This article was previously published on Retail TouchPoints.
Humans are visual creatures; it’s a biological trait developed way back when we all still lived in caves. The world has changed a bit since then, with things like electricity, grocery stores and the internet, but humans still rely on their eyes when gathering supplies — even though that process has become less about hunting and more about simply browsing and selecting.
Despite these evolutionary changes, humans still process images 60,000 times faster than text, and nearly 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, according to Lilly Hsueh, VP of Customer Success Management at digital asset management solution Cloudinary.
Visuals were a natural part of the process when shopping was done in person, but with the rise of ecommerce, they have become an additional task on retailers’ to-do lists — something that has to be created, formatted, edited and uploaded. It’s essential (though tough) work, especially because consumers’ demand for visual assets in digital ecosystems is only continuing to rise.
Visual Assets: Work That’s Worth It
The payoffs for brands that deliver on this demand are compelling: 82% of consumers report having been persuaded to make a purchase after watching a product video, according to research from Wyzowl, and 90% of shoppers said they consider product visuals the number one factor in their decision to buy. In fact, the average buyer now expects six photos and two videos per product when visiting brand websites. That’s a lot of visual assets to manage, a fact that Hsueh acknowledged during Retail TouchPoints’ recent “Holiday Readiness” webinar series.
“Today we’re tasked with generating demand, driving growth, retaining customers, building loyalty and exercising competitive advantage — all at the same time,” said Hsueh. “This results in relentless demand for creating engaging content across an increasing number of marketing and ecommerce channels in this digital-first economy.
“Your image and video assets are the building blocks of content, and content is king — it’s the intermediary between your brand and your customers,” Hsueh added. “Your brand growth depends on your organization’s ability to deliver optimized content to marketing and ecommerce channels as quickly as possible.”
How AI is Taking the Work Out of Visual Asset Management
Given all those demands, it’s no surprise that 92% of marketers say they are frustrated with the time it takes to make their ideas a reality — the unfortunate result of workflow bottlenecks, asset search, retrieval costs and reliance on disparate teams.
But AI is coming to the rescue, and according to Hsueh the AI we’re all talking about today isn’t like all the other digital buzzwords that have floated around and then faded into the background in recent years (blockchain, big data, metaverse, VR, we’re looking at you.)
“AI is actually quite an old concept, and machine learning has been around for decades — even Cloudinary’s experiences have been proudly AI-driven since our inception in 2012,” said Hsueh. “But the growth we’ve seen in AI in the last year shows that this time it’s different. The AI we’re talking about today, for the first time ever, is widely accessible, user-friendly and applicable to all industries and actions. It’s usable by everyday consumers, and that’s what makes it powerful.”
As the holiday season approaches, these pressures on marketers and ecommerce teams will only intensify. AI-powered solutions like Cloudinary’s are helping reduce manual prep work with tools such as:
- Automatic cropping and expansion of images to meet various channels’ formatting requirements;
- Automatic tagging for content moderation so assets can be found and used quickly; and
- The ability to easily create variations of existing assets for things like seasonal or promotional campaigns, with tools that enable background generation and simple color and product swapping.
To learn more about how automation and generative AI can help you accelerate the creation and optimization of your visual assets, you can view the webinar on-demand here. And be sure to check out the full series for other tips and tricks to win during this holiday season and beyond.