Every Product Page Needs a Director - Part 1: Words Get You Found, Images Get You Converted

A poorly directed product detail page is a silent sales killer on the digital shelf. With modern e-commerce moving faster than ever and shoppers heavily distracted, throwing basic pack shots onto a retailer's site simply isn't enough to secure a conversion. Tyler Roston, e-commerce director at Saatchi and Saatchi X, joins the show to explain why every product page requires a dedicated directorial vision rather than a standard checklist approach.

We get into the tactical realities of visual storytelling in an algorithmic retail world. The conversation breaks down the mechanics of mobile-optimized images (MOIs), the necessity of prioritizing your top ten percent of SKUs, and how shopper expectations shift dramatically between platforms like Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger. Tyler shares a unique philosophy that bridging the gap between art and science requires viewing every image on the digital shelf not as a graphic design element, but as a deliberate plot point designed to overcome a specific shopper barrier.

Balancing creative execution with technical metrics is often a frustrating and complex struggle for brands selling online. Navigating massive product portfolios across multiple retailer requirements means making difficult compromises, and measuring the exact return on investment of an isolated lifestyle image against shifting competitor dynamics is notoriously imprecise. You will walk away with a practical framework for identifying the objective behind every shot and a mindset shift that prevents you from treating item setup as a set-it-and-forget-it administrative task.

If you care about e-commerce conversion rates, visual storytelling, and mastering the digital shelf, you’ll get a lot from this. Please remember to subscribe to the channel and share this episode with your network. What is the most common visual mistake you see brands making on their product pages today?

0:00 - Introduction and Guest Background
11:13 - Why Every Product Page Needs a Director
17:32 - High vs. Low Engagement on the Digital Shelf
23:02 - Managing Content Across Large Portfolios
28:11 - The Battle Between Art and Science in Retail
34:17 - Visual Composition and Identifying Your Objective

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

What's up, party people? BV here, and welcome to another episode of Retail Media Vibes, a doing business and Benville podcast. I am recording live at Podcast Video Studios in Rogers, Arkansas. Today my guest is Tyler Austin, e-commerce director at Saatchi and Satchi X. Tyler and I go way back. He was a colleague of mine when I was at Saatchi, and we have a lot of cool stories and a lot of fun things we've done over the years, and I'm excited to have him on the show. But our conversation is going to be built around something that's a kind of a simple idea that really hasn't been discussed, I don't think, in this level of detail before. And it's really that every product page needs a director, right? So if you think about the item page, you think about the PDP, whatever you want to call it, right? And when that shopper lands on that page, what is the story that you're trying to tell? And then what is the right framing of the imagery to tell that story? And so now nowadays, like brands have so many more options in how they create content for the item page. And we've had a lot of conversation about the copy on the product page, and that obviously has has a has a part of this as well. But we are really going to break down with break down how we uh look at imagery on the on the PDP.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Thanks, BB. It's uh it's great to see you too. And I excellent setup. A simple idea. I love simple ideas. I love simple concepts, so I'm excited that's our conversation today.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And one of the one of the things that I really love about having Tyler on the show today is that between the two of us, there are five Emmy Awards. Of course, they're all Tyler's Emmy Awards, not mine, but uh it's it's great, and we'll talk about that obviously. But, you know, those that don't know you, can you give a back a little bit about your background and how you got into the work that you're in today?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I mean, I I don't I don't want to date myself, so I mean I will briefly go back to to college where I was a journalism student all the way back, uh I'm not gonna say the year, um, but back then. And so from there, I wound up uh moving into a production role at the University of Mississippi. Uh that's important for this conversation today. I'm not just saying that uh because it's an Arkansas podcast, it's Ole Miss, Arkansas, but uh at Ole Miss uh is where I really got to develop a lot of the cinematography, videography, and direction skills that after being there for about five years or so, and and uh where the aforementioned Emmys did come into play, uh then afforded the opportunity to move to Saatchi to come into uh the digital team at the time and really start to build and develop the e-commerce practices into what it is today, and of course, where we worked together. So uh was able to really uh come in from an outsider perspective. Uh, I had certainly through all my years of whether it's back in journalism school or certainly at Ole Miss, got crash courses in marketing and all the different elements and ways you can communicate with people to try and bring products and offerings to them. But really was at Saatchi was where I was able to draw back to the videography, cinematography principles and bring that into the marketing world. Um, which again, do zero videography and zero cinematography and zero video at any work at Saatchi. There's all e-commerce work. So uh that's that's what's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Yeah, I think many times in our careers are things that we have in our backgrounds that allow us for that next step and allows us to look through things through a different lens. But so I dropped the Emmy bomb, which I know you love, um, right? Not really. But so just just a minute about the five Emmys that you because obviously a lot of people never win an Emmy and are in the media space um in various in various forms and fashions. Uh but obviously earning five Emmys early in your career was quite an accomplishment. Love to hear a little bit more about you know what that meant to you at that time.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I well, at the time it it meant everything. I mean, one of uh it's it's funny, uh, I'm not necessarily a goal-oriented person, but that is one of the things that we wanted to achieve, especially uh when I got there, um, to there being olmiss. Um, and so uh knowing that, I mean, you can win those in uh those being the Emmys in a litany of different categories and opportunities. And specifically, those are in direct relation to the the technical category as photography, but it was due to the videography that we had submitted, uh, both as a team and then also as an individual.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

I think because of the work that you did at Ole Miss, that because you were just talking about how one thing might lead to the next opportunity, you you do have a side hustle that's pretty notable. Do you just want to comment on just what that is?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah, so certainly uh in my day-to-day working as a director of e-commerce and doing all things commerce related uh for Satchy X. I also, on the weekends during the fall uh and winter, I'm also a cinematographer for NFL Films. Um so that was something else that towards the end of my time it'll miss. That opportunity opened up. Uh, and certainly, again, talk about being surrounded by talented individuals. I mean, these are are the best of the best out there. And so uh I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful. And I always joke. So if you're not familiar, NFL films, we wear blue vests uh when we're on down on the sidelines. I've seen you on TV. Yeah, that's that's right. So I always joke. I mean, it's a joke, but it's not. I mean, the every single time I put on that blue vest, uh, it is an honor and a privilege. And so being able to do NFL films along with the work that I'm doing for Sashi X me, that is it is by far one of the most rewarding experiences I could possibly have.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

And I think the important part, whether it was the Emmy, NFL films, whatever, and obviously leading into the e-commerce work that you do, it's still about storytelling, right? The medium may be slightly different, but you are still telling the story, or you're trying to capture the essence of a story. As a you know, cinematographer at an NFL films, you're trying to tell the story of what happened in the game in the most dramatic moments and trying to be there at the right place at the right time, framing the right shot. And these are all aspects that we're going to get into in this conversation. And obviously, with you know the the Emmys at Ole Miss, it was storytelling. I I've seen some of your work that won and you know the storytelling. I'm not an old I like I'm not an Ole Miss fan, um, but I appreciate the work and the way the story was told. And so it was no, you know, it's no surprise to me that it was award-winning.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, thank you. I mean, I I just to touch on that again briefly, I think what you said and what we're gonna talk about today, and so much of what we've tried to bring now into this space, it is storytelling and it's simplified storytelling. And I know we're gonna touch on that a lot today, but I that that is but thank you very much. Yeah, I I agree.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

All right. So I'm gonna ask you a couple little personal personal vibe questions here. So, you know, one is you know, with your background, you know, one part advertising, one po one part videography and and photography, et cetera. When you watch a film or a commercial, can you just enjoy it or are you breaking it down and analyzing the shots and and the story?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, no, I uh I will say it is possible for me to to have both. So it is possible for me to say, I'm gonna turn that part off of my brain, compartmentalize, but I'm always looking at those things. And I mean, it truthfully, it's hard to separate one from the other in my mind. It it is there is an intentionality that is supposed to be there from behind the camera that is supposed to also inform what's happening in front of the camera. So um, no, I I to answer the question directly though, no, I I don't know that I can just outright enjoy it.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, and and I maybe it's not enjoyment, but it's definitely, you know, you might find it interesting. I know for myself, um, that, you know, when I look at an ad, you know, I'm breaking it down from the standpoint of like, okay, you know, is what is the message that's trying to be conveyed? Am I the right audience? You know, start to you know break down what type of ad is this? Um, is it educational? Is it inspirational? Is it brand building? Is it conversion focus? I I break all that stuff down. Now, maybe I don't comment on it directly to my wife because she could care less. I've gotten better about it. But I do, I do do, I do that as well. And you know, when I was, you know, when I was teaching at the University of Arkansas and my media, media planning and strategy students, I would give them a task to do that, to break down advertising that they would see and try to determine what was, you know, what was the story that was trying to be told in the format that it was uh being conveyed. So um, all right, one more, one more question. What is the last product you purchased because the imagery sold you?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, so again, uh the uh after the wedding, you of course went on honeymoon. We went to Costa Rica and the I don't know no free ads here. I don't want to shout out the brand, but uh there was a waterproof bag. Uh we went to Costa Rica for our honeymoon, and obviously rainy, uh jungle, right? We want to keep all of our goods protected, all of our technology devices, all those things. Um, and truly uh did very little in terms of reading through this the specifics of the product detail page in terms of the copy, uh, which you know as we work in this space. I'm also usually going through everything uh that that is to offer, but but the images really did everything I needed them to do. It was what we needed, exactly what we were looking for. It was honestly a very quick experience. So uh there's this waterproof bag um that was incredibly durable and exactly what we needed for our trip.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Awesome. Awesome. All right, let's get into our main topics now. And you know, really we're gonna start off talking about how the product page, you know, is a visual story. And I think, you know, when we look at you know the digital shelf or we look at item page health, you know, there's so much focus on keywords, attributes, retailer requirements, content scores, and we're trying to fill in all of these slots. And you know, sometimes the things that really have the greatest impact are are overlooked. You know, I've really felt like over the years that you know, words get you found, images get you converted. And obviously where people land on the page does also impact where you want what story you you do want to tell. So when we get as we get into this, you know, the the thesis is every product page needs a director. And we we've we've said that previously, but every product page needs a director. Looking at it from a a director's lens. So, you know, if we're if we assume that every product page needs a director, Tyler, what decisions should a director, because we think about a director, a director is you know figuring out, you know, again, how to bring the story to life, what are the decisions that a director should be making?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think uh I want to reference a quote that you and I uncovered a long time ago, but is still used today, and it is incredibly valuable for this conversation, right? Because the quote being you can advertise all you want, but if your product pages aren't compelling, that money is a waste. And the I raise there for most people is money is a waste, right? For me, it was always the word compelling. And I felt that was very intentionally said and used because compelling means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Again, that is the shopper marketing space. And as we talk about this and as we bring on people in this space, I'm guilty of it too. We want to talk about the copy. That is the part that we get really excited about because that is the part of the algorithms, that is the part with the robots and the agents and the search results, and right, but we think about what should a director be doing in terms of a product detail page, and certainly the visuals that are going to drive that engagement, that are going to bring about ultimately that conversion. Uh, for me, it's having a vision for the connectivity, for the storytelling, right? That is that is because we're gonna have to work with our creative partners. Uh, and I always make sure from our team's perspective, we're never trying to art direct. I'm not interested in stroke depth or or shadows on an image that is at the right hue of purple. Like that is not what my my team needs to look at.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

It's a that's a good differentiation, honestly. Like, you know, we're not talking about design, right? We're talking about stellar storytelling within a frame.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

It's storytelling within a frame, it's the simplification of the communication, it's what is the communication, right? And then not only what is communication, what is the order of that communication that needs to be true to convert? And so much that, and you're absolutely right, where does the shopper land? Where are they coming from? Right? Is this is this a standalone PDP in what category uh or which category rather? And and we know they're getting there just via search. Are we intentionally driving them? Well, where are we driving them from? What is what are we doing to create a holistic experience? And then once they're there, what needs to be true, whether those specific shopper barriers we want to get into and talk about, or just from a brand and supplier perspective, what is the order of operation? What do we believe to be true in terms of creating that narrative that's gonna guide them through that process? It's honestly going to keep them engaged, right? Like the the most important thing that a director can do on that page is say, I have a vision for how this should all lay out. Uh, and then I need to coordinate that across the many different functions, the the SEO importance, the visual brand look, tone, feel importance, uh, how we're going to leverage the different content areas together to create one holistic narrative. But within that narrative, it needs to be intentional. We're not also just creating a story to create a story, right? We're creating a story to convert. And I think that is also a loss sometimes. It's, well, we can do this from a brand perspective. We got it. We know what our brand wants to say. Okay, but are it is brand talking to brand in that instance, or are we actually trying to achieve our ultimate goal, which should always be conversion? I mean, it should always be addressing barriers first. We want to make sure we're doing right by the shopper, but then we want to convert, right? We want them to buy what all this all that we're creating.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yeah, and conversion happens by answering shoppers' questions, right? Overcoming their objections. And so, you know, having a clear strategy for your product and your shopper can help frame that story on that page. But I don't think a lot of people go through it with that level of intentionality. So, and I think you've touched on this a little bit, but if you can break down a little bit more, like what is the difference between just, oh, I've got I've Walmart requires five images. I have five images of my product in five different angles as one level of extreme to actually telling a story. Uh, what's what's what's the difference between just getting getting those two things uh differentiated?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Yeah, and again, this to me is where it comes back to the word compelling. Uh, I know that seems silly. It'll probably keep me back a lot in this conversation, but and and I'm gonna use a copy example first, then I promise I will get to the image example. But I always equate it in terms of quantitative and qualitative. The quantitative aspects are incredibly important. It's we know it's what feeds the algorithm in so many ways. We want to hit our minimum number of images, for example. But the copy example I always come back to is if you're telling me all I have to do is create a title with the character counts between 51 and 70 characters, for example. There is no way, no way on this on this earth that if I put blue elephant in there over and over and over again and I hit our character counts, regardless of the product, that's what the algorithm wants to see, and that's what the shopper wants to see. It is, it is, that is lost, right? And so, in the same way, if we're saying, well, we've just got to have five images on there, let's throw some pack shots on and move on with our day, okay. But if I also have one pack shot and four images that are addressing, well, how does this taste? Or, or how big is it, or uh how would this fit into my everyday life to create essentiality, to create repeat purchases, right? Those images are going to work so much harder for us than here's five pack shots. And also, if the shopper really wants to buy this product, you're creating more friction, you're making it harder for them. It's more effort. We want to make this as easy as possible. And so much of that is done through communication, simplified communication and intentional communication. Without that, we're creating friction, we're creating effort. And in today's landscape, there's way too many options and it's way too easy for the shopper to bounce and go somewhere else to find what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, that's I mean, that's absolutely right. And I I think, you know, uh so much in e-commerce, it's it's like a a numbers game, not a not a quality game, right? So did you meet the title a character count? Did you meet the minimum number of images, right? And so those things obviously are important. It's important to get you found, right? And so in in in the algorithm, and obviously the way those the you know, way the copy is written helps the algorithm in in various ways. But once you get somebody there, what happens? Right?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

And I I think what's really important in this too, PV, quickly, the category matters too. So we're talking about high engagement versus low engagement categories. And in those low engagement categories, first and foremost, the shopper might never even go to the PDP, but guess what's still a part of that direction? What we would call an MOI or a mobile optimized image, right? So if we're gonna add from search, what are the one or two things that we need to put on that very first image to call out to say, this is what the shopper searched for, and this is why I want them to click on their product? And oftentimes what we see is there's a lot of overstuffing on MOIs now. The secrets out about MOIs, people are loving them, but there's 50 different things happening. And in mobile, I can't even read the copy that you've put on that image. Lot lost, right? And then if they are gonna go into the PDP, engagement times vary. So, and I know we're gonna get this later, but based off the visuals you're creating, you can create additional engagement, certainly. But if you have less than a second, man, that you know, you're talking about a real quick scroll to either capture attention or address berries. And I always stop people and I say, I hear it from the brand side, I hear it from the supplier side. Think about your own shopping experience, not from here's what we should say. I never want to personal, we always want to speak to the shopper, right? But when you're shopping, do you spend 25 minutes on a PDP? I would love to see that PDP because honestly, I haven't come across one of my own shopping experience. And I think that is really important for this conversation that it's the engagement times vary and for higher engagement categories, electronics and and home goods, maybe, but there's certainly categories we're talking less than a seven-tenths of a second, and we have to be quick, efficient, and simple in our communication.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Absolutely. And I think you know, the that is that is spot on. I think high engagement categories versus low engagement categories, even you know, different products within those categories, you have to you have to customize your story accordingly. But what about like in the situation where you know you have a you have a product and it's on Walmart, Amazon, and Kroger? Are you just using the same content for all three retailers?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

I mean, is that happening? Yes. Do we think that should be happening? No, and I want to be really careful about what I say here because that does not mean you are creating net new content for every single retailer. That's not feasible, it's not realistic, right? Especially in the velocity of items and SKUs and ACENs and all these things that are happening and all the different places we have to cover. But realistically, again, if you think about this from your own shopping experience, I bet you'll this will dawn on you, is that the same person can have very different expectations shopping at Kroger or Sam's Club or Walmart. And again, also on Amazon. So realistically, what we should be thinking about is how do we create a set of content that nationally can be deployed, that works 80% of the way there. And then at those individual retailers, we're already doing this from a copy perspective. And I guarantee that there are other folks out there and other people in the industry who do this all from a copy perspective. They very much think of it as, well, we have to tailor to that algorithm, right? We know we have to how to win at Walmart, how to win at Amazon. I see all these, all these different, uh, different guides and things coming out. None of it's talking about, well, what is the shopper expectation at Sam's Club? It's it's gonna be value, right? I'm not breaking any news here. The Sam's Club shopper is looking for value. We're looking for larger pack size, we're looking for pricing that makes sense in terms of the items and sizes out and quantities I'm buying. Why don't we have an image that talks to value then, specifically for Sam's Club on a Sam's Club PDP? Seems like a no-brainer. And again, that is that is just the bottom floor of what we can be doing. Uh, and again, very intentional, and and I don't want to make this sound like this is this massive, huge web and lift. Um, when you set these things up properly and you get processes in place, and again, I know all the things we're gonna talk about, uh, it actually becomes very streamlined and it becomes very straightforward because you have the expectation of here's what you need to deliver in order to win at X, Y, and Z retailers. Uh, and the rest are gonna get what works 80% of the time, and that's enough. That is enough for most of the retailers, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

And you know, there are also in this situation, you know, there are things you're that are in your control and things that are out of your control as a brand. Right. So the retailer owns the website, they own the structure of the page, they determine what comes first, what comes second, what the layout, right? So you Do you have to be strategic in looking at your opportunities in order to optimize the the content against that that retailer, right? So Kroger's Kroger's item page looks different than Amazon's. Amazon's looks different than Walmart's. Walmart's looks different than Sam's Club. But again, I think we get so mired down in just I gotta get this copy on this page and I've got to get some images on this page so I can check the box. But in a way, you're actually doing a disservice. Now, I will also say that you know there are many brands that have thousands of products in their catalog, and it seems so overwhelming to be able to do this level of strategy and direction on an item by item basis. And obviously, if you take it retailer by retailer, it it compounds significantly. What are your what are your thoughts on how you manage those large larger portfolios?

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna have an answer, and I I don't think anyone listening with those massive portfolios is probably gonna like it. But the truth of the matter is, uh if you look at any retailer site, and again, I think we can just for right now, let's put the agentic experience over here on the left. I we'll we'll get to it, but let's just talk about it from the predominant shopping experience, which are our search results pages, right? If you're not on page one, not important. Truthfully, I if we're not on page one, we're losing. If we're not top 10, we're losing. If we're not realistically top five, we're losing. So using that as your lens, if I have a thousand items, I only got five spots. All thousand items can't win. It's not gonna happen. What are the skews driving your business? Uh, easy way to think about it is top 10% of your portfolio. And then let's go make sure those skews win everywhere. Because I think the other thing we do too, uh BV is we think about these things in terms of just the one, the one win, the one shelf, the one keyword, right? But if we take it really quickly back to the imagery conversation, so uh I'm looking for a sensitive skin skew, right? Um odds are I'm probably not searching for just skincare. Odds are I'm probably searching for something a little more specific. Now, that is not gonna have nearly the volume of your larger uh priority keyword, certainly, like the product type keyword, if you will, for your subcategory, but it's gonna have a much more high-value shopper because you have someone who's ready or closer to convert, they're doing less of the consideration. Realistically, they know what they want, they just have to find the brand or the product that matches what they want. They're not so looking for from an awareness standpoint. And so when they get there, if we have mapped an image to alleviate that barrier or to address those concerns or to speak directly to those benefits, our odds of conversion are way higher. Uh, and so what you can do is really two approaches. One, you can say, like again, our approach is using that priority lens to really try to drive the SKUs that drive the business and then go win in the margins with those SKUs, or you could say, you know what, priority SKUs, let's go make the those are the most competitive, those are the ones that are gonna do the best, have the most momentum on retailer.com. And then we'll use rest of portfolio to try to go win in the margins, which are those long tail keywords. But again, I think the importance there is one, being able to version and version quickly. So to say hey, speed matters in retail, speed, speed, speed of retail, and we have to move faster than that, which is absolutely insane. Um, so speed, again, this is not to say this is gonna take us six months to get a product page live. That's not realistic, that's not feasible in in today's space. Um, but certainly being able to apply like insights, like content across the portfolio is massively important, and that is where we are using um i capabilities and things at least to make that versioning happen. Uh, but I think there's a role for everything. But if we're gonna really talk about quote unquote winning, just remember, we're talking about five to ten spots per per keyword. And so um, it just isn't it's not the same game in terms of a volume game that it used to be.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I almost feel like there should be like a tiered list.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

It's it's critical. Um, making sure the entire portfolio is fundamentally sound is our first step. Uh, and I always say that the brands that really win in this space, they're malleable and they're agile. So it's not about size, it's not about power, it's not about velocity. It's being agile, being willing to quickly pivot, quickly change, quickly update, and then malleable. This was our plan. We need to change it. Here's why. Great. Let's go make the things true that need to happen to go make those things happen. But I think the last piece of this too, which is really critically important, is getting away. And again, this is from both an image perspective and a copy perspective. Set it and forget it. That's not gonna work. And I think you you said it, you said it uh a few minutes ago, which was there's this checklist uh mentality, and there is, and it's like, okay, well, PDP, or you know, it's live. We item set up, PDP's live, onto the next launch, onto the next thing. It's like, actually, no. Uh, we need to make sure one, it first of all, are things showing up correctly? Are images even in like we we create this whole strategy, all this, we go through all this work, the director's got a vision. Is it even showing up correctly? Right. I mean, imagine you were making a movie and all of a sudden the scenes are out of order when it plays back. Well, what does it matter? You had a you had you had a vision. It's not showing how it should be showing. So that maintenance, that always-on approach is critical. And then making sure, of course, to your point, that we are fundamentally sound across the board. I mean, that is that to me, it's it's non-negotiable. It has to be true for us to have success because I think the last part of this is when we ask our brand partners, when we bring this up in conversations, what are the priority skews? Sometimes what the suppliers or brands' priority skews are, it does not mean those are what is happening or what are the SKUs that are doing well at retailer. And it changes based off of shopper intent, shopper behavior, category dynamics, uh competitors, bestsellers. So uh making sure that everything's fundamentally sound, that way, if something does wind up popping, what can we be? Agile and flexible.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Yeah, I think one of the challenges in this space, honestly, is there's so much of this work that is very technical and practical uh of approach, and that requires a certain, you know, certain skill set. I mean, and and then there is a creative aspect of this. And I know you and I have had this conversation all the time. This is not the sexy marketing work that a lot of people signed up to go do because I think it does that people get intimidated by the technical aspect of it, and then you know, they just they don't put the time and the investment into making sure that the visuals are the right visuals and they're telling that story, you know, in in a lot of different, you know, a lot of different ways. And so I do think, you know, things get are are difficult in that space because it's a little bit left brain, right brain stuff, and you know, there's so much focused on on you know the ranking and the and the uh you know search rankings and the keywords and all that, which is very technical. And those people who are responsible for those things are not the people who are usually the best creative visual tell storyteller. So you now you're bringing somebody else into the mix, and then you're trying to manage that across you know so many different products and categories depending on who you're working with. So it's it's it's a it's a very unique challenge in a lot of ways, but it could be the most valuable thing that you invest in that nobody is investing in.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah, I mean it's it's art and science, which we say all the time. And I think the other really important thing that is has been something that we've been trying to solve for, and certainly uh I don't know how solvable it is, BV, but we work in an industry that is KPI obsessed, that has to have some way to measure performance, right? And and while I agree with that, I want to measure as much as I can. I want to use data to fuel decisions. When it comes to the imagery, it's hard to put those images into an environment where it's going to match all of the different potential shopper mindsets that could be happening as they're experiencing that content, then be able to definitively say, oh, we scored this, or oh, we we tested this ahead of time. This is this is our our best in class content because we have data behind it. That's hard, especially when it's art and science. The art part, you can't lose that. You can't make it all science, which is, again, very difficult in the space because everything, everything else we can point to. Well, here are the search results, or here, here's the the click-through, or here are the PDP views, right? That's all very technical, but it's also very data driven. And if someone were to say, well, we swapped out our images, what was the what was the return on that? And we can try to create testing controls, but no PDP acts alike to the other. And we can look at historicals month over month, but who knows what changed. I mean, certainly from an internal standpoint, we can control everything. But what I can't control and what no one can control is what are your competitors doing? What's happening in the space? Did the something happen in the month, right? May to June is different than June and July, and so on and so forth. So that's the part that I think also is a struggle in the space. And I understand the the push and need uh to have some way to measure. I totally understand that. It's either that or it's the other side of the coin, right? Which is it's all art. Right, it's all vibes, man. It's all vibes, and all we're talking about is I don't know if this is the the the way the brand would show this. And it's like, okay, that's very important. And we never want to get away. We always want to be in line with the brand, look, to, and feel. I'm never going to push back on that. But this also is it needs to be a little science. You know, this is not just brands talking to brands. So there is that weird doubt.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Too much on the science. That's that's that's the challenge, right? It's it's leaning so much. I'm glad you brought up the art and science thing, because you're absolutely right. Currently, today, when we're looking at item pages, it is leaning on the science, very little on the art, when the reality is it should at least be a 50-50 proposition in order to see success. Um, and I agree with you, you know, metrics and measurements around these things are very are very difficult. And I've you know, I've been I've been in in this field for a while now, and there's always this desire, especially from the people who lean towards the science, to get to a formulaic approach when it comes to creative. But they quickly realize, or maybe it's not so quickly, they do end up realizing that there is so much variability in you know, between the environment, shoppers, competitors, all the things you listed before, there's so much variability that to replicate the same result with the same formula is not possible.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Let's go back to real quick that example uh that I gave you. And you said, What's the last product page that in the imagery that got me to convert, right? If I did not have that very specific life event happened, I never would have even gone. I didn't I didn't need a waterproof bag. I don't need one now, but I needed one then. And so that's you can't predict what I'm gonna when and that life event happened. Luckily, you had the right content in place to convert then, but there's no way of knowing when that's gonna happen. So even life events, I mean, truly, on an individual basis, it is so hard to say, well, here's the the only way we can do this because it's going work every time. That does not exist. There, there you can create frameworks, you can create guides and structures and all these things to help create efficiencies, right? Best in class practices. Those are all things that that you absolutely should do, truthfully. Uh, because we again I don't want to overstate, we've gotten to a place, and I know we've talked about this before too, where this work should be fast, man. This work has to be fast, it has to be efficient, it has to be able to because you need to create a lot of content quickly at a high quality, but quickly. Uh, if you're not, you're gonna be behind. If you so uh I just think there's so much that goes into it that we're just not always thinking about because of, to your point, the push from the the science side of the left brain, right brain experience.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, absolutely. All right. We've talked about storytelling on item page. Now let's start to talk about the actual imagery that's that we're we've been referring to. So we're gonna get into like how to set up the the shot, otherwise known as composition. So, you know, what is what is good composition, what are the right techniques to use? But you know, before you even set up that shot for an image, you know, what what do you need to know? What what what makes the difference in setting up that shot?

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Yeah, I mean, you know, it this is gonna sound really obvious, but uh, what's the objective? What are we trying to do? If you don't, if you don't have a why behind what you're trying to do, I don't care how cool the shot looks. You may or may not hit your goal. And if you don't have a dartboard to throw the dart at, you're just throwing it into the dark, right? You're throwing it against the wall and hoping we hit something. So what's the objective? And I mentioned this before, you mentioned this before, but who is the shopper? What's the barrier? What are we trying to communicate? Once we know what we're trying to communicate, okay, now, both from a messaging copy on image perspective and a visual, which is what we're going to talk about here, perspective, in terms of what are we communicating via the frame or the shot, now we can both go be successful. Uh and I think even within that, to take that a step further, and I'm not sure everyone always understands this, every single decision in that one-by-one square is communicating something. Whether or not you mean it to, whether or not that was your intention, it is. I promise you it is. And it might be on a subconscious level, it might be on a conscious level, but everything is being communicated. So having that level of intentionality is critical as we're looking through the visual composition of the different images that you're putting on your PDPs.

SPEAKER_00 36:06

Right. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and it's it's interesting too because you know, we we have kind of talked about the order of images to a certain extent, but it's like what what what is the objective per image to tell that story? Like a good story has a plot, right? And has in and you're telling the story in a certain order, you know, however, you know, whatever, you know, the story you're trying to tell. Thinking about that in the in the sequence of images is also, you know, also important there. All right, party people. That was part one of my interview with Tyler Rostin, e-commerce director at Saatchi and Satchi X. Yes, as I said, that's part one of two parts. The conversation was going so well with Tyler that we let the recording continue to roll, and so we decided to break this one up into two parts so it wasn't extra, extra long, which you know these podcasts can go a little long sometimes. So, my thanks to Tyler for being on the show and being a great sport and sticking with me as we had such a wonderful, wonderful conversation. So be sure to look for part two of the podcast that we'll be releasing very, very soon. And with that, I promise to do better in part two of this episode. B V out.