The second panel session of the day discussed the integration of user-generated content (think customer reviews, etc) into internet initiatives. The panel featured: Brian Platter - General Manager, Home Delivery, Peets Coffee and Tea, Carol Snyder - VP Internet Merchandising, Community, & Multichannel QVC.com. Terry Nelson - Director of Marketing, Fair Indigo and Darren Schott - Senior Director E-Commerce, Blair LLC.

Brian served as the moderator/intro for the session. Brian provided some background notes, keying off of Wal-Mart’s recent foray into UGC. Wal-Mart is doing a tremendous job marketing the fact that they have reviews, but what is being done with them?

In the case of Peets Coffee, their founder recently died. The company user their blog as an online memorial for Alfred Peet. The comments they received were incredibly inspiration and built a deeper connection with the brand.

Terry Nelson with Fair Indigo discussed the documentary the developed to showcase some of the jewelry makers in other markets. Once the documentary was created, begin to leverage an experience around that. Allow people to share their experiences

Next up was Darren Scott from Blair who talked about the multi-channel aspect of customer reviews. Once they started receiving customer reviews, the catalog copywriters loved the content. The copywriters are constantly scouring user comments to learn new ways to describe products and how they are used. In this way, content that was generated online is now used in print.

The final panelist was Carol Snyder from QVC.com. Carol showed how QVC is using online polls to drive discussion on the broadcast program. They also link their polls to groups of products. The conversion rate for products linked to polls is anywhere between 15% and 20%.

QVC also looks to the discussion in the forums to determine who they can taylor their traditional broadcast sell.