1. Creating a Global Content Value Chain
Dmitri Ragano
Senior Manager of Content Management, Herbalife

2. Background on Herbalife
A Leading Global Nutrition Company
• Herbalife protein shakes and snacks, vitamins and nutritional supplements,
sports, energy and fitness drinks, skin and hair care products, combined
with healthy eating and exercise, can help you live a healthy, active life.
• Publicly Traded on NYSE since December 2004
• 78 Countries
• 2.5 million independent Distributors
• 4500 employees
• Part of a $118 billion direct sales industry (worldwide)
• $4.3 billion in retail sales in 2010; net sales $2.7 billion
2

3. Herbalife is at the intersection of
three global megatrends
Global Mega Trends
Aging
Obesity Population
Under
Employment
3

4. Herbalife web properties – a global channel for our mission to
provide nutritional products and business opportunity
iChange Herbalife Sports
MyHerbalife.com Herbalife.com
4

5. My Background
• Senior Manager of Content Management and Interactive Technologies at
Herbalife
• Previously Director at Razorfish, leading Web Projects for multi-national
clients such as Sony, Charles Schwab, Nissan and Vodafone
• Five years working in Japan as translator, reporter and technology
consultant
• Screenwriter, journalist and author. Employee of the Year , a mystery
novel, published in September and available on Amazon.com
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6. Defining the Global Content Value Chain
• A strategy, organization and ongoing operational process to ensure your
content supports your goals reaching global audiences
• An understanding across the various business functions (Finance, Sales, IT,
etc.) that content is a key part of the company s brand equity and intangible
assets
• A recognition that we re all media companies now. Being a media company
means taking a disciplined approach to the creation, distribution and cost-
benefit analysis of global content operations
• A realization that everyone s a potential publisher (employees, stakeholders,
customers), so there better be a plan to train, partner and support them
around the creation and use of company content
• A culture and infrastructure that can communicate central business and
brand objectives globally, while at the same time incubating and
evangelizing content innovations that start at the local and regional level
6

7. Creating a Global Content Value Chain – where do we start?
• Why – Establishing the business drivers
behind Global Content ROI
• Who – Defining the Global Content Organization
• What – Architecting the Systems and Technology
for Global Reach
7

8. A threat and opportunity: Content audiences are growing
fastest in the developing world – ignore them at your own peril
Internet
growth
Social
Media
Key emerging markets are adding users
faster than US in Internet,
search and social media.
Top
We re opening an office in Mongolia… make
Web
sure the web sites are live with well-optimized
sites
Mongolian content.
Source: Mary Meeker, Kleiner Perkins
8

9. Global content unleashed:
the genie has officially left the bottle
Herbalife.com site on CMS-driven platform went live in first market in 2009.
By early 2011, there were more than 60 Herbalife country sites managing local content.
United States Sweden Romania Italy
Greece South Africa Korea Russia
Mongolia Argentina Vietnam Brazil
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10. Responding to the surge in global content consumption –
will you be ready when they come?
In our top ten markets alone, we ve seen a net increase of over 1 million monthly
visitors since last year
HL Country Sales Leaders MyHerbalife monthly Vs Prior Year Herbalife.com monthly visits Vs Prior Year
visits
US 1.4M 55% 492K 24%
Mexico 174K 102% 72K 38%
Korea 242K 83% 158K 70%
Brazil 222K 34% 186K 34%
Taiwan 69K 31% NA NA
India 44K 305% NA NA
Italy 109K 48% NA NA
Russia 54K 231% 54K 20%
Malaysia 38K 378% NA NA
Venezuela 79K 39% 24K 443%
10

11. 600,000+ monthly Google searches for our company
name – what information are they looking for?
Analytics, site search and other pattern
analysis to optimize global and local content
ROI
Understand
our users to
provide
only useful
content
11

12. Communicating to an audience spread across 70+ countries is a
significant investment – how will you know if your content is relevant?
Business Intelligence, Web Analytics and Content Management now exist in the same
division… once content goes global the stakes are too high to proceed without a plan for
comprehensive metrics.
Online Behavioral Analysis
Correlating Site Use to Performance
Productivity Metrics
Customer Demographics
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13. Ensuring Usability is part of the Content strategy
“ … spending 10% of your development budget on usability should improve your
conversion rate by an average of 83%.”
Jacob Nielsen
Usability
“The cost of fixing application bugs after
provides a
Development, is on average 100 times more
huge ROI by
Than before development”
means of
Human Factors International conversion,
retention and
brand
engagement
Usability Initiatives
Personas Surveys and
Analytics User Testing
Personas help everyone
Constantly listening to the Though currently Focus
involved in a project to act
end users is the only way to Groups and User Testing
with the end user in mind,
provide the tools and are not part of the standard
by providing a simple way
content our Distributors project life cycle, we are
to understand different
need to grow their promoting the incorporation
user’s motivations and
business. of testing on the early
needs. We are in the
stages of all projects.
process of creating
Personas for all major
groups at Herbalife.
13

14. Content ROI – Clarity has never been more critical
Considerations for establishing a Content Value Chain
- What are your business objectives and KPIs for global content efforts?
- What are the universal drivers?
- What variations exist at regional/local level?
- What tools will you use to measure success?
- Surveys
- Analytics
- Site search
- SEO tools
- Order/Lead funnel conversion
- Social Media
- How will you know your content resources productive and focused on the right priorities?
- Creation
- Editorial, review and approvals
- Publishing
- Technical
14

15. Creating a Global Content Value Chain – where do we start?
• Why – Establishing the business drivers behind Global
Content ROI
- Who – Defining the Global Content Organization
• What – Architecting the Systems and Technology for
Global Reach
15

16. Global online publishing – the sun never sets
100,000 publishing jobs in our Enterprise
Content System during first 6 months of 2011.
Online content sites in over 40 languages
Publishing demand doubling every 3-6 months
Peak publishing time is 2 – 4 am PST.
CMS Technical Teams:
US, Mexico, India for continuous publisher support
Content Planning/Creation/Publishing:
Corporate, Regional, Country level
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17. Wake up call at 3 a.m. – Moscow must be
launching a new homepage promotion
• Herbalife digital content activities –
publishing to site happens 24-7 worldwide:
– Overall publishing by region:
• 23% North America
• 44% Europe, Middle East, Africa
• 25 % Asia Pacific
• 8% Latin America
• Publishing calendars combine global
messaging with local/regional factors
• Centralization versus decentralization
– Ongoing experiments with a hybrid
approach
• Providing consultation for the world –
What s our SEO strategy in Mongolia?
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18. In a Web 2.0 world, everyone s a potential online publisher –
so you better have a plan to support them
• Wide range of partners in global content means wide
range of skillsets/experience that require training
resources for the content tools
• August Training Sessions (Live, Web):
• Trainings conducted: 18
• Invited: 200
• Attended: 75
• Countries represented: 28
• Video Training Library
• 7 Videos (Hours of online instruction)
• New videos monthly
• Intranet Wikis, User Surveys
• Detailed PDF Manuals for all ECM modules
• Web-based system for distributing key brand assets to
Distributors
18

19. Decentralized Model for Content Creation and Publishing
Video Corp Video
Online Video Video Content
Publishers
Production Platform Distribution
Network
Regional Video
Requests,
approvals – Publishers
shoots edits Creates streaming link,
video within metadata for video linking
HBN servers on web properties
Brand Asset Management
Corp Technical Support
Marketing for Publishing
MediaBin
Regional
Marketing
Business units
Global publish content to
web properties (text,
Content
PDF, image, Flash
Publishers and links to video
streaming)
Regional
Content
Publishers
Content Management System
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20. Centralized Model for Content Creation and Publishing
Global/Regional Web Properties
Online Content
Central DSX Publishing Hub for
Content/Video
Regional
Content
Creators
Content
Coordinator
Corporate
Content
Creators
Global/Regional Video Players
Content
Coordinator
Online Video
Request video
creation Central DSX Publishing Hub
for Content/Video
Corporate
Executive
Requestor Video
Production
Regional Video
Requestor
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21. Editorial calendar: We re all media companies now, and every
media company has a calendar for planned and ad hoc content
• Corralling your global team into a high-level content calendar is challenging,
but not impossible. In the long run it will make publishing support easier and
yield higher returns for your content strategy.
1. Enhance brand awareness (EB)
2. Protect brand reputation (PB)
3. Drive leads and sales (DL)
4. Enhance service to distributors (ES)
5. Build community (BC)
6. Enhance public relations (EP)
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22. Building the Right Glocal Content Team
Considerations for your Global – Local Organizational Model
- What roles should have central global, regional, staffing?
- Editorial strategy/planning
- Content creation
- Review/approvals
- Publishing
- Technical support
- Is there a global/regional/local division by type of content?
- Brand, corporate messaging
- Promotions campaigns
- Product launches
- Is there a global/regional calendar for publishing? – if not start one, even if it s high level
- Do marketing, creative and technical components of content management exist in an integrated group or separate
teams?
- There is no one size fits all. The right model depends on your business, culture and organization. You ll probably have
to experiment to find the best balance.
22

23. Creating a Global Content Value Chain – where do we start?
• Why – Establishing the business drivers behind
Global Content ROI
• Who – Defining the Global Content Organization
• What – Architecting the Systems and
Technology for Global Reach
23

24. Global Content is a multi-channel experience (Video, Text, Brand
Assets). Integration becomes a strategic imperative.
Video Production DAM CDN
(Digital Asset Management OVP (Online Video Platform) (Video Content Distribution
Video Production Servers) Network)
Brand Asset
Management
Images, PDF, Style Guides,
other Digital Assets
Online CMS
Enterprise Content
Management system
24

25. Core Categories and business drivers are the
foundation for taxonomy and metadata strategy
• Product (Supporting the Purchase Experience and Product Marketing campaigns)
• Events (Promote Qualification and Attendance)
• Business Methods – Nutrition Club, WLC, Recipes, Sports Sponsorships (Resources to promote
specific DMO Adoption)
• Education (Videos, Flyers, etc) (Providing various Educational materials on Ethics, Product,
Science, etc.)
• Brand and Global Messaging (Have you had your shake today? Seed to Feed, Reputation
protection) etc.
Nutrition Club
Search
Registration
Procedure
Good
Bad
Samples
25

26. A Service-Oriented Architecture was a nice to have in the past.
With the proliferation of platforms (smart phones, tablets) and
channels (social media, third party syndication) it is now essential.
Display
Services
Content
Management
A
single
display
engine
for
all
apps
Content
Services
Content
+
Rules
Events
Content
-­‐
Event
Catalogs
Join
US
Event!
MyHL
HL
DWS
Minisites
26

27. Is your content ready for a multi-device world?
Content
CollecCons
Products
SM
Health
Articles
Video Herbalife.com
Recipes
DS
Success
Stories
Sports
Articles
My Herbalife.com
HL Mobile
27

28. What s getting published out there across the world?
Ongoing surveys and reports to find the categories that are
driving publishing activity
28

29. Are the same categories driving your video content?
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30. Preparing your Content Systems for a Global Value Chain
Considerations for your Global – Local Content Systems
- What are your key systems (Content Management, Brand Assets, Video)? How will you integrate them to
maximize benefit for global audiences?
- What are the key types of content that resonate globally? Have you gone through the process of mapping
your content types to the key business objectives they serve? This is the heart of your strategy for taxonomy
and metadata.
- What will it take to move to a service-oriented architecture for your content?
- How ready is your content infrastructure for the demands of new platforms and devices? What types of
content and channels will you prioritize moving to this new post-PC world?
- How are you getting information (surveys/reporting) to understand any new trends or patterns in your content
taxonomy (including video)? How will you know if certain entities are becoming more or less dominant? How
will you know whether demand for a categories is emerging?
- What are realistic ways to take your organization where it needs to go to prepare for the future? Is there
appetite for a Big Bang approach? Or will it come incrementally, project by project, focused on the highest
value content and moving on from there?
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31. Why It s Worth It: Because you have a brand and a
message – and the world deserves to know about it
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