Content-driven commerce: Connecting utility & cart

Last night I tuned in (as both a curious marketer and consumer) as Walmart hosted a one-hour "Spring Shop-Along: Beauty Edition" shoppable livestream on TikTok, hosted by TikTok creator Gabby Morrison and touting Walmart’s own-label brands along with others it carries (hey L’Oreal brands NYX and Maybelline!) on its TikTok channel. This marked the second live shopping event Walmart has done after its December trial on TikTok, featuring various creators showing off their top Walmart beauty picks while doing demos of how they integrate them into their haircare, skincare, and makeup routines. To move from a lean-back to a lean-in experience, anyone viewing the TikTok livestream could tap on any of the showcased product pins to add them instantly to a cart that could be checked out during or post-event. 

It felt intimate to me, as it was live (anything can happen!), the brands shown didn’t buy air time (the recommendations were organic and products the creators – at least claim to – use!), and I didn’t have to worry about remembering a product that interested me later (I could click and buy it immediately without switching out of the app and missing content). It was also interesting to enjoy having a tune-in experience; something I had to mark my calendar for – like how we sometimes do for real-time TV events – and schedule life accordingly. 

TikTok makes sense for this: Gen Z loves the platform, and the creators rising to popularity have the power to make, and also break, brands across categories. The casual, intimate nature of TikTok, as well as the opportunities social commerce offers brands for real-time engagement, product demos, storytelling, and driving sales at a time where the consumer’s consumption patterns have been dramatically (and maybe permanently) altered is enticing and endless. 

Side note: Yes there’s potential Walmart ownership stake in TikTok which is still an ongoing TBD.

Content-driven commerce makes sense: when we’re more inundated with screens, platforms, ads than ever, leveraging content that captures attention & interest and driving that directly to sales expedites closing the gap between interest and purchase, attempting to block out any noise that can distract from consumer acquisition. Alleviating the 1,000,000 frictions and distractions that can come between a consumer and a potential purchase is massive in shrinking the consumer journey and also minimizing risk of purchase abandonment. Purchasing directly within digital content ensures consumers are served product inspiration, education, and buying opportunity within one piece of engaging content online. Shoppable content’s offerings – livestreams, shoppable ads, shoppable video, etc. – will continue to grow. Content-driven commerce isn’t going anywhere; what it looks like, and where it lives, is quickly evolving. 

As Walmart’s U.S. CMO William White explained, “We certainly see the content to commerce space continuing to grow and evolve. Social commerce as a sub-segment of that is the place that’s really taken off recently. And even within the social commerce space, we view the shoppable livestream as the next wave.” For Walmart, it gives them the chance to test a new shopping format as we embrace which shopping behaviors will scab (short-term change) vs. scar (long-term changes) on a platform that already touts the desired audience.

As your brand invests in, and determines, what role social commerce should play in your strategy, and the overall content driven commerce landscape evolves how brands sell online, understanding your audiences’ needs – both tangible and unspoken – can help you understand what they’re looking for, and how their current content and shopping situations (thanks to COVID and simply consumer demands) currently fall short. Looking at what they want from their content, their brands, their platforms, and their products (e.g. inspiration, education, emotional support, physical help, cost savings, time savings, multitasking ideas, etc.) can help you determine the spaces to test and the methods used to offer seamless shopping experiences on the screens and platforms they already turn to for those needs.