The future of shoppable media can build on the success of social shopping
The creator-brand-platform triad has bolstered the social commerce marketplace and could serve as a model for the future of shoppable media.
Many US consumers use social media platforms to view product recommendations from creators, make purchases directly on the platform or through a link, and get inspiration for future purchases.1 This shopping experience on social media is known as social commerce, whereby companies use social platforms to engage with consumers to promote and sell products and services. At its best, social shopping makes it easy for people to make purchases instantly and with little friction.
Now, imagine that the same functionality used to shop on social media worked on other types of content too—across streaming video on-demand (SVOD) services, in game worlds, and eventually, in the metaverse. Admire an actor’s shoes? Order them directly on screen. Enjoy a game’s soundtrack? Download it to your device on the spot. Almost everything you see or hear in a form of digital media can become available for purchase with a click, swipe, or tap.
This expanded commerce experience is known as shoppable media, which is the use of interactive content across any media—not just social platforms—to encourage consumers to make a direct purchase and enable them to buy instantly. With nearly all US consumers subscribing to at least one paid SVOD service, a majority playing video games (with many gamers making in-game purchases),2 and others dipping their toes into metaverse-like experiences,3 these activities all enable touchpoints with consumers and opportunities for shopping.
The success of social shopping is largely driven by collaborations among creators, brands, and the social media platforms themselves, along with the mature and effective algorithms that power them.4 The partnership model could expand beyond social media, and it should serve as a blueprint for the shoppable media channels of the future. This article will explore why the creator-brand-platform triad has been effective in social commerce and how other media and entertainment (M&E) channels—such as SVOD services, gaming platforms, and metaverses—can leverage that model for success to build their own shoppable media offerings.
Creators are core consultants in the social shopping journey, and brands can benefit from their influence
It’s important to understand the key role that content creators play in social commerce today and why brands should—if they haven’t already—tap into their communities now. While social media can connect consumers with brands, some social shoppers go directly to their most trusted source for product recommendations and reviews: content creators.
Most people surveyed (70%) follow at least one content creator, and some have discovered new products or services (25%) through them.5 Around 40% (60% of Gen Zs and millennials) say they’re more likely to buy a product after watching a review by a content creator they follow. And more than 50% of both Gen Zs and Millennials say they seek out product reviews from creators when making important purchasing decisions.
Creator reviews, endorsements, and sponsorships have sway with consumers, maybe more than brand advertisements: While a similar share of people say ads from companies (13%) and online content creators (11%) influence their purchasing decisions, their personal relationship with creators may be more appealing to consumers. Some 45% of consumers—and nearly 70% of Gen Zs—say they believe product reviews by content creators are more authentic than brand ads.6
Instead of viewing them as competition, brands should focus on partnering with creators to leverage their clout and integrate them into advertising strategies and campaigns.7 Why? Because partnering with the right online creators—not necessarily the most followed or viral ones8—could help brands reach their target consumers more effectively and maximize their marketing spend.
Brands of any size can tap into creator marketing to advertise their products, which will likely save significantly in ad production and ad placement costs.9 For instance, a mid-sized home décor company might consider partnering with a creator who has a following of 30,000 enthusiastic amateur interior designers, rather than a creator with 1 million followers whose interests aren’t well-aligned. Nearly half (46%) of people are more likely to trust a brand if an online content creator they trust has reviewed the brand’s product. These figures increased by double digits for Gen Zs and Millennials.
Creators are often deeply invested in their communities and know their fans and followers well. This can make them ideally situated to represent brands, products, and services they can anticipate their audience will love. These relationships are so strong that almost a third of consumers say being part of a community of followers of a creator or brand has more influence on their buying decisions than reviews on a shopping site.10
However, other kinds of media looking to unlock shoppable capabilities may not have their own built-in creators and influencers. Streaming video services and games companies should leverage the access and influence of social commerce now while looking for ways to cultivate their own creator touchpoints. The shoppable media creators of tomorrow could be like the social creators we see today, but shoppable media may not need to rely on online content creators in the same way social shopping has. It could, however, benefit from their influence. Brands can look for relevant creators everywhere—on social media platforms, in game worlds, or in virtual environments—and go outside their industry to develop unique partnerships. Building early relationships with creators could enable brands to authentically tap into their clout and communities at the right time, thereby ensuring partnership longevity.11
What SVOD services, game worlds, and metaverse environments could learn from social platforms
Today, social media platforms may hold the keys to brand, creator, and social commerce success. Tomorrow, shoppable channels may include SVOD services, as well as game worlds and metaverse environments.
Not only do M&E companies—social media platforms, SVOD services, gaming platforms, and metaverse companies—manage the environments where their users’ interactions are happening, they also have knowledge of the metrics and the underlying infrastructure. Social media platforms have arguably perfected the deployment of sophisticated algorithms, recommendation systems, and data modeling to get targeted and personalized content in front of the right users at the right time.12 Because of this approach, promotions on social media platforms have proven effective: Around a third of consumers (30%) say the ads or product reviews they see on social media influence their purchasing decisions the most. For Gen Zs and Millennials, this number is over 40%. Other media companies could take the same approach to improve ad and content relevance for their users while prioritizing data privacy. Only 38% of consumers say they trust the online services they use to protect their data (more now than they did a year ago13; so, companies that can provide transparency around data usage and assure data protection could have an advantage.
Media companies can also serve as facilitators in the creator-brand-platform triad by liaising between creators and brands, sharing metrics and audience data, and matching brands with creators who align with their mission. For creators, this effective pairing is critical, with nearly 70% of creators surveyed saying that their top priority in brand partnerships is ensuring the brand is relevant to their audience.14 When it comes to what creators are looking for in a platform, one that helps them grow their business is top of mind.15 One way to achieve success through business growth could be by enabling better connections and partnerships between creators and brands.
This brand-creator matching—and the effective targeting of ads—is also important to how consumers perceive social media platforms and the shoppable channels of the future. Around 40% of consumers say that if an advertisement doesn’t feel relevant to them, they lose trust in the platform or the channel on which it appears. This figure jumps by double digits for Millennials (to 50%,) suggesting that effective, targeted advertising (which can be achieved by matching brands with the right creators) could be good business for platforms and channels and good for consumer retention.
For now, SVOD services, gaming companies, and metaverse developers can work with technology partners to build infrastructure that allows for simplicity in the consumer buying journey—from discoverability through to transactions—and ease in the campaign management and billing systems for creators and advertisers. Creators are stretched thin with the tasks they’re already doing, so platforms and services that can help simplify their workload will likely have a competitive edge.16
They can also use site and third-party user metrics to serve relevant and personalized content to users—while being transparent with consumers about how their data is used, stored, and protected. This added benefit (hyper-personalized shopping content paired with a focus on protecting consumer data) could increase engagement, drive retention, and reduce subscriber churn. Once a viewer has decided to make a purchase, shoppable media should also look to the ways social shopping is removing friction from purchasing and point-of-sale by embedding trusted and secure payment services that support purchasing with only a few clicks.
Building from social commerce to shoppable media
The overarching shoppable media landscape extends far beyond shopping on social media platforms, but SVOD services, video game companies, and metaverse developers vying to enter the space should look to the success of social shopping as a blueprint.
For instance, shoppable content capabilities on SVOD services are emerging,17 but the technological infrastructure needed to make this happen is nontrivial and may take time to fully develop. In the meantime, brands could leverage social commerce learnings and bring them to streaming video advertisements and content. Partnering with creators—who can be featured in streaming video advertisements, cross-promote those products to their online followers, and pull in viewers and buyers—could be a good place to start.
If it’s shoppable, it’s taxable
Shoppable media presents exciting opportunities for brands to increase awareness for their products and services and thus drive sales. But there are also considerations from a tax perspective. Online—and virtual—transactions often cross several tax jurisdictions, each of which may have its own requirements, definitions, and incentives. Additionally, digital goods and physical assets may have different tax treatments and reporting requirements around the globe. Mapping established tax rules to different transaction models, maintaining exhaustive documentation, and deploying enterprise resource planning systems that can accurately capture, track, and report granular information necessary to determine appropriate taxation are likely critical for enterprises.
For their part, SVOD services—and the studios they operate or partner with—should tap into creators to star in new shows or movies, which could drive subscriptions among their existing fan bases. Creators could also be tapped to create exclusive content for the service. Creator-featured recommendations and product reviews, for example, could take the place of more traditional ad spots, open a new revenue-sharing model for streamers, and introduce new brand collaborations into their ecosystems.
By cultivating the creator-brand-platform triad, social commerce has established some key principles for success: algorithmic targeting, trusted intermediaries, and frictionless purchasing. Bringing shoppable media offerings into the future likely relies on healthy collaboration between creators, brands, and the platforms and services they operate on, all of which should keep consumers’ experience at the center of their efforts. If this balancing act has worked for social shopping, it can work for the future of shoppable media.