The State of Content Management

What a difference a year makes! From a newsworthy hot topic to a tool being implemented into content management processes, artificial intelligence (AI) is finding its place in the daily lives of CPG professionals. In 2023, 46% of respondents in our survey were very familiar with the available AI tools, yet they demonstrated cautiousness in integrating them into their content management strategies. At the time, 3-in-5 reported experimenting with using AI to support visual content creation and measurement. However, none of the professionals surveyed had fully integrated the available tools into their internal processes. A year later, more than 2-in-5 say AI is fully integrated to support content measurement and optimization and one-third are using AI tools at least half the time to support these efforts.This year’s “State of Content Management” report, executed in collaboration with Vizit, shares details about how the surveyed brand, retailer and agency professionals are leveraging AI, their concerns about the technology and how they plan to continue to implement tools in 2024 and beyond.Current Usage of AI With the reported increase of AI integration in content management, the question is: in what aspects of the process are respondents seeing the most value?The greatest percentage (25%) of surveyed professionals currently utilize AI to support creative ideation and concept development. Furthermore, at least half of the organizations plan to use AI to support content ideation, testing and measurement/ optimization in the future. For those debating whether to use AI, the survey reflects that 25% to 33% of respondents across usage areas have no plans to leverage AI, at this time.For those apprehensive about the technology, the quality and authenticity of content (50%), ability to demonstrate ROI (36%), and losing control over the creative process (29%) top their areas of concern. Data privacy, liability concerns, such as copyright infringement, and ethical considerations as well as content lacking originality are top of mind for 21% of CPG marketing professionals.Digging deeper into the full integration of AI, content measurement and optimization leads the way. As previously stated, 2-in-5 respondents say AI is fully integrated into the process with one-third using AI tools at least half the time to support their measurement and optimization efforts.The beneficial AI selling point for brands, retailers and agencies is greater efficiency. Approximately 58% of the surveyed professionals are most excited about using AI to create content faster and with fewer resources. “AI allows for rapid analysis of data and quickly generates multiple iterations and concepts for us to then work from,” says one professional. “It saves substantial time.”Another respondent adds, “There’s no substitute for human thinking, but especially when it comes to more rote tasks — i.e., putting a product image on a different background — I think AI is a huge efficiency unlock for us.”CPG marketing professionals know the high demands and expectations around content creation, so speed seems to be a priority. The respondents recognize the ability of AI tools to streamline and expedite workflow so they can create content faster, move through the process swifter and reach project completion quicker. In addition to process efficiencies, organizations are excited about the potential for AI to help generate new ideas (24%), optimize content (20%) and provide better reporting and analytics (18%).While brands, retailers and agencies are excited about the breadth of benefits AI offers their organizations, some have realized the positive impact. Increased efficiency and productivity (75%) and expediting processes and enabling faster turnaround times (61%) top the list of realized benefits.Supporting Content ManagementFor those looking to understand how organizations integrate AI tools for content ideation, testing, and measurement and optimization, the survey asked respondents about specific use cases. In terms of creative ideation, 68% use AI tools to generate ideas and briefs, while 64% generate concept images. When thinking about areas to leverage AI in the future, 66% have plans for content optimization.From a content testing perspective, there is consistency between current and predicted usage. Most organizations are focused on using tools to generate recommendations during testing, understand the impact of design concepts on KPIs, and support content editing and optimization.When it comes to current practices supporting measurement and optimization efforts, responses varied across a wide array of areas, including:Creating targeting strategiesMeasuring product detail page performanceOptimizing creative in-flightOptimizing targeting in-flightSupporting retargeting effortsDynamically personalizing content in-flightMeasuring content effectiveness post-flightMeasuring content effectiveness in-flightOptimizing content for future use post-flightMeasuring and analyzing social media sentimentCreating audience exclusion strategiesCreating targeting strategies topped the list of current practices at 63%. The greatest percentage of respondents plan to use AI tools for measuring content effectiveness in-flight in the future (58%). Using AI to create audience exclusion strategies is the application of least interest, currently and in the future at 25%.Comparing AI to Other Tools/ServicesAs brands, retailers and agencies continue to explore how to effectively integrate AI, understanding the other tools and tactics supporting the content management process provides a greater perspective. Starting with content ideation, industry professionals reference using brainstorming sessions, search engine tools, consumer studies and digital content design tools to support this step in the process. However, less than 1-in-5 say these are highly effective.In the case of content testing, traditional A/B testing (73%) and consumer research (72%) are common practices. While 60% view the tools and tactics in this category as somewhat effective, only 21% say these are highly effective. Similarly, organizations leverage a variety of tools to measure and optimize their content, such as website analytics (73%), social media analytics (64%) and sales data (61%). Once again, most say these resources are only somewhat effective.These results demonstrate ample opportunities for AI to improve the content management process. Furthermore, when asked to rate the effectiveness of AI compared to other tools, respondents believe it delivers value. In particular, 100% of the professionals find AI somewhat (81%) to significantly more (19%) effective for content performance measurement and optimization.Translating the value of AI into real time, half of retailers, brands and agencies say it will save 2-plus days on their creative ideation process. Nearly 60% say the same for content testing and measurement/optimization. With respondents highlighting the importance of efficiency, these time-saving estimates give CPG marketing professionals something very real to think about as they contemplate plans for future integration.Future Plans to Leverage AIThere has been a shift in AI opinions and habits from 2023 to 2024 with momentum building. More than half of the participating organizations say they plan to further leverage the AI tools they are currently using throughout the year. Furthermore, around 2-in-5 say they will use AI with additional retailer-specific teams and/or additional brands in their portfolio.Respondents believe AI will continue to improve creativity, support content personalization and optimization, and help their teams realize greater efficiencies. We shall see what difference another year makes.