Magazine brands shopping into the future with visual search
Editors and journalists currently spend four to five hours when curating images and shoppable content, but Griffiths outlined how to optimise the creation and monetisation of fashion and lifestyle content using AI and visual search. Snap Tech, for example, gives computers contextual information and helps deliver the most effective way to surface content, letting anyone discover anything through images.
“We have a lot of retailers on our platform,” Griffiths explained. “Everyone from Top Shop to Burberry. We power visual search for a lot of people.”
Griffiths’ belief is AI will be a publisher’s best friend, and it is not something to be feared. “Editors and publishers get nervous, but they’re spending a lot of time doing jobs that they’re way too qualified for, like trying to source and save images.”
Snap Tech would solve that problem, taking 40 seconds to curate images and shoppable links, instead of an editor taking four to five hours to do the same. It returns 50 results from 16,000 brands that editors can use to create collections, to curate what they’re interested in. Then, they can generate a code to embed into their website.
“We’re not taking away the part of the job the editor loves, but it’s about how we let the editor do their jobs more efficiently,” Griffiths explained.
Metrics provided by projects with Marie Claire and Time Inc. leave room for optimism. Take for example, Megan Markle’s coat, as found on Marie Claire – which has converted well, with a 1.5 – 3.6 per cent conversion rate. Snap Tech founder Griffiths said the metric she most focuses on is user engagement and the time spent on site – which is up to 100 per cent longer.
Monetisation
Griffiths pointed to evergreen content, which most publishers have in spades can be monetised through visual search. “The way people are discovering content is different now,” she explained. “People discover things through Pinterest or Snapchat – What we’re focusing on is if they go to shop now, this will also show them what’s in-stock today.”
For evergreen content, this means that while for example, Megan Markle’s coat, may be entirely sold out, the technology offers consumers the ability to shop by similar colour and shape of items that are in stock.
“Look Magazine wanted to run a shop,” Griffiths said. “They’ve been doing something called the Look Fashion Drop, a quick hit of what was new and today, wanted to turn it into an ecommerce destination.”
With Snap Tech’s help, the Look Fashion shop now exists, where consumers can browse, shop by similar colours or similar shapes.
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