Aaron Conant 0:18

everybody, my name is Aaron conant, Co-founder and Managing Director of the BWG Connect. We're a networking and knowledge sharing group with 1000s of brands who do exactly that. We network and now share together to stay on top of the newest trends, strategies, pain points, whatever it is that shaping the digital landscape. Today, I'm talking with, you know, 30 to 40 different organizations that week to stay on top of those trends more than happy to jump on the phone with anybody after the call, love to network and knowledge share across the board. And that's also where we get the topics for these events as a whole. We're usually not scheduling anything more than six to eight weeks out because we want to stay on top of those newest trends. But try to use this platform for as much information gathering as possible. You hear anybody talk today, you see any questions submitted, you want to connect with anybody, please utilize us for that we are as a giant networking group. A couple housekeeping items as we get started here. any point in time you have a question on anything that's presented or you have any questions on content whatsoever, don't hesitate to drop into the question section there want to get as many answered today as possible. You can also drop in the chat. And then you can always email them to me Aaron aaro n at BWG Connect dot com will feel the questions that way, as well. Then in that case, if it's an hour after the call, if it's tomorrow, if it's next week, if you have questions in digital space, don't hesitate to drop me an email more than happy to get your response in under a day or so. The last thing is we are starting this three to four minutes after the hour, and we're going to wrap this up with three to four minutes to go as well, we're gonna give you plenty of time to get on to your next meeting without being late, maybe grab a cup of coffee along the way. So now as we kind of kick off, you know, the conversation as a whole, as I know it, you know, talking with 30 or 40, you know, different organizations every week. You know, it's interesting how different topics trend up and down. For a while there are a lot around fulfillment and the direct to consumer side, a lot of third party cookies going away and Google kind of postpone that till 2023. I would say though, over the past like three to five months, there's been this growing swell around content as a whole. What is what does it look like? Where's it going? Where's the maturity state look like? Where Where am I at on a maturity curve is a lot of what you know, people are asking in regards to content. So we got some great friends, great partners of the network. They came highly recommended for multiple brands within it when we're asking the brands like Hey, who's working for you? Who are you leveraging for digital content as a whole. And so you got Alex on the line today from Nfinite, you know, he's open to, you know, sharing what they're seeing across the space with the brands that they're working with, also open to answering as many questions as we can throw out over the next 15 minutes or so. So, you know, Alex, I'll kick it over to you. If you want to do a brief intro on yourself in Nfinite, that'd be great. And then we can kind of kick off the conversation sounded.

Alex de Vigan 3:08

Yeah, thank you very much, Aaron. Hi, everyone. So my name is Alex. I'm the founder and CEO of Nfinite and I'm 35 years old. I'm currently based in France, father of three kids. I've worked in digital digital space for over 10 years and a lot in the marketing content area before creating Nfinite four years ago. And Nfinite is a French based startup with offices now in Europe, the USA and Asia and Taiwan. And our only, you know, mission goal and purpose is to help our clients who are brands, retailers, eCommerce players to create the best visual content online or offline to enable sales and increase in consumer engagement.

Aaron Conant 3:55

Awesome, love it. So again, as more people joined, if you have any questions, drop in the question section drop into the chat or email them to me Aaron a-a-r-o-n at BWG Connect dot com. So I mean, you got some information here. If we want to just kind of jump into it, that'd be great. We can kind of ping you with questions as we go. I mean, top of mind for me, and I think for a lot of brands is content. How much do they need? What's the impact that it's having that you're seeing? You know, from a return on investment standpoint? How are people handling, you know, marketing budgets or content creation budgets? You know, I'm sure we can get all of that. But you know, we'll have plenty of questions along the way.

Alex de Vigan 4:35

Yeah, I think Thank you very much, Aaron. So, yeah, I think I think what you're talking about is the whole purpose of Nfinite I mean, content has been, you know, growing and growing and as an important topic over the last, you know, decade. But what we've seen since the COVID crisis is that as with the shift that they call from bricks to click that it has been tremendously exponential the visual content and today, the presentation To share with all of you is how much content is important and has changed over the last years and last month, and how what are the solution to match the consumers need for a brand for a retailer in the near future. So an Nfinite what we believe is, is that we need to empower our clients to be able to create the visual content they need to showcase their product online, we believe that, you know, we are the Canva of merchandising, meaning that we are the solution that enable in any business opportunity from the marketing intern to the sales director to the store's operation manager to create on the fly the visual that he or she needs to improve their online sales or in store sales with visual content. So the thesis is very, very simple. We believe in and when I say we it's based on the Google statistics is that product visuals today are the single most important asset to sell online. So why it's very simple to understand it's the the visual or the video, which we think is a part of the visual is the only touchpoint that the consumer has with a product when purchasing online or at a distance. So it impacts a $4.3 trillion eCommerce industry as the most important driver of online sales. And this was important A few years ago, this is even more important today. Just as a matter of fact, the Google statistics said in two Oh 16 that the standard to be highly performant online to sell product was had to have three visual of a product in 218, this number went from three to five visuals. And now with the COVID. In 2020. It the numbers drove out of the roof where you need more visual with, you know, close ups, you need more visual interaction in the video. So what we've seen is that the consumer are attending more and more visual to be able to be reassured to purchase online. And so what we've seen is that you haven't had what we call a hyper consumption of visual with social media, with application with advertising, you need just more visual everywhere. And one of our clients whose name is L'Oreal just told us that a couple of years ago, a visual lifetime could live the last, you know, like six months to a year. Now, today, when they post a visual of their product on social media, it's consumed in one day. So what we've seen is we have a dramatic increase in the visual production need to match the consumer needs in terms of visual trends online.

Aaron Conant 7:50

And the problem is, is really, the question came in our email. So you see it going up 20% visuals tomorrow 20% yearly growth of visual needs and spending. So you see this continuing to grow year over year at 20%? clip?

Alex de Vigan 8:05

So for me, it's it's a very interesting question. So for me this, these are statistics, three COVID. So the pre COVID, from like two Oh, 16 to 20, where this 20 year, year over year increase. Now I don't have the statistic between 2020 to 2021. What I know for sure by you know, working with our clients is that this has been exploding, I don't know if it's not 50% more as a as a budget marketing marketing budget from last year to this year. And as a visual need. It's even higher than this. So to answer your question, this number will only grow up you have even you know, people in this in the space from Pinterest and others that say that tomorrow, you will only have visual online, visual or not.

Aaron Conant 8:51

Another interesting point here, though, is there's visual need and there's visual production. Right? So you have a company that says hey, I doubled my output. But the reality is you might need to be up 5x I mean, that's where I think you're right, you have companies that were you know, now are full blown, you know, digital strategy that they may have, hey, limited a little bit on Facebook or Instagram or snap or Amazon or walmart.com their their DTC or, you know, any kind of performance marketing whatsoever. You know, they limited it, they were limited in how much they could reduce by, you know, internal assets, or UGC or whatever it might be. So, I think there's that gap between how much you can produce and actually how much you need to produce. No, I

Alex de Vigan 9:41

agree with you there is this paradox between you need more and more but you'd still have to date as physical constraints, you cannot produce more. So you just need you just need more visuals for I mean more audiences you know, for when you think about it, you have it on the product Hmm. And on social media, you have an advertising and printed catalog even have it in store and in the metro and the subways visuals are everywhere. And just today, there is a paradox where this is the most important asset, but everyone in the same company is dependent dependent on the on the visual, you know, that is static and made by a third party. So this is kind of the gap, which is, which we're seeing today being very painful for our clients as well as me, it's painful to generate, but it's,

Aaron Conant 10:25

I mean, the what I hear all the time is is expensive, right? Like, I can go get user generated content. Or I can go use an influencer or brand ambassador, but it is cost to produce, right? The you could do photoshoot, Oh, okay. So here,

Alex de Vigan 10:44

then I'm I mean, exactly to yours. Perfectly on the point. I mean, it's just that it's, it's complex, it's limited, it's physically limited, but it's also very, very expensive. I mean, it's expensive, because it's a lot of logistics, it's human powered, its transportation, its location studio. So I mean, there's just you know, and the pain is, is reversely, proportional with the size of the business, when you have a bit when you're a big business for Walmart, you have big budgets, you can shoot, and even though you can, you cannot shoot everything. But when you're a small business, it's too expensive to shoot what you would need to increase your sales online. So there is a cost problem, there is a time problem, you know, our clients before, you know, using technology, a shoot that it would take several weeks to several months to get the visual marketing material to be able and prepared to, to, to sell online or sell at a distance. So the time to value was very, very big. And the last thing is that I mean, it's just broken. In today, we see that consumers, the clients, they need customization, they need updated content, they need novelty, individual content. Well, this is completely opposite to the reality of about photographic picture, which is by definition, by nature, it's static.

Aaron Conant 12:03

Yeah, I love it. From the standpoint of, you know, you need to generate as much content as possible. So you can test and iterate as much as possible to find out what resonates the most. But then again, you get into this constraint around how do I produce it? How much does it cost to produce it? So it just to remind others to join, you can drop questions in the question section there, I have a couple that came in that will make sure we get to in a couple of minutes here or you can email them to me Aaron a arwin at BWG Connect dot com. But we're a question that comes in is around, where's this budgeted out of? Right? So? Yeah,

Alex de Vigan 12:41

yeah, this is a great question for a lot of the time, but if there's in different organization, but it comes from the so it depends. So it can come from the product team, you know, they're they're in charge of the product. So they they're the origin of the of the initial visual, you know, the visual material to sell their product, but mainly the big budgets. I mean, as we see in our phones, in Europe, in Asia, or even in the US, it's the marketing team that has so the marketing or the now what they call the E merchandising team, meaning the merchant the team in charge of the online merchandising, so mainly for us today add to our knowledge, its marketing budget,

Aaron Conant 13:21

Britain, then Have you seen those marketing budgets, explode them? Or are they still being constrained across the board? And that's a poll for some people on the line as well is what what's happening across there because you're in this weird spot in the digital side where everybody's trying to make eCommerce less margin dilutive. But at the same time, it's getting more and more expensive, not only from the content side, right, but the, you know, pay per click side, whether it is you know, Facebook, or Google or Amazon, wherever it is, is getting more expensive. Shipping is more expensive. You know, if the inventory is there, you know, even inbound, you know, from suppliers is more expensive. So, yeah, well, what do you see it happening around the budget, so hold on, I want to make sure that we get to the rest of this content as well with some great questions coming in.

Alex de Vigan 14:13

Yeah, I think it's a very interesting question for us. The markets, marketing budget are evolving, they're increasing, but we cannot say that. I mean, it's, it's, it's more that the visual part of the marketing budget is getting bigger. This is what we can we know, I mean, the visual content part is getting bigger. Now as a as a whole, the marketing budget are also getting bigger, but it's it's not as sensitive as it as as the growth of the visual part of the marketing budget. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Make sense? All right, cool. We can we can jump back here. Okay, and no problem. And just and then a quick a quick, you know, we like I didn't To do marketing materials to to try to talk to our clients, and to see, you know, what if we had, I mean, there was a solution to enable business imperatives to create, you know, great content easily, quickly, and at the cost efficient way. And this is a quick, you know, intro about how it could work,

Unknown Speaker 15:23

or anywhere. And the most important thing for selling products online, producing these visuals is costly and time consuming. Just like studio lighting. When it comes to do all that, without any knowledge and graphic design allows you to do so use the internet to easily create and manage 3d visual content with your own product catalog. Without any technical ability, and then oblique selection of drag and drop features to pay inspiring content, enhance your visual content, and increase engagement. And its photography, replace it 3d, technically catalog and Wi Fi activity, empower your team.

Alex de Vigan 16:46

So basically, what we're seeing is a paradigm change in the business world. What we're seeing is that companies, agencies, retailers and brands, they're moving from, like classic photo shoot world to technology, because they realize that today there needs to spit to sell online or at the distance is so dependent on visual content that they needed to change the way they were working. So until today, they were working with photo studio, so photo studio mean logistics, you have to have the physical product, you have to have them existing. So you have they have to exist, they have to be transported, they have to in the right shape, then you have to have a location, physical location with you know, at the core, you need to have people usually it's like almost 10 people needed to do the assortment of photograph lightnings at the core, and at the end of the day you shoot your products in and then what you have is a JPEG. So you have something that is static that is frozen, and that is perishable. And what we're seeing people doing is moving from this constraint, physical constraint world to technology world where everything is unlimited, meaning you're creating virtual, you know, scenes, and so no people no logistics, no, no timing, and you're building an asset that you can reuse unlimitedly changing, you know, their assortment, changing the product, that product goes out of range, you can change it, you can AV test it, you can calibrate them. So this is the paradigm change going from classic photographic pictures. So to what we call in the industry, computer generated imagery, which is basically technology. The, the magic of this, and this is very what we believe in what we've seen with you know, the 100 clients with whom we're working is that businesses need to be empowered to create their own visual, they're fed up of being dependent of a third party a photographic person an expert to create a visual because this visual is so much you know, linked to the performance they have to create Kruger create on you know, the product, you know, sales, the store operation and everything. So, what we believe is tomorrow's, you know, visual content production should target directly to business objectives to enable them from marketing, eCommerce stores, Operation media, any people in the business to be able to create its own visual for to showcase the product to increase sales increase, you know, average cart value, increase engagement, increase brand knowledge and outwardness. And this should be done, like, like with a PowerPoint, so with no graphical skills, no technical skills, no complex software. So this is what we believe is the future of the visual production.

Aaron Conant 19:47

So this is done in house. Right, so this is a SaaS based platform. Yeah, house they got people asking about that as a whole.

Alex de Vigan 20:01

Yeah. So the point of a very good question. Thank you for asking Aaron. So this is this is what we believe that business, you know, should, you know, are attending to and and what we've created Yes. And our standpoint is providing an end to end SAS solution that enables businesses directly to be able to just dump the information of their product from their software, existing software, their Pim, their dam, whatever, into a solution that will take care of digitizing this these product information, avoid, which basically means transforming this 2d products in 3d products, and then enabling the business operators to directly on a software live so like on a PowerPoint to directly create all the visual, publish it on an omni channel way, again, for printed for the app for media for online for the website for third parties, and to manage all their visuals in one single space. So this is what we believe business renewal business operative needs. And the magic of this is this tool can be used directly as per your question internally by the business of grey thieves if they wish to buy their agency by you know, freelancers, or even by Yeah, you know, the former photographic or physical persons? Did I answer your question correctly?

Aaron Conant 21:24

Yeah, I think you did it. Well, yeah, the one that came in, I think so that's where people are struggling with, you know, how do I solve that problem of, I have to outsource everything, I have to do a photo shoot, or I'm trying to do it internally on a Photoshop, and it takes forever, you have to have somebody highly skilled or highly trained. The next one is like, then how much content can be produced in a day? Right? Yes, it is. When you get to the point where you can continuously make content. You know, what, and just drops in here is then how do we measure content through third party channels? Are you making content for tik tok and Instagram, but that also comes into by measuring content? You know, it's an impact, like, you see a sales increase? You know, what about testing and learning? How are people leveraging it to at the end of the day, increase sales? And just a quick reminder, drop questions in the question section or email, keep emailing them to me, Aaron, a-a-r-o-nr at BWG Connect dot com

Alex de Vigan 22:28

So I think these are amazing, you know, and a question and tricky question. The thing is, I think we're what we're seeing in the industry is there is a there's a shift. So there is a transformation, there is a revolution in the mindset of the the cleanser retailers, the brands on how to do this. So first of all, at the beginning, they were outsourcing it to a third party. Now, they tried to intermod to do it internally. And and now what we've seen is that they're struggling, because when you have physical constraint, whether externally or internally, it's, you don't solve the question. So this solution, I mean, computer generated imagery, solve the problem by enabling different to the kind of client, whether you have a third party doing it, whether you have it internally, you can, you know, enable anyone on the platform to do it. And as per your question, the idea is to make it so simple, is that it's not as complex as Photoshop, it's just, you know, you show you very quickly is anyone from a, I have a two year old, a four year old now, I sorry, and I have three kids, my four year old could use it, it's just dragging it up, you take the information of your product, you drag it, and drop it into context, and boom, you create the visual that you need. So to the second question is, I mean, can't visual content is truly unlimited. It's just, you know, you drag it up and you create, it says, How many PowerPoints can you create? It's Unlimited, it's the same thing, and it doesn't not require any technical skills. And then to the last question that you had is for third party channel, yes, I mean, the visual the JPEG, the video can be used on any asset. Now, it's not directly today integrated to the third party channels, you just have to download it and publish it wherever you want. But basically, the idea is that we're transforming what I mean, CGI is transforming what was prior an expense. So a classic photo picture into an asset and the asset becomes a 3d model, from which with the technology, the software, the SAS solution, you can create unlimited content, whether it's silo so product on white background, product and context, product variation, animation, spin, even video I'll show you and and the idea is to make it at mark the visual content production becomes a marginal cost, enable enabling the business operatives to AV test to change you know, if you're a big brand from the visual or from you know, Oklahoma to New York, to France to Paris to be different without you know, increasing the costs and to answer another Question. Yes, it this CGI, so computer generated imagery, you know, tackles the videos needs also everything there is only virtual based on three.

Aaron Conant 25:12

So no, that's awesome. So that's all computer generated.

Alex de Vigan 25:20

Everything is computed and generated, we never saw a physical product of ease. Never, never had never had a physical person shooting, meaning this this, this becomes a template that we use. Yeah,

Aaron Conant 25:32

no, it makes sense why you guys are coming up so often now, because this is something that people need to generate content at scale, they need to do it quick. They need to do it internally. And be able to budget for it and understand, you know, what they need, how they need, and then they need to manipulate it over and over again, for a B testing. I'm sure you run into that a lot. The Quick question that comes in here who creates the 3d image?

Alex de Vigan 26:00

So this is a great, I mean, this is a great question. And actually it tackles directly the next this slide is, so basically the technology works very simple. So we work on template based, so we get information from from our clients, which is you know, for example, the product information. So we get information about the product, we take care of our CGI team take care of modeling these 3d, you know, these products in 3d, then they put it in the platform. And then the platform enables the client to create the product visuals or so silos, close ups, 360 spins. And then you can also use the technology to do exactly what you're seeing here is dragging and dropping your product in a context to showcase it. And now you have two types of context, you have a context that I mean, we have, you know, hundreds of artistic directors merchandisers that create content with the platform, weekly. And we can also this is what we do for I mean, we work for LMS, the luxury brand, we can create specific design content for the client that they can reuse on the platform very, very quickly. So basically, what it is, if you put it very simply is that it's a customization, customizable Shutterstock, where you can just take a context and just drag and drop your problem. Does that answer your question?

Aaron Conant 27:26

Yeah, I think so. It says here, how do you make 3d models without the product? Do you get photos of it? You know, is it a CAD drawing? I'm gonna give other things that have that that are coming in through, you know, the questions, or email?

Alex de Vigan 27:41

Yeah, this is this, again, is a great, great question. And so this is kind of the trick of the solution is that we are Nfinite, we believe that we need to make it as simple as possible for the business our clients to use our solution. So if we come in, and we ask you for things that you don't have, like, say I need 120 pictures of the product doesn't work. If I say me, the video of the product doesn't work, either. If I if I say to you, you need to send me the physical product, it doesn't work any any. So what we do is receive the product information that the client has, it can be one visual one, one picture from a Chinese supplier, it's sufficient, it's sufficient to create a 3d model that is not perfect. And that you will only be able to use in a sink the same shot that you sent us, but it's possible, you have three pictures, then you have an 80% accurate 3d model. If you send us five, picture the product I mentioned, then you have a 99.9% accurate, 3d visual. The idea is we're doing merchandising and marketing. We're not doing you know, product, configuration or specification. It's not technical. So basically, what I what I'm saying shortly is we're very, very flexible, we only need the input that the client has in its own database.

Aaron Conant 29:00

Awesome. Awesome. Love it. Um, do you keep dropping questions in there? You know, somebody talking about, you know, jewelry and correct lighting? How do you handle lighting? In that case? I would say I'll say lighting, I'd say reflectivity, uniqueness on that side.

Alex de Vigan 29:19

Yeah, so So again, I mean, they're only a great question, but this is so this is an extraordinary important question. That the limit if we take a step back the limitation of 3d until now in the in the retail world and in the eCommerce world was the photo real is why because a lot of the time you could say if this is not a real picture of a product it's it's fake because it's 3d like you know, we had in the 90s with video games. So what we do, but not it's not true anymore. So we have a 55 you know, engineering team working only on making repair material product categories. The photo Stick perfect. So and we work with for jewelry we work with we return we work with some of them. And the idea is for each and specific, you know, a product we will get and this is a kind of specific to the industry but for for highly high end product, we get a physical sample, and we scan the physical sample for example of of the gold of the we're working for bouchercon you know, perfumes, very high end perfumes, then in some for some kind of product, we have to scan the physical sample. Does that answer your question?

Aaron Conant 30:35

Yes. Yep, I think it does, um, are there. So that's one that comes through and I want to make sure that we get through all the content as well. Are there specific categories, it works better for and the next one is what is like onboarding time look like as a whole?

Alex de Vigan 30:51

Um, so. So to the so yes, the product categories, it works. So we come from at the beginning, at the beginning of the homerun Linux space works very well, the fmcg world works very well. kissmetrics works very well, the fashion industry for accessories, jewelry is, you know, leather hang and bag work very well, where today, we believe that the industry needs to work more, it means just more r&d. And we're pouring you know a lot a lot of money in r&d programs is for fashion. So what what wearables why because, again, what we believe in is in Merchandising, if you want to increase sales, you have to increase the numbers of visual, but you have to keep the same level of quality and photorealism. Today, what you see is in the 3d industry, when you put a 3d, you know, thing on on an human avatar, then you lose the photorealism. So we believe that we need, we still need a lot of work in order to make it available for the fashion wearable industry. Awesome. Love it. And just just to be you know, and in the interest of time, but what's interesting about computer generated imagery is that the difference to you know, what we've known in the real physical world, I mean, it's only 3d. So you can any image is customizable, as you see on the screen, I mean, meaning that you can display on a web page in a store on an iPad of our of a salesperson, an image, and the consumer just can just swap products in order to find or to show the product in the context, that context that relates to him. So it means that we're able by technology to customize the content for the consumer and in to fund a conversion funnel to increase sales. And the impact is dramatic. I mean, when you customize the content, you just increase the conversion rate. It's just pure mechanics. So at the end of the day, what we believe is that computer generated image imagery has enormous impact on a lot of very important things for our clients. First, its engagement, you know, you have better contact content, you have more content, you have more traffic, and more engage more clicks, more time spent on the web page, at the end of the day, you have more visual and more customized visual, better quality, more novelty, your increased sales, just, you know, again, it's mechanic at the magic of the of the virtual world is that you cut a lot of costs from the physical world. So you have to up to 10x in its cost savings. And then what I think is one of the most important thing is time to value. I mean, with technology, you can just create an a visual in seconds, you don't have to wait for the physical product, you don't have to wait for the logistics. It's just almost immediate. And so at the end of the day, it's a list of some of our clients. It's specifically, you know, mainland Europe, for the presentation purposes, but it's large retailers in Europe. And basically what we're seeing is that they're just, you know, pouring more skews in the platform, because they're just working with us. They're saving time I mean with CGI, not guilty with us. But with, you know, computer generated imagery. They're saving time they're saving cost, they're creating more imagery, so they've been getting more sales. So the only thing they're keep on doing is pouring more more skews or more product reference into machines to create more and more and more revenues. what we believe is that the CGA way the CGI wave sorry, is only at the beginning. We believe that today it's something that is pretty much interesting time to market for the big brands, big enterprise. But for us the big big market is for the small and medium SMBs and the boutique at the at the end of the day, because we really believe that the pain again, you have the smaller You are the bigger the paint. The smaller the you are, the more dependent you are on third party visuals, which means that you're a small boutique and Miracle on Shopify. You sell a product. And you have exactly the same constant as all your competitors. We buy technology we enable to create uniqueness around a product with the visual content that merchandise.

Aaron Conant 35:14

means they have the budgets to write. I mean, that's the flip side. Yeah, yeah. Massive budgets at the Walmart level. Yeah, for sure.

Alex de Vigan 35:22

Exactly. But yes, they have massive budget, but they don't have if you report it to a purse queue basis, the budget are not so enormous. I mean, it's just I mean, it's enormous budget, but they have so many skews that at the end of the day, would they spend more than I don't know, $500 per skew, I don't I mean, it would be even more than what they're spending today. And what we believe is that again, it's the beginning of the of a new era. Today, technology enables to match and satisfy existing pain, which is they need more visual to increase their sales. By doing this with CGI, they digitize their catalog, enabling new use cases. Again, animation, front end customization, client visual customer customization, retargeting AV testing collaborations. So I think that it's only the beginning. And I really believe that we're coming from a world where physical limits, we're capping a lot of marketing possibilities, and that with technology, we're enabling to uncap this to enable to create more and more performances on it this is my last slide is division is this works for merchandising, so on the website and dependent catalogs, and stores, but I really believe that even tomorrow in the marketing by plugging this technology directly in the marketing, you know, giants, you know, the Snapchat the TIC tocs, to Facebook to Instagram. I think this is where we will uncap a lot of possibilities again.

Aaron Conant 36:56

Yeah. Awesome. I love it. I mean, the other thing that comes to mind is, you know, the this idea of the metaverse, so if we fast forward five years, and you've got a Google Oculus, and you're putting it on, like that is a real thing, that Facebook's looking at their own silo, Amazon's looking at a silo, Google's looking at a silo of you can enter into that. And there'll be retail stores in there with photo realistic, you know, an actual 3d realistic products in that virtual real world as a whole. So I completely agree like this is where it's going into have that not have the digital assets or the ability to manipulate them as quickly as possible. You know, it's gonna, it's almost gonna be table stakes within a year or two, I think is that you have the same way. And reminder, everybody can drop questions into the question section there, keep emailing them to me great questions coming over?

Alex de Vigan 37:57

Yeah, yeah, I think so. But my, I think my point of view on this is yes, I really believe that this is the future. But on on the opposite side, I also believe that the time to market for like these kind of new experiences is not right now. I mean, what what are retailers, the brands, the eCommerce players need right now is just visual content, whether videos, photos, are 360 or animation. I think that by enabling them with technology, which is the CGI technology to solve their existing pain today, you will be at the first you know, spot, the best spot for tomorrow's new need that will come but today are not accurate. I mean, today, there is no proof that if you put a nickel close mask, you increase your sales, it's just that it doesn't the market, the eCommerce, you know, marketing side of it, the data is not there yet, it will come for sure for me that but today, it's not there yet.

Aaron Conant 38:57

So a couple of more questions that come along. You know, how long does it take to implement something like this? The next question is, where's it funded out of it? Because then we talked about at the beginning of the call, and I hear this all the time. It's like, my budgets tapped.

Alex de Vigan 39:12

Right. That's the reality. Yeah, very interesting question. So on the onboarding time, I mean, it's very, it's very quick. I mean, I think you know, by it depends on the numbers of skews, but the magic of the solution is that an any kind of solution like that is that you start with a bundle of products, you test that, usually you like it, because you save money, you save time and you create more visuals, you increase sales, and you say, Okay, I want to I want to go, I want to go bigger, and then you say, Okay, I want to put out 10% 20% 30% of my excuse, but you can be you can start with the solution in less than four weeks. even less than that maybe even in two weeks. Now, if you want to unboard 10,000 products directly in the machine, then we will need to set up. I mean, this will take more time. But be reassured This is the the most time efficient solution in the industry, because it's an end to end, you don't need to have the physical product, you don't need to have the 3d products, you only need to have the product information. So does that answer the onboarding question? Well, or want to

Aaron Conant 40:18

know, I think it answers it perfectly. I think there's two phases to it, which is, Hey, is there like this trial phase that you can get into? Right? And then what is the onboarding? And then the other one, though, is is the budget piece? Where does the budget come from? You know, because Is it the content budget is a marketing team? Is it anyways? I'll kind of pause there and the answer.

Alex de Vigan 40:43

Yeah. So again, this is a great question. But this is very different from clients or clients. What what we believe is that this, this is a new technology, this is a new solution. So in order to, you know, to evangelize it, and to make it, you know, the solution for the standard for tomorrow, we need to tap an existing budget. So we want to say, Okay, what what were you spending last year for visual content, and we want to say, okay, we will divide this or reduce this by X percent. So now, where it comes from, usually, it's the marketing visual content marketing budget, but it could come from yours, sometimes to the E merchandising, which is close, but could be a different could be from the media could be so it's very different. But the idea is not to increase the budget, it's to decrease it from what clients were spending last year, to something that is, you know, more cost efficient, and at the end of the day, they will spend same amount, but they will create so much more visual that they will get so much more sales.

Aaron Conant 41:43

Do you find it like from a predictability standpoint, that, you know, people are generating more content in a more consistent basis? Or, you know, testing more often to find a better answer or a more engaging ad or product detail page? You know, they're like, they these are the key things that we see, like people just, you know, over indexing on is a benefit of going, you know, was was CGI.

Alex de Vigan 42:15

Yeah, I really believe that it's exactly this. I mean, when when they use this day, just don't think the same way. Before they were thinking, Oh, I have I have $1,000 How many? What can I create? Oh, I will create, you know, five shots, a silo and an ambience. Now, they don't say that to say, for each of my product, what do I need to increase my so I need seven visuals, three close ups, and I want to see my product in three different contexts. So they're more they're more thinking not on a budget constraint, but more on what's the output they want to achieve. So they're saying, okay, I for to be my, and they're working mainly by product categories. So they start by one, five categories, and they say, okay, for this, I need a 360 spin, I need, you know, three ambiens per product, and on the on the another product category would be different. But yes, they are much more creating much more visuals, because they understand that on the product page, the more immersive the product page is, the better the conversion rate, the lower the returns, because the consumer is reassured when when he is shopping online.

Aaron Conant 43:25

Are there like key things that you thought might come up in questions today? Or, you know, everybody, we have time for a few more questions here. But are there key things that come up over and over again, that you're like, Hey, I thought my we might address today or might be important for brands who are trying to manage this, whether it's, you know, from the cost side, whether it's the, you know, collaboration with other brands? Or I can try to think you know, of other things that have come up in, you know, in my conversations?

Alex de Vigan 43:57

Yeah, well, first of all, I think we had a amazing question, because a lot of the topics that we usually have with our clients or prospects, I mean, were asked as a, you know, what do you need to create the 3d models? Do you need, you know, the physical props? So, this is this this was answered on the cost basis. Also, it's very important to this topic or where the budget comes from, how much it will increase. The interesting part of this, which I mentioned is that by with CGI, who will shift you or digitize their your product catalog, why reducing cost, which is kind of a revolution in the industry? I think something we may be did not really touch although I there was a great question about who's you know, using this solution, and whether internal or is it internal or external is how this impacts the operational, you know, processes existing processes of the client. And this this question is pretty tricky, because each client is different. The idea it's is that it's very modular. So either you With only one brick, let's say the 3d modeling part, you don't think that you don't use the publishing part you want to add to be used internally. So you have, like, you know, a product owner for the for that for this solution, which is kind of we think it's the time to market is that right? We'll take one of two years prior to this, you want to use, you know, our accounts to do it, which is mainly what our clients do, or you want to have agencies using it. So it's very flexible, but the idea is not to change, you know, to burden the operational processes, it's to simplify it

Aaron Conant 45:31

very much. I mean, the other thing that comes to mind here, is that kind of like, you know, triangle, right? Time, cost quality, right, you get, you can pick two of the three. Right, and you guys seem to have kind of connected those, those three, you know, from a content, you know, point of view. You know, your thoughts on that is, I can see you guys fitting into that space really well.

Alex de Vigan 46:03

Yeah, yeah, we believe and this is why also we, we a lot of there are a lot of things that we decide not to do, because we believe that we're losing one of them. And one of the three pillars that you just mentioned, either the the quality, the the the pricing, or the timing, or the scalability of it. So further, therefore, and yes, I really think that this is the promise. And this is also why we decide today that fashion is not I mean, wearables passion is not today yet to be industrialized and put into platform.

Aaron Conant 46:37

Awesome. Love it. The is there over a question come in, is there an overall like, cost savings that you would bring in? So I think people are trying to do that budget analysis and say, Hey, I spent $100,000, I spent a million dollars on content last year, I just spent $30,000, on a on a photo shoot, you know, is there a rough estimate? You know, it's kind of the question that's out there as people are trying. Okay, so not to pin you down here. But maybe that's a better, you know, follow up question as a whole.

Alex de Vigan 47:07

But this is a great question. And this is, again, it's great, because it's complex answer, because it's very different on different two different things. First thing is, what kind of content are you talking about? I mean, for example, if you if you're Walmart, and you're saying to me, can I save cost on silos, which is product on white background? That will, I will say no, because these are offered by your providers. So you know, so this is kind of a kind of content. So depending on the type of content and depending on the scale you have, because, of course, the bigger the units, the bigger the economies, I mean, the cost saving saris, but usually, we see that at least it's 20%. And it can go up to 890 percent. For example, if you're used to creating, you know, product and context, you you have to have a photoshoot where you rent plays, then you you save up to 90% Yeah, 90 90% cost saving, if it just for sales, you will out you will save, depending on how much you know, imagery you create, but it's Yeah, from 20 to 90%. So it's very difficult to answer because it depends on your budget, it depends on the type of content and the way you scale.

Aaron Conant 48:20

Man, awesome. Do you see people on the 3d, you know, side, you just think about, you know, the global economy as a whole, you know, translation, everything else, a 3d image, you know, kind of answers a ton of questions there. Do you see people leveraging you that way, as well? Um, I'm sorry, I didn't quite get this. You know, you think about from an international standpoint, a lot of people have a lot of brands right now looking to expand globally, right. And if you have a 3d image, it's, you know, an image is worth 1000 words. And so when you think about translation, when you think about everything a story can be told in a 3d image. Do you have people using you that way as well?

Alex de Vigan 49:05

You mean to to use No, like a lifestyle for a 3d image and to be able to customize it to different geographical location? Is that your your quest? Yeah, right. Yeah, sure. I mean, we have a an amazing American clan that having though I mean, they're in I don't know, 100 countries, and one of their biggest pain is saying, you know, I need to customize my content. I mean, my my content to showcase my I don't know my toothpaste in Oklahoma, it cannot match my someone in Taipei in Taiwan. So yes, CGI is is I think it's, it's where you nailed the heart of the UN. The goal of the CGI is we're enabling customization for segment for a demographic geographic, the targeted audience that were completely, you know, achievable prior to us and something I think, and I didn't mention, but I think is a great paradox is when you go into a store In New York, or in San Francisco, or in Paris, or in Moscow, I mean, the merchandising is very different. You will you would not have the same store in these cities. Well, the weird thing is where you are online, it's the same website, it's the same images that you get, because the companies do not have, you know, the budget, the team to shoot different, you know, to adapt their online merchandising to their online target audience. This is what CGI, you know, brings undertake?

Aaron Conant 50:30

No, I love it. Because I know a lot of this, this focus has been on, okay, my direct consumer site, maybe it's based in the US, but then all the advertising that I have to do, but remember, it's on a global scale, right, which is what you're pointing out is that comes in incredibly expensive to repeat all of that with different assets, you know, globally and or reconstruct an ad that's appropriate for the culture that you're advertising in. Awesome. Absolutely. Love it. So we've got about a minute and a half here. You know, and, you know, really quick, you know, thanks, Alex, for your time today, I'm gonna kick it over to you for for key takeaways. But also, you know, anybody on the line today, I'm sure we can probably get a copy of this deck to you, you know, well, well, you know, touch base with Alex, for sure. But, you know, these guys, a great friends, partner, supporters of a lot of different brands in the network as a whole. They're doing some pretty amazing stuff in this space. And I think it's incredibly relevant for you know, a ton of brands out there from the conversations I'm having. So I'd encourage anybody, you know, set a follow up, call with Alex or mark, or whoever it might be, it's worth 30 minutes for sure. Just to see what they're doing the impact they can they can have on your budget as a whole. And so it's worth the time, and 100% worth it. But Alex, I'll kick it over you for some key takeaways here.

Alex de Vigan 51:52

Yeah, well, thank you very much. So the key takeaways for me is, thank you very much for this amazing questions. Is that Yeah, the industry is changing, because the consumers trends are changing, and they just need more visuals. And for more visuals, you need to be you know, able, as a business to undertake the visual production that you need to customize the visual, talk to your audience and improve your sales. And for this, there is only no auto solution that they take technology. And I really think that today is is a very interesting period for for visual content production.

Aaron Conant 52:26

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks, Alex. Thanks for being such great friends, supporters of you know, VW G and in a lot of different brands in the network as a whole. And with that, we're going to wrap up again, encourage anybody have a follow up conversation, we can connect with them and get you a copy of the deck. I hope everybody has a fantastic Wednesday, a great rest of the week. Look for a follow up email from us. We'll be in touch look forward to have you at a future event. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah, already.