For brands the customer is king but their role as recommenders of products and services is the jewel in their crown. It’s why serial entrepreneur Greta Dunne is helping brands to capture customer video reviews, she tells Dentsu’s Dave Winterlich.
Just don’t call it user-generated content (UGC). UGC smacks of agencies providing scripted content for people to read. Marker Video’s proposition couldn’t be more different.
“Marker Video is CGC, customer generated content,” says Dunne. It simply rewards people – at €100 a pop – for reviewing the products they use in their daily life on video and uploading it to the platform. “We’re only dealing with customers, people who’ve actually purchased the product,” she explains.
As a solution to the growing problem audiences have with reviews that seem inauthentic or unrelatable, something that can be an issue with influencer marketing, for example. It’s a particular problem with Gen Zs, a cohort proving especially allergic to humbug.
The problem for brands is that “consumers and customers have stopped responding as well as they used to scripted content or influencer content”, says Dunne.
“Since Covid, when people got more comfortable in front of a camera, and since the TikTok revolution, brands are being forced to see what’s working – and what is selling is actual users taking about products,” she says.
That upends the current model wherein brands tell UGC agencies what they are looking for, wait a few weeks, and have scripted content recorded and sent back to them.
Marker Video is not that, she says. Best to think of it like an image bank, like Shutter Stock, only for videos.
It allows brands, retailers, hoteliers and whomever, to simply log on and see customer video reviews which they can buy, own and use in perpetuity.
“You see real videos, much like you would on TikTok, of people talking about your goods. But the difference is you can download them immediately. And crucially, the minute you purchase them, the creators are paid, instantly,” she says.
It’s a streamlined, transparent solution for something that brands have previously struggled with, not least because of different tax laws in various jurisdictions.
With Marker Video “brands don’t need to worry about the individual being paid, we’ve sorted that out. And the individual is happy with how much they are being paid and getting it straight into their bank account, with no tokens, no vouchers, just actual cash – typically $100,” says Dunn, who is targeting the US as part of her growth strategy.
Authentic voices
In a world in which artificial intelligence can leave audiences feeling sceptical, having real, verified customers speaking honestly about products is valuable but for brands, capturing such voices naturally has always been challenging.
For agencies too, finding the right people to resonate with niche demographics isn’t easy. It’s why too often they have fallen back on influencers.
Marker Video solves these problems, serving up natural content uploaded by real people, from “menopausal women, to the non-binary, to the acne prone”, it’s “the whole tapestry of humanity”, she says.
Too often brands have tried to resolve the issue themselves, asking customers to review products directly. But there is a skill in winkling out good video content, says Dunne. As a co-founder of College Times and Teen Times, both of which saw successful exits, it’s something she has years of experience in.
The new platform’s software does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of quality control, rejecting 60 per cent of videos uploaded. For example, filters ensure the person actually uses the product, they can’t just show it. “They also have to be somebody who would use that product,” she adds. Similarly, if the video review is too polished, it won’t ring true.
Over time the platform, which launched earlier this year, will be able to extract important data, such as the age of the person talking, the fact that she mentioned kids, or is breastfeeding, for example, all of which can be fed back to the brand.
All are paid the same. “It doesn’t matter if you are Cindy Crawford, you’re still getting $100 for your video. I think that’s really important. I never wanted it to be, ‘oh you’re super good looking, so you get more’ or, ‘you’ve got following, so you get more’, because that compromises the whole integrity,” says Dunne.
Anybody can log on to sign up and put their bank details in for payment, which is handled securely by third party provider Stripe. Marker Video then carries out its own know your customer checks to verify the person is real.
After that, the platform simply wants users to “open your bathroom or kitchen cabinet, take out your favourite products, do a video and send them to us,” she explains.
Its growing creator community is given tips and guidance, as well as requests for the kinds of product and brands it is most keen to cover.
“We will never give you a brief, or a script, or tell you what to say or where to be, but we will tell you what’s working, such as having good diction, making sure your voice is clear, and that there is no music or ruffling in the background,” she says.
Turn up the volume
The volume of videos that brands require is growing exponentially. “It used to be that you had to be exposed to a brand seven times before purchasing it. Now in the digital landscape, it is probably hundreds of times, because of content fatigue. So what we are looking for is loads of different types of people talking about the same product,” explains Dunne.
That is what allows Marker Video to provide brands with bundles containing thousands of videos from its content bank, if required.
The next step for Dunne is to get a Marker Video QR code on products, whether its goods from a supermarket, eating in a restaurant, or enjoying a theme park, prompting customers to upload a video review. With the prospect of $100 up for grabs, it’s an opportunity for a brand to reward customers.
Even negative reviews – while never airing – can provide valuable insights for brands, Winterlich points out.
Because the brands own the videos once purchased, they can refresh them with whatever sounds are trending on TikTok, to keep them evergreen.
For brands they are an opportunity to capture customers using products in different ways. For viewers it’s an opportunity to see “people like me” using products, says Dunne. “That’s how targeted advertising works and it is incredibly effective,” she adds.
Compared with traditional advertising for, say, women’s razors, which feature legs already so hairless as to “look like seals”, says Dunne, today it’s about showing real people, shaving genuinely hairy body parts. “We keep coming back to this word authenticity, and I just think it’s going to be even more important in future,” she says.
Ultimately her goal is for the Marker Video logo on a product to be as recognisable as TripAdvisor or TrustPilot and understood by consumers as a seal of approval.
“I want people to go, ‘Oh I love that they’re using Marker Video, that means they listen to their customers’,” says Dunne.