The consumer packaged goods (CPG) category has seen tremendous growth thanks to ecommerce. Learn how Nestlé, one of the world's largest food companies, quickly pivoted and accelerated its digital transformation by leaning into shoppable commerce to drive digital purchases. Watch Industry Voices Spotlight on CPG with Alicia Enciso, CMO of Nestlé USA.

NewFronts recap: Exclusive content on ad-supported platforms, shoppable shows, and creator-driven video content on social media were three major trends we saw at the NewFronts this past week.

The rest of the world is waking up to the potential of shoppable livestreams, but it’s old news to China’s short-form video players and ecommerce platforms. Short-video leaders Douyin (TikTok’s sister app) and Kuaishou (known outside of China as Kwai) have been expanding their social commerce operations, not just to sell products, but to provide services and other forms of content as well.

Social commerce is at the nexus of media-commerce convergence, a much larger and more powerful trend. One outgrowth of the past decade’s shift from mass to addressable media is that brands can efficiently find and aggregate niche audiences while shortening their path to purchase. It makes sense that there would be efforts to explicitly commercialize media content by making it shoppable.

Nearly all of the publishers we spoke with cited the massive popularity of shoppable livestreams in China as an example. For instance, Lepore said Hunker might engage influencers to host shopping livestreams on Instagram, as a way of helping publisher commerce content franchises grow omnichannel. “We might do that with our gift guide later this year,” he said.

There are lots of bigger experiments to make TV and video more shoppable. NBCUniversal debuted shoppable TV ads during the 2019 French Open with Lacoste as the pilot sponsor, and the media conglomerate added a direct checkout feature for shoppable content in April 2020.

eMarketer senior analyst at Insider Intelligence Ross Benes discusses Netflix's Q4 earnings and market position. He then talks about whether lesser-known streaming services can make some noise, YouTube's shoppable videos, and how Peacock's exclusive streaming deal with WWE Network can make its content offering more attractive.

The company’s Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Newfronts presentation this year highlighted new shoppable video formats that allow viewers to add to cart, buy now, and so forth, by using their voice or an Amazon Fire TV remote to interact with the ads.

Shopify has had a long-standing relationship with the video app—the ecommerce provider recently launched a pilot program that lets merchants enable more shoppable content on TikTok. Social commerce is booming beyond TikTok as well—Square’s rival PayPal recently forged a partnership with “link in bio” social media service Linktree to let creators take direct payments on Linktree globally.

The big shoppable video platforms in China, such as Taobao Live and JD Live, are parts of giant ecommerce companies situated within super-apps. Other digital devices may also capture a big portion of new shopping channels. By 2023, we expected “other connected devices,” primarily connected TV (CTV), will account for 1:49 in time spent per day for the average US adult.

Amazon featured shoppable CTV video ads in its IAB Digital Newfronts presentation, for example. And Walmart offers activations including the ability to sponsor placements across in-store TV walls—a unique option that combines the branding possibilities of a large digital out-of-home ad with the fact that shoppers are already in-store and can be directed to purchase a product right then and there.

As Facebook continues to hone its Shops platform and the others improve their checkout functionality and publish more shoppable ads, it will be easier and easier for new social buyers in Australia to embrace the concept. As we have seen with ecommerce overall, once a shopping option becomes mainstream, if often develops a momentum of its own.

The platform is expanding rapidly: Last week, it announced the launch of three new shoppable shows and hosted the first virtual Sneaker Con. On the corporate side, its first CMO will join the company on July 1. How it works:.

Shoppable Video. A December 2020 Bazaarvoice survey of more than 1,500 US adults found that shoppable images or videos were more influential in generating a conversion than any other type of social media content. Live Shopping. Live shopping in the US remains a negligible contributor to mcommerce growth, but that could change in the future.

Though social commerce conversions will remain a challenge, the mid-funnel opportunity is growing. Instagram’s continued rollout of shoppable content features is helping brands and influencers spotlight product content and forge a better path to purchase. Pinterest has also introduced features to make it easier for retailers to upload and promote product content. And video-first platforms Snapchat and TikTok are both testing shoppable content features.

From shoppable content to livestreaming commerce, brands are increasingly tapping creators to help drive their social commerce goals. As influencers prove their ability to drive sales as well as brand awareness, we expect brands to invest more money into influencer marketing.

The news: Pinterest rolled out a new Shopping List feature that automatically collects a user’s saved shoppable Product Pins in one place and notifies them about price changes.

Snap launched shoppable AR in Canada in 2018, allowing advertisers to develop custom lenses designed to engage users and lead them to click through to retail sites.

Shoppable Tweets. In early March, Twitter confirmed to TechCrunch that it was testing shoppable tweets. The new format includes a large “Shop” button that links out to an ecommerce product page and also features product details integrated into the tweet itself. Twitter added that the new feature will be for organic posts, not ads.

Led by platforms like Alibaba's Taobao, Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok), and Kuaishou, shoppable livestreaming is by some estimates already a multibillion-dollar industry.

Marketer Takeaway: Shoppable videos are the next frontier for social commerce, and Facebook wants to cash in on the trend. But it’s got some competition: TikTok also debuted its first shoppable livestream in August with Ntwrk, a home shopping network geared toward Gen Z. In mid-December, Walmart also hosted a live shopping experience on the platform.