, video ads, like that case, right, I think that your brand also and it depends how big of a brand you are like, we work with a lot of very established brands that have a brand voice. They do brand storytelling, they do TV ads, they do DSP um. So in those cases, you know um it is, it’s really important to craft that content with a lot of heart and a lot of intentionality, and I think that AI is also getting great at doing that um in terms of being able to, like, have you know, expressiveness and capture emotions, and so I think I see, I see AI, my hot take here would be that, um, AI will be able to do more and more and I think it’s going exponential. Um, wielding that technology is not as easy as I think people think. They haven’t tried it. That’s the one thing is like it may not. It’s actually incredibly difficult to get AI to do anything specific if you don’t really like you’re saying I agree with you, if you don’t really mind what you get and you just want to create like a hundred of, just like all kinds of stuff. It’s kind of amazing at that. It’ll create eye candy over and over and over, even featuring your products and things like that.
Rob:
Um, I think, once you need to craft a story and you have some real specific things you want to demonstrate about a product, or if you have specific actions you need to do, I think that there are some new, really cool workflows that are coming out that almost allow you to motion capture a performance and replace elements. I think that’s a very powerful workflow. That’s the workflow we are in the process of developing right now is some interesting motion capture workflows that allow us to have a lot more control over that output. You know, I think text to video, I think that’s not the way. You know, I think text to video is kind of not the way to have control. But I think it is a great way to your point, to create a large volume of stuff to test. So, it’s like, yeah, it’s, it’s such a fascinating moment right now. It’s going to completely change everything about what I’ve done for less, you know, since 2016. And we’re here for it because I think it’s going to help sellers a lot so.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, Rob, if people want to reach out and want to get some estimates or talk to you guys about creating videos for their brand, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Rob:
Yeah, they can go to videofresh.co, they can schedule a call. I think a good first step is just looking through your products, looking through what videos you need, um and uh, yeah, we’ll help you out. Uh, whether it’s generative AI or something, or something, uh, in the old fashion way, um, you know, I think, uh, we, you know, we’ll be able to put together kind of like the highest value approach for you to really get performance out of your videos so.
Kevin King:
And you said you had a podcast too. What’s the podcast?
Rob:
Uh, the E-commerce Pros Podcast. You can see my little, my little deal back there. Um, yeah, so uh. I’ve been doing a lot of uh episodes over the years with um, a lot of uh some people you may recognize on there too. So, um, it’s been really fun.
Kevin King:
It’s been great. I appreciate you coming on.
Rob:
Yeah, we’ll have to do it again sometime.
Kevin King:
Yeah, for sure.
Rob:
Yeah, really appreciate it. And yeah, we’ll have to keep in touch as all this tech continues to develop. It’s really fun talking through all the nuances.
Kevin King:
Awesome. Well, thanks, Rob, cool.
Rob:
All right. Hey, thanks, Kevin, Appreciate it. Thanks!
Kevin King:
If video is not a part of your marketing plan right now, or part of your listing plan for Amazon, I think you need to take another look at it. Video is very important and there’s ways to do it without breaking the bank whether you’re going to try it with AI, depending on the tools that are coming out, or you’re going to go the real human way, like with Rob, which I think is the best way still, or a combination of the two, which is what he’s doing. So video is important. He gave you some really good tips and strategies on how to actually think about and how to approach it. So now the ball is in your court. I hope it works for you, because I know it’s working for me. We’ll be back again next week with another episode of the AM/PM podcast. Until then, have a safe weekend.
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