May 2023 Summaries

The Storylines tour and documentary on "The New Art of Storytelling" aimed to explore the personal connections businesses build with their customers, highlighting how partners like Diptyque, Google, Vaimo, Fredericia, AKQA, Commerce Layer, Shell Energy, Twilio Segment, and Vercel are tapping fresh ways to reach audiences globally. Attendees learned about the importance of context in delivering content and creating meaningful change, as exemplified by Diptyque's heritage-driven approach and Fredericia Furniture's journey to building digital experiences that unlock their brand expression online. Representatives from luxury brands like Shell Energy NL shared insights into data-driven personalization strategies, while Vercel discussed effective search engine optimization techniques to improve site performance and conversation rates. The event emphasized the benefits of a composable content platform in revitalizing traditional brands with rich heritage, allowing for incremental implementation and adaptation to the digital-first era.

AI is being increasingly used in content creation to automate and improve tasks, but it can also generate inaccurate or copyright-violating content if not used responsibly. To mitigate these risks, businesses should invest in tools that provide safeguards and guardrails for AI technologies, such as Writer.ai, which offers a breakthrough AI technology with an ethical approach. Responsible AI involves understanding the limitations of AI, staying up to date on security and privacy risks, and choosing an AI tech partner that prioritizes mitigating these risks. Businesses can also reduce the chances of misinformation by developing policies for AI use, using only expert topics, and having human oversight in the review process. The onus is also on AI companies to be transparent about limitations and risks, offer guidance on best practices, and invest in de-biasing and curating training data. By selecting great AI tools, setting reviews and guidelines, and checking for misinformation, businesses can reap the benefits of AI while avoiding its pitfalls.

Live preview is a new visual experience that allows content teams to accurately see content in context and optimize in real-time, ensuring creations come to life as envisioned for various experiences. It bridges the gap between technical complexities and user-friendly visualization, empowering non-technical users to see their content in action. With live preview, content teams can edit and preview on a single page, eliminate time-consuming tasks, achieve next-level creativity and productivity, and make informed decisions with confidence. The tool provides a dynamic visualization experience that shortens the process of adapting content for different experiences, allows testing and feedback, and enables easy sharing and optimization for various segments and regions.

To unlock the power of content, you need to take it out of traditional CMSes and extend its use and reach through composable content platforms like Contentful, enabling teams to distribute the right content to the right visitor on the right channel without recreating that content every time. This approach breaks down silos between different departments and empowers teams to create customer-centric experiences by structuring content for reuse across channels, making it easy to find, personalize, localize, and translate. Composable content platforms organize reusable pieces of content into models and structures, allowing teams to compose campaigns, product pages, and other experiences while providing guardrails that keep brand voice and message consistent. By doing so, you can meet customers where they are in their journey and help them get to the next step.

Content orchestration is now available beyond Contentful, allowing developers to connect content across environments and create digital experiences more easily. This expansion enables teams to access content from complex external systems, reducing manual work, maintenance, and debugging for developers. The goal of content orchestration is to enable content teams to create rich and engaging experiences on a global scale, while addressing the complexities of scaling creation and delivery of content across multiple brands, channels, and regions. Content orchestration aims to connect content sources and teams across the organization, achieving agility and efficiency in creating, managing, and delivering content with greater consistency and speed. The latest release includes pre-built integrations with third-party tools such as Shopify, SAP Commerce Cloud, and Google Analytics 4, making it easier for developers to access external PIM data and analytics tools without leaving Contentful.

The AI Content Generator is a new tool announced by Contentful that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help content teams create, translate, and save time. The tool can quickly produce on-brand content, reduce repetitive tasks like generating SEO keywords, and translate content into over 95 languages at the click of a button. This tool aims to expand and scale the creation process for content teams, providing powerful capabilities that can automate, generate, and save time. With AI Content Generator, content creators can access a range of new features in Contentful, including localized, multilingual content generation, automated SEO keyword and description generation, and reduced manual tasks like generating keywords and tags. The tool is available now for all Contentful customers and is part of the company's efforts to provide emerging AI technologies that make the content creation process easier, faster, and more fun.

The Storylines Tour 2023, organized by Contentful, brought together industry practitioners and brands to discuss the power of storytelling in an increasingly complex digital landscape. The tour kicked off in New York City with a documentary film release and featured sessions on customer communities, accessibility, personalization, and localization. Key speakers included Justin Thomas from Kraft Heinz, who emphasized the importance of becoming a "storytelling organization" to deliver memorable experiences; Josh Loebner from Wunderman Thompson, who highlighted the benefits of accessible design and provided tips for repositioning it as a "must-have"; Nikhita Sagar from TaskRabbit, who discussed personalization strategies around cohorts rather than individual users; Abby McInerney from Audible, who shared the importance of creating content that sparks wonder in customers; Taruna Sood from Google, who championed deep post-purchase content to empower customers; and Ashley Travis from KFC, who explored extending the message of belonging to internal team members. The tour will continue with stops in Paris, London, Silicon Valley, and Berlin, offering new insights and ideas on storytelling and digital experiences.

Spring is here, and so is Contentful's Spring Launch, a fresh batch of product capabilities that empower organizations to unlock the power of composable content. This update continues to earn trust with developers and elevates content teams to connect, collaborate, and scale digital experiences. New capabilities like third-party orchestration, live preview, AI-powered content generation, and pre-built integrations enable everyone in the organization to create without compromise. The focus is on working with content being clear, straightforward, and flexible for all involved, addressing complexities when organizations attempt to scale creation and delivery of content across multiple brands, channels, and regions. Live preview eliminates everyday friction encountered by editors, increasing efficiency and content quality through ease of finding and editing content as well as higher confidence. Additionally, Contentful introduces AI-powered tools like the Content Generator to quickly generate on-brand content, reduce repetitive tasks, and translate content into more than 95 languages. The update also includes a new EU data residency offering, starter templates for next.js experiences, and collaboration tools that streamline productivity and collaboration.

Moving home, whether physical or platform-based, can be daunting but offers opportunities for decluttering and fresh starts. A content management system (CMS) migration presents a chance for growth and improvement, despite challenges. To ensure success, careful planning is essential, considering factors like preserving integrity, metadata, and formatting; delivering efficiently, and ensuring seamless integration with the new system. The Contentful Learning Center offers a free interactive guide on migrating to Contentful, breaking down the process into manageable steps. A holistic content strategy should be the main focus during migration, balancing technical, editorial, and design needs for a user-friendly and technically optimized model. Planning is crucial, minimizing risks of data loss and downtime, and your success relies on scoping and planning. Professional services can provide guidance and support throughout the process to ensure a smooth transition.