Amateur media production & distribution has exploded in the past decade. All of us are doing it. We are all Capturing with mobile devices using the integrated camera/video recorder, Post Producing with these intuitive mobile based video production apps & Distributing to the internet and social networks (youTube, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, blogs etc..).
Have you also noticed another trend – amateur content (Low-Fi) generated by business? It’s an early trend but seems to be getting some traction within fashion apparel. Customer User Generated Content (UGC) has been used by retailers for several years as a cost effective way to source content from customers to broadcast to other customers. Now we have the birth of Employee Generated Content (EGC) which has started on SnapChat. Follow the UK’s top fast fashion retailers Boohoo, Missguided & ASOS for a week and you will see the trend. Subscribers to these channels will get at least a daily fix of low-fi content which is produced by employees. The great thing about EGC and it’s older brother UGC is that it’s video first, mobile first, short and entertaining which makes it appeal to today’s generation of low attention span fashionistas.
Inside the stores, you have retailers like TopShop and Marks & Spencer who have deployed staff devices which allow them to be connected to other store staff and colleagues who use their private social network to share information, photos and videos.
Retail-innovation.com predicts that smart retailers will next start surfacing Employee Generated Content in more parts of the shopper journey to support the customer’s buying mission. What’s surprising is that not all fast fashion retailers have caught on..
