Multi-Channel Content Management for large retailers

Authored by Andre Engberts and Arpit Jain, August 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS 34

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9

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INTRODUCTION

THE NEED FOR CHANNEL DIVERSIFICATION

USER EXPERIENCE IN A MULTI-CHANNEL CONTEXT

CONTENT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES

END-POINT DEVICES AND DELIVERY ARCHITECTURE

THE VISION: THE CONTENT HUB

CONCLUSION

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Internal vs. External content sourcing and content aggregation

Content usage scenarios - Content types

Overview

Multi-channel content processes - Pre-authoring tasks - Authoring tasks - Publishing tasks

Transactional performance impact on the integration between a cms and a commerceengine

Multi-channel synchronized content delivery

High-level content pipeline architecture

- Content delivery integrates product and non-product content domains

- The importance of content services in a multi-channel content architecture

- The special case of content management for print

- Matching delivery services options with channels

Illustrative scenario

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4

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14

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2425

This discussion note will cover both the complexity of content management within retail and the

technology challenge of content management for both a multi-channel business environment and a

highly scalable transactional platform.

We will also discuss other architectural transformations related to the general business trends in

retail. We will explain how the retail industry is converging towards a consistent vision for content

management and publishing across both digital and traditional channels, and look for innovative

applications of content that span guest experiences both online and at the store.

Large retailers have had to solve unique problems resulting from their size how to integrate the enormous amount of content they publish with an ecommerce platform that is optimized for very high transaction volume, specifically.

Large retailers have unique challenges that come from the size of their catalog, the volume of sales

transactions, the large number of shoppers and their dispersed geographical locations.

Like other businesses that have gone digital, retailers have published their catalogs on site and mobile

applications and most of them have implemented ecommerce. In addition to creating another selling

channel, digital user experiences are also a way to drive customers to stores and provide a tool for

product research, promotion and advertising.

Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens, Best Buy and many others have invested for years in their online channels.

But the endeavor for these retailers (visit stores.org for a list of the top 100) has been different than small

to medium size commerce sites such as REI, Williams-Sonoma or even AT&T.com for mobile.

3

INTRODUCTION

Large retailers compete for a fixed population of consumers, knowing that the sum of offerings from each retailer

is larger than what the market can consume as a whole. Winning the attention and purchasing transactions from

the consumer is a challenge that requires retailers to be constantly top of mind when consumers are planning a

purchase or about to make a purchase.

Maintaining the constant attention of the guest and being there when a transaction can take place is what has

led to a multi-channel diversification of interactions between retailers and the guest in the digital space. This

diversification includes:

THE NEED FOR CHANNEL DIVERSIFICATION

Multiple independent or combined offerings: the main online store is complemented by registries for

wedding or baby.

Competitors and partners:retailers have created joint offers for guests with

competitors like Target and Neiman Marcus, or with

partners like Groupon.

Social media: all large retailers are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Frequent refresh of offers:on the site, mobile apps, microsites or weekly ads.

Multiple form factors:consumers can use a desktop/laptop as a high-speed,

large format platform, a tablet for more mobility, and a

smart phone that adds current location as the leading

context.

The physical world:stores have in-store devices for viewing additional

information while purchasing or to support flexible

fulfillment. Anticipate that physical digital presence to

extend beyond stores, to other showcase situations.

Multiple brands: large retailers have absorbed other brands or created

their own (e.g., Neiman Marcus with Horchow and Last

Call). Promoting brand individuality while maintaining

a family look and consolidating content management

infrastructure is a complex design problem from a

visual design, content management and technical

architecture standpoint.

Multiple languages: Wal-Mart is leading all retailers in providing

ecommerce to multiple countries. Target is moving

soon to Canada. The following table shows some

examples of who is doing what in retail across

multiple languages.

no

yes

yes

yes

no

yes

yes

no

yes

no

yes

no

no

yes

yes

yes

yes

TargeT

Wal-MarT

aMazon.coM

cosTco

Kohls

ToysrUs

BesT BUy

Kroger

safeWay

Macys

sears

JcPenney

The liMiTed

gaP

zara

Bed, BaTh & Beyond

iKea

core

hardlines

grocery

a&a

hoMe

considering

ParTially

yes

no

considering

yes

yes

no

no

considering

yes

no

no

no

yes

no

yes

in inTernaTional MarKeTs

in Us/esPaol

5

Compelling content and content that is synchronized across channels, adapted and made available in the right context and at the right time are critical requirements for a multi-channel content architecture.

Consistency and continuity drive more trust in the brand in the mind of the customer. This drives the impression that offerings and messages are well thought through and cared for.

1. Establishing a presence that will provide guests with enough value and substance for rapid and long-term adoption.

2. Maintaining consistency of message from one channel to the next to maintain overall brand impact.

3. Enabling continuity of experience as guests conduct their research and transactions using a random combination of devices, at different times and in

different locations.

As a retailer diversifies its presence across channels, corresponding user experiences are unified to bundle the benefits of

digital and traditional commerce on behalf of the customer. Complementary offerings like wedding and baby registries

drive traffic to the online channel; having an in-store kiosk connects the digital and real-world experiences in a way that

use of one drives more use of the other. To achieve cross-channel benefits, three high-level principles are followed:

USER EXPERIENCE IN A MULTI-CHANNEL CONTEXT

Content sources are not just internal but also external. The content management infrastructure stores, organizes and ranks

content, but also moderates inputs for publishing in near-real time. That last aspect is one of the innovations taking place

around content, where the content management infrastructure can aggregate and leverage content dynamically from a

number of different external sources. Most CMS systems now provide a foundational capability to deliver this.

Internal vs. external content sourcing and content aggregation

Marketers may need to leverage content from multiple sources and bring it all together in the context of a campaign or brand story. The ability to aggregate product and brand content from other sources in real time (whether these are conversations in the social space, or extended product data for product partner/reseller scenarios), tie it together semantically and then use it to drive use cases such as related content or similar content is another key differentiator. CMS and search technologies are leading the way here.

7

Content usage scenarios

In order to launch new experiences and

marketing campaigns simultaneously

across multiple channels, we want to

reuse content, components, pages and,

sometimes, entire sections of a site. For

instance, many content components from

the main site will find their way on the

mobile web version, possibly in different

form factors for tablet or mobile phone.

Or, if you have an online gift registry, you

will reuse most of the product browsing

section of the original site.

So synchronizing content thats planned for different properties is important; however, not everything is reused from one

experience to another and reuse is not necessarily hierarchical. In a multi-channel configuration, the graph of content

sharing and dependency is a complex network, as illustrated above.

Main site

m.commobile app

registry site

m.registry.com

Microsite and campaign sites

In a network of digital properties, a variety of content types are being published and potentially shared. Content is grouped

into two major areas that are managed separately but published jointly: product and non-product content. For product

content, we find:

Product item information, the core of the retailers digital data. Millions of Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) are potentially published, and product

information is a collection of data properties, taxonomy information, images, copy text, videos, reviews, and much more.

Product categories, the data structure to group products. Categories can have content types attached to them such as copy text, size charts, user guides, videos, images and more.

The process of creating and acquiring product information for very large amounts of items that are sourced from a variety

of vendors requires a different process than web content management. Product information is also as data intensive as it is

rich in content. A retailer will typically use PIM (Product Information Management) processes and technologies to manage

that information. For non-product content, we find:

Components, which are composite content types that integrate text, images, data, videos and links to create digital ads, offers and other page elements.

Non-product copy for marketing content that appears on category pages and other landing pages.

Site templates that define the layout of pages.

Non-product images and animation or video assets for marketing purposes.

Third-party syndicated copy content for stories around a content category and inspirational content.

A retailer will typically use CMS (Content Management System) processes and technologies to manage non-product

information.

In a multi-channel environment, the product and non-product content domains come together into a unified content

delivery architecture to minimize the responsibility of each delivery end-point in assembling content from different sources.

In the next few sections, we will focus on the key technology and process enablers for content in a retail environment,

outlining solutions for the management of content in a scalable data, transactional and multi-channel environment.

Content types

The creation, composition and management of content for frequent site refreshes and for large amounts of product

can take up to hundreds of workers focused on four major processes:

1. Digital planning and asset acquisition, the process of creating, buying or searching for assets given the specification of a new user experience or a new campaign.

2. Digital asset ingestion and storage, how created or purchased assets are uploaded into a common Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, associated with folders and metadata for use by content

management workers, and to create user experiences within the CMS or other tools.

3. Web content management is where we create templates and assemble content into components or pages. This is also where we run the review and approval workflow, version content and create multiple versions

for different form factors.

4. Content publishing and delivery is the process of selecting the subset of the content that will be deployed at a given time. The specifics of how that gets done depend on the delivery architecture, covered later.

Overview

9

CONTENT MANAGEMENT PROCESSES

Lets review next each of these processes in the context of multi-channel content management.

These four processes include capabilities listed on the figure below:

MUlTi-channel cMs caPaBiliTies

capa

bili

ty a

reas

capa

bili

ties Digital Planning

and Asset Acquisition

Media Asset Authoring Tools

WIP Workflow

Distributed Process Management

Integration with Digital Media Management

Process Integration with Digital Planning

and PIMReview Workflow

Content life-cycle management

Content metadata and Taxonomy management

Syndicated content management

Access Control

Author Search

Reporting

Syndicated content partner integration

Caching

End User Search

Content Analytics

Personalization and Targeting

Multi-site management

Video Management Preview Site Integration

Asset IngestionTemplate

ManagementReal time Content

Delivery

Multi ChannelPublishing

Content Storage and Organization

Copy Content Authoring

and Usability

Digital Asset Ingestion

and Storage

Web ContentManagement

Content Publishingand Delivery

From a tooling standpoint, the coordination of distributed content management in pre-authoring tasks

is mostly process. The digital planning process functions as team-independent activities with joint

deliverable reviews triggered through workflow.

For asset creation and ingestion, lets assume we have multiple marketing campaigns that are going to

focus on the same product set. In this case, planning is done upfront for a comprehensive acquisition

of images, copy and videos, which are then tagged and organized to make it easy for all projects to

identify common assets to reuse.

This sounds trivial, but you would be surprised by how little reuse happens when you have hundreds

of millions of assets and no effort for coordinating their reuse. Assets are expensive to produce or

create from scratch. Reuse is a lot cheaper.

1. Pre-authoring tasks

Assuming a multi-site content management process, where site A is the

parent site and site B is the sub-site, using content from site A, we can

look at the coordination of respective teams on three process segments:

1. Pre-authoring tasks 2. Authoring tasks 3. Publishing tasks

Multi-channel content processes

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asset acquisition/creation

digital application a

B uses content from a

digital application B

Team a performs the asset acquisition for both a and B on shared content

Both teams produce their own complete set of digital designs, with joint reviews for consistency

digital Planning digital asset ingestion and storage

all digital media assets are shared and accessible to both a and B and tagged for filtering and search

The authoring process, on the other hand, leverages from the collaboration and content sharing features

of the content management tools.

Reuse of content is planned by creating an initial blueprint of an experiencea content component,

page fragment, entire page or sub-site. That blueprint is then duplicated as synchronized copy for use

by a different channel. The copy is kept in sync, and is not a reference to a common object.

The synchronization mechanism is such that it is up to the consumer of the copied content to decide

when to use what may have been changed on the blueprint.

Note that the CMS allows you to decide what you expose as content that can be reused and what you

want to keep private to the site. Content access control lets you decide not to allow some sections of

your site to become copied in another channel.

digital application a digital application B

content only used

by a

content reused

from a

content used only

by B

content made

available to share with other apps

create new content

review and approve new

content rollout new content

content available and visible to site

B

create content synchronized copy

2. Authoring tasks

The publishing process is executed through a publishing workflow. Different digital properties will go

through publishing independently from each other.

Once content is created and made available to multiple channels, you want each site to remain in

control of when they synchronize their updates and publishing actions. It can be simultaneous or

deferred, or manually triggered. That all depends on what the channel management policies are.

3. Publishing tasks

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authoring Publishing

digital application a

B uses content from a

digital application B

content has been reviewed and approved for both sites independently from each other

content is published to channels a and B independently from each other through separate workflows

END-POINT DEVICES AND DELIVERY ARCHITECTURE

Before we get into a CMS site delivery architecture overview, lets go over why large retailers represent a special

architecture case, due to the combination of high commerce transaction volume and high amounts of content to be

displayed.

Here are some examples of performance numbers around one US holiday period when purchasing

is at a high:

To achieve such performance, a few architectural principles are being followed:

We have discussed content types and processes in a multi-channel context to understand the complexity of the

management of large amounts of diverse content for large retailers in a multi-channel context. Lets look now at the

technical architecture for delivering content to application platforms for different channels. This architecture has to

address both performance and multi-channel synchronization.

Transactional performance impact on the integration between a CMS and a commerce engine

3,000+ transactions per second Response time 3 seconds 70K+ orders per hour 110K carts per hour 100% promotion on every customer shopping cart 2.3 million searches per hour

Caching at every level of the architecture. Tight coupling of everything that is used for the rendition of the user experience. Low-level code optimization.

1. Applications should not have to assemble content from multiple sources. Content is delivered as a whole at only two levels

of granularity: pages and components.

2. Static versus dynamic content is transparent to the end-user application.

3. Content is served to all channels following a common framework. So, as you add a new channel, you dont have to re-

engineer the content acquisition. The same content can be pushed simultaneously to all channels.

4. Content authoring is supported by an immediate, high fidelity content preview within the CMS.

Multi-channel synchronized content delivery

High-level content pipeline architectureIn this section, we will assume that the CMS can be configured in both fried content publishing (the CMS being the live

site platform) or baked content publishing (where the content is pushed asynchronously to the site delivery platform). Most

leading content management platforms provide both capabilities. Content is delivered to the end-user device through oane

of three methods:

Once we diversify the delivery of content across multi-channel, we need to simplify how we build content-consuming applications

and, in particular, how end-user applications assemble the content for display. This surfaces four main requirements:

1. Directly through the CMS, configured as a site delivery platform. The CMS engine is used as both a content delivery platform and as an application server (behaving as a content portal). For instance, Adobe CQ is built on a full-

service Java application framework (Sling) that allows for managing content as well as building complete web applications.

Open Text acquired Vignette as a portal thats integrated with the content management backend. Autonomy has developed

its own product, LiveSite, as a complementary offering to TeamSitethe baked offline versionand Sitecore and Ektron are

tightly integrated with the .Net framework for web application development.

2. Using content services. Content can be delivered via content services for mobile native apps or mobile hybrid apps. Here we are illustrating two types of services: real-time content services where the content is pulled by the delivery platform

at the time it needs to be displayed and offline content services where the content is pulled by the delivery platform ahead

of display time and is stored locally by the delivery platform. The difference between the two implementations is about

performance. Real-time content services need to be scaled for run-time performance; offline content services do not.

3. Pushing baked content to an application delivery platform, such as an application server (e.g., IBM WCS, Spring Framework, Oracle ATG). This approach enables the development of ecommerce applications that integrate a different

framework for ecommerce page development with the CQ content framework. This configuration option is where we get the

performance gain required for transactional performancethe ability to sustain high transaction volumes at a fast rate.

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Ideally, product content and non-product content could come together in the CMS so that users can build and preview

complete pages.

A retailers volume of products, however, makes it impractical for authors to process the complete integrated content

in the CMS. Doing so would require product information to be first pushed to the CMS and then pushed again to the

delivery platforma huge, redundant data flow. Instead, product information is moved directly to the delivery platform

(the commerce product data catalog). The diagram on the following page shows how the commerce catalog or the

corresponding service is used by the three delivery configurations above.

cMs authoring execute

Publishing workflowdigital

application

cMs application

server

front-end caching servers

Page delivery

real-timecontent service

offline content service

content deployment

module (custom)

non-cMs delivery platform integrates

commerce framework with cMs-managed

content

con

Ten

T se

rVic

es

native app on end-user device (phone, kiosk)

fat client (e.g. Kiosk) or e-mail delivery (exactTarget, epsilon,...)

Web or mobile site on end-user browser

Web or mobile site on end-user browser

Content delivery integrates product and non-product content domains

Product content integration with content services: the content service layer accesses the product catalog via a service.

Product content integration with CMS page delivery: pages being run on the CMS applications server use components that list products retrieved from the commerce catalog through the content service layer.

Product content integration with the commerce delivery platform: if this is the case, the delivery platform is exemplified with WCS and product information is retrieved locally from the catalog.

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cMs publishing

commerce product catalog

cMs Publishing

offline content push

accessed as data in the commerce

platform

native app on end-user device (phone, kiosk)

Web or mobile site on end-user browser

cMs Page delivery

Wcs

Wcs catalog

commerce delivery platfrom (e.g. iBM Wcs) integrates commerce framework with cMs-managed content

Web or mobile site on end-user browser

content services

Product infocatalog product

data service

The importance of content services in a multi-channel content architecture

Content services play a critical role in the multi-channel content architecture, through two main functions:

1. Delivering content to server-side or client-side applications. The content is delivered by the service by default in either one of three formats: XML, JSON or HTML. Content delivered by services are page

fragments. It would not make sense to use the content service option to deliver entire pages. For complete page

delivery, fried or baked site configurations would be more effective.

2. Integrating product and non-product content for the consuming application. End-point guest applications should not have to deal with the intricacies of managing and coordinating content from multiple

sources. An end-point guest application should request content at the granularity of components, assuming that the

complete component is delivered by a single service call, containing both product and non-product content.

The consequence of the first point is that layout composition for print cannot take place on a web-based interface, but requires a highly interactive client application (e.g., InDesign from Adobe) where zoom-in actions are better implemented.

The consequence of the second point is that computer-based preview will be a low-fidelity preview from a color rendition standpoint.

The CMS is still very valuable for managing printable content and deliverables, especially if there is a possibility of tight integration between the print document format and the CMS storage document representation. With Adobe CQ, for instance:

The special case of content management for print

Content management and delivery for the print channel is a special case of the content architecture for two reasons:

1. Pixels in digital prints are of a much finer grain density than digital pixels on a computer, tablet or mobile device screen. A large monitor with fine resolution would still provide 2 to 3 times less pixel density than a 300 DPI print, itself an average-to-low print resolution.

2. The print color palette is different from the digital set of colors. Digital devices use the RGB color scheme, based on three base colors and apply a color additive process to create all other colors (from pure

black to other colors). Printers that are above desktop-companion grade use at least a four-color scheme, CMYK,

and create additional colors using a subtracting process (from pure white to other colors). Fine, higher quality

printing can use a six-color scheme, CMYKOG, which provides a much greater color gamut (the subset of the total

color space that is reproduced).

Matching delivery services options with channels

Looking at the different channels listed earlier, and having identified integration options between CMS at the site platform,

content services and content pushed to an application delivery platform, we can map one or more options with each channel:

The Adobe toolset can integrate the InDesign server with CQ content management workflows, allowing print

deliverables to follow authoring, review and publishing workflows using the same process management tools and

processes as other channels.

The initial composition of print designs can use the same asset creation tools and repositories as other channels

during the digital planning process.

A low-fidelity preview of final designs is feasible to at least validate the general composition of deliverables.

Push content to the commerce application server. A template-publishing framework (e.g., FreeMarker) translates the page produced by the CMS

to a page format that the commerce engine can process. Product information is accessed directly from the commerce catalog.

Main site

Native apps are running within the device (e.g., iOS, Java Android apps, Java BlackBerry apps, Adobe AIR apps, Windows Mobile apps, Java or .NET client apps, PhoneGap apps).

Native apps access dynamic content via content services (e.g., promotion and marketing components).

Commerce data and content are integrated by content services so the mobile app does not have to assemble both.

Native mobile apps

Create components that are published for a third party via content services. Create co-branded microsites using either the CMS hosting platform or an application delivery

platform.

Directly hosted by the CMS platform if that capability is available. Commerce functions, if any, are provided via commerce engine web services.

Adjunct sites (e.g. a gift registry) where commerce is not a critical function

Directly hosted by the CMS platform if that capability is available. Commerce functions, if any, are provided via commerce engine web services.

Mobile web

For in-store devices that render the UI through HTML, the same implementation strategy is used as for adjunct sites for large devices or mobile web for smaller devices (i.e., tablet size or below).

In-store devices HTML compatible

See The special case of content management for print.Print

For in-store devices that are implemented as native applications, content is provided via content services, similarly as for native apps.

In-store devices native applications

Partner sites

Facebook page accesses content components via content services.Social media

CHANNEL INTEGRATION OPTION

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The potential use and management of content is rapidly expanding beyond the traditional capabilities of content

management systems:

Content usage is across more channels and for new content types.

Content management reaches out upstream to the digital planning process in order to streamline content

management and planning.

New applications of content are emerging (e.g., augmented reality, monetization).

This innovation related to content is captured by the concept of the Content Hub, which will bring new capabilities

to the enterprise including:

Creation and delivery of campaigns within minutes of a public event, like the Oreo impromptu social media

campaign during the Super Bowl blackout in New Orleans.

Augmented reality via mobile devices to view additional content while browsing shelves at a store.

Content for sale for DVM: create an ad inventory and sell it in real-time to a third party.

Real-time content optimization: dynamically rank content based on popularity and display accordingly.

Content aggregation with internal and third-party content: leveraging content networks to build stories around

items being sold.

The Content Hub is an ecosystem of tools and technologies assembled to meet existing and future needs of a broad

set of end users. Target industries for that vision include retail, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods and travel

(hospitality in particular).

THE VISION: THE CONTENT HUB

Integrating methods for creating content and assets with creative tools, studios and external feeds.

Adding content-related application capabilities for personalization, contextualization, monetization, content optimization

and financial assessment of content performance.

Linking content to data for personalization and monetization scenarios.

Merging the delivery of content on traditional channels with the approach used today in digital channels.

In this picture, evolution and innovation will take place at the periphery of the diagram:

This vision is progressively being implemented by the top CMS vendors who already possess powerful, scalable

platforms for content, asset management and delivery through both sites and services. Adding to that, these vendors

are all addressing the coordination of content creation and organization for concurrent delivery methods and multiple

languages. The next step is for vendors to develop an architecture where the platform packages content for emerging

and future applications like the ones listed above.

Recapitulating these points, we can put together a capability-based picture of what a multi-channel Content Hub

would look like.

21

relaTed To conTenT hUB

conTenT hUB

Planning Workflow dynamic delivery

conTenT relaTed

caPaBiliTies

channels

Tra

diT

ion

al

cha

nn

els

dig

iTa

l ch

an

nel

s

campaign

Planogram

MrM authoring

cMs cs

Videos coPy sTylingiMages docUMenTs

acTiVaTiondeliVery

PlaTforMs for TradiTional

Media

conTenT serVices

siTe PlaTforMs

dynaMic asseT rendiTion

sTreaMing

cdn

PersonalizaTion

conTeXTUalizaTion

aUgMenTed realiTy

MoneTizaTion

a/B TesTing

analyTics

financial PerforMance

PrinTMagazinesignagePacKagecoUPonreceiPTflyer

eMailMoBile

in-sToredeVicesiTes

Main siTeregisTry

social Media3rd ParTy

drM Transformation

asset repository

Metadata

dataPiM guests analytics

Publishing

Promo

Merchandising

As an example of the future use of the Content Hub, lets consider this example of a merchandiser launching a

new line of summer clothing for teenagers. The merchandiser enlists the marketer to promote the new collection.

As they and their teams work through each task, they use the suite of tools provided by the Content Hub.

The campaign is rolled out a couple of days ahead of the product launch and analytics are collected on the

campaigns success. Immediately, data shows a strong interest by the products targeted audience.

Monitor campaign success across all channels using a fine-grain analysis at content level

Task

1. Collect click data on campaign assets on site, mobile and email2. Make user experience adjustments through A/B testing

Analytics integrated with site, mobile and email; content tagging; A/B testing infrastructure

Steps

Tools

Produce the digital assets to view the new collection online Task

1. Suppliers upload their assets2. Merchandising team takes photography of samples3. Merchandising team uploads product assets in DAM4. Merchandising team solicits external content contribution from third-

party syndicated content sources if applicable

PIM; DAM; Photography Studio; Vendor Product Portal

Steps

Tools

Create a seasonal launch campaignTask

1. A campaign project is created and members of the marketing and merchandising teams are assigned to the project

2. A campaign brief is produced3. Assets are retrieved from the DAM for use by the campaign creative team4. Additional photo shoot needs are identified and executed5. Campaign creative concepts are created, reviewed and approved6. The campaign content is produced for all the .com, mobile and email channels7. The campaign content is produced for print channels8. The campaign is deployed across all channels

Campaign management workflow; DAM; creative tool suite; photo studio; CMS authoring and workflow; InDesign server integrated with CMS authoring (integration only available if CMS is Adobe CQ); multi-channel delivery architecture

Steps

Tools

Illustrative scenario

The merchandiser and marketer decide to immediately capitalize on the opportunity and prepare a social media

campaign to follow the product launch on the sale of accessories. The social media plan is to share with friends

the accessories bought together with an item from the collection. The action of sharing wins the participant a

coupon for an online purchase of a collections item.

Data associated with the popularity of accessories leads to a higher ranking of the display of the corresponding

content and to the rapid creation of new digital promotions and ads that are published on other sites.

As shoppers walk through stores and come close to the collection being promoted, the social media interaction

comes up on their mobile phones. Comments on the items they are standing in front of are being shown as a

reality augmentation. Accessories popular with this item are also listed. If these accessories are available at the

store, their locations are indicated.

From a DVM standpoint, placement for ads for accessories that can be sold through other retailers have their

prices adjusted accordingly.

Rapidly develop a social media application Task

1. Build social media app with content services for user to view both collection items they bought and related accessories

2. Collect social media interaction data

Content services; social media application framework (not part of Content Hub); analytics

Steps

Tools

Update ad placement strategyTask

1. Collect content click data2. Adjust ad expected click ratio

Content services; content monetization framework

Steps

Tools

Integrate a barcode reader with the mobile social media shopper app Task

1. Retrieve social media interaction data and content with product barcode

Content services; social media application framework (not part of Content Hub); barcode reader API

Steps

Tools

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CONCLUSION

Content, its applications and transactional capabilities are the pillars of a digital commerce experience

for large retailers. The ability to deliver them in a multi-channel environment brings ubiquity and

continuity of experience across user platformsthereby building trust and driving conversion.

The lines are blurring between the digital and physical, and we can soon expect the physical store

experience to be augmented with virtual reality that involves social interactions.

This new perspective drives new content and experience architectures for large retailers. Working hand

in hand with technology, content management processes are transforming in order to focus on the

channel transparency of the message to the customerwith faster and more streamlined publishing

as well.

Leading CMS vendors are aware of these trends and are acquiring and integrating products that focus

on the next generation user experience for commerce. How these tools are integrated is the current

challenge for large retailers today.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Arpit Jain, Senior Manager Program Management, SapientNitroArpit has been with SapientNitro for over 7 years and has

been involved on multiple engagements across retail, energy

and telecom industries. He has about 10 years of industry

experience around retail ecommerce, program management

and quality assurance domains. Over the last several years, he

has been leading the delivery/future state of Targets online

platform experience and also driving the future state of content

management for Targets multi-channel organization spanning

across technology and business. Arpit holds a Mechanical

Engineering Degree from Delhi University, India.

Andre Engberts, Technology Director, SapientNitro Andre has been with SapientNitro since April 2012 and has been

leading a technology team at a large retailer since then. Prior to

working with SapientNitro, Andre had been in the field of Digital

Marketing Technology for 12 years, working with clients such

as AT&T, Dell, Humana and Samsung among others. Andres

experience spans both web and mobile technologies with a

recent focus on eCommerce, content management systems and

content strategies. Andre has also provided consulting on process

redesign and enterprise-level technology direction. Andre holds

an Engineering degree in Electrical Engineering from the Ecole

Superieure dElectricite, Paris, France and an MS and PhD in

Computer Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology.

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