Product content demands are growing, but the teams responsible for meeting them often are not.
In our recent webinar, Syndigo’s Vinny Maurici, chief operations officer, and Jeff Creek, SVP of content operations, joined Phil Sundahl for a conversation about what’s driving the growing demand for product content and how teams can scale the work without simply adding more people.
Their conversation surfaced 3 practical takeaways for brands trying to keep pace with retailers, marketplaces, social commerce, and AI-assisted discovery.
Your Product Content Has to Do More Than It Used To
For years, product content was largely built for 2 destinations: the physical shelf and the product detail page.
That model is changing. Social commerce and AI-assisted discovery are creating new ways for shoppers to find and evaluate products, and those experiences can require more context than traditional search.
Consider the difference between searching for an “armchair under $600” and asking an AI assistant for “a cozy chair for a small reading nook with a cat.” The first depends largely on familiar attributes like product type and price. The second requires enough product information to address more nuanced needs, such as size, material, durability, and use case.
That means brands need to think beyond having the basic attributes needed to list a product. Specifications, descriptions, feature bullets, imagery, lifestyle content, and other contextual information can all contribute to a more complete picture of the product.
Start with Accurate Data and Strong Foundational Assets
More content does not help if the foundation is incomplete or inconsistent.
The webinar walked through how product information and assets can be created together, starting with accurate weights and dimensions and extending through photography, package panels, structured product data, CGI, 360-degree spins, 3D assets, and enhanced imagery.
That foundation becomes particularly important as AI enters the shopping experience. AI systems can draw from both structured information and digital assets when interpreting products. If important information is missing, there may not be enough context to confidently match a product to what a shopper is looking for.
The speakers’ advice was straightforward: start with accurate product information and quality standard product images, then build from there based on what your channels and customers need.
Scale the Workflow, Not Just the Team
The biggest challenge is not simply producing more content. It is producing more content across more formats and channels without multiplying the workload at the same rate.
During the webinar, Jeff shared that Syndigo’s content operations handle 2,000 to 4,000 products per week and 13,000 to 15,000 products per month. The workflow brings together data capture, photography, structured product information, CGI, 3D assets, and other content creation.
Blue Bell offered a real-world example. As the company moved from shared UPCs to individual UPCs across its portfolio, each product required its own data, descriptions, imagery, and digital assets. With hundreds of products being updated and thousands of images needed, the project timeline made it difficult to create all the required imagery through photography.
Blue Bell worked with Syndigo to use CGI for the product imagery instead. Once the underlying models, artwork, lighting, colors, and textures were established, the assets could be repeated across the portfolio. The same foundation can also support future packaging updates without rebuilding the entire process from scratch.
Build a Content Operation That Can Keep Up
The larger takeaway from the conversation is not simply that brands need more product content.
They need a way to create and manage that content as requirements continue to expand.
Start with accurate product data and foundational imagery. Identify the additional context customers and emerging shopping experiences need. Then look at where repeatable processes, technology, CGI, and external production support can take work off internal teams.
Content requirements will continue to evolve. The opportunity is to build an operating model that can keep up.
