JULY 15, 2024
A month ago, the partnership agreement between Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews (now 1WorldSync) expired. Since then, we’ve received a few questions so I wanted to write this article and bring clarity around why we decided to not renew that arrangement and our ongoing efforts for making authentic user-generated content (UGC) available for consumers regardless of where they are shopping.
When making this important decision, there were three key principles that guided us – Bazaarvoice’s mission, values, and commitment to an open network. Before diving into the details of the recent partnership change with PowerReviews/1WorldSync, I’d like to expand on how each of these principles shaped our thinking.
Three guiding principles to our decision
Bazaarvoice’s mission
For over 19 years, Bazaarvoice has been dedicated to ensuring the success of the world’s leading brands and retailers to drive revenue, extend reach, gain actionable insights, and create loyal advocates. Critical to this success is brands’ and retailers’ ability to deliver the right content to their consumers at the right time wherever they may be on their shopping journey. Recognizing this, Bazaarvoice was inspired to create the Bazaarvoice Network. Through significant effort and investment over the past two decades, Bazaarvoice has built our network of over 14,000+ brands and retailers, with over 200,000 connections between them – enabling brand user-generated content (UGC) to be syndicated (i.e., delivered to and displayed on) to retailer product detail pages where it is viewed by 2.3 billion monthly shoppers. The Bazaarvoice Network is integral to fulfilling our company mission–to build smarter shopper experiences across the entire customer journey.
Bazaarvoice’s values
Two of Bazaarvoice’s core company values are of special significance when it came to making this decision:
- Customer is key – We see our own success through our customers’ outcomes. We approach every situation with a customer-first mindset.
- Transparency and integrity build trust – We believe in the power of authentic feedback. It’s in our DNA. We do the right thing when faced with hard choices. Transparency and trust accelerate our collective performance.
Bazaarvoice’s commitment to an open network
Almost a decade ago, we decided we could provide even greater benefit to our customers and their consumers if we were to accept quality content from other (non-Bazaarvoice) UGC providers who aligned with our mission and values–in other words, by operating an “open network.” Of course, we needed to ensure that the integrity of the network we worked so hard to create and grow would not be compromised, so we established the Bazaarvoice Partnership Program, which sets standards and processes governing the syndication of UGC collected by qualified partners (including Bazaarvoice competitors) into the Bazaarvoice Network. Through our Partnership Program, we are able to provide even greater benefit to our brand and retailer customers while preserving the value of the network for ourselves and our customers.
Participation in the Bazaarvoice Partnership Program is a privilege that brings great value to our partners as well–value they are able to enjoy without having invested the time and resources (human and financial) into building the network. Preserving the value of Bazaarvoice’s open network for brands, retailers, partners, and consumers requires careful vetting of potential partners and ongoing vigilance to ensure they follow the Partner Program guidelines and remain aligned with Bazaarvoice’s company values.
Applying these standards, we have declined some potential partners’ requests to join the Program. Likewise, we have elected not to renew several partners’ agreements for the same reason. Whenever a partner-provider contributing content to the Bazaarvoice Network does not follow our processes or fails to meet our standards and values, our ability to drive value for brands, retailers and consumers, becomes compromised and we are compelled to take action.
The choice we made
For the past several years, Bazaarvoice has had a partnership arrangement with PowerReviews (now 1WorldSync) whereby we allowed brands who use them as their ratings and reviews and/or sampling provider, to syndicate UGC to the retailers in the Bazaarvoice Network under a network distribution agreement between Bazaarvoice and the brand. Under the partnership agreement, we also delivered UGC Bazaarvoice collected for our brand customers to PowerReviews for syndication to retailers in their network. PowerReviews did not require a separate agreement with Bazaarvoice brands before accepting their content.
Historically, this partnership worked well and was mutually beneficial for Bazaarvoice, PowerReviews and our respective and mutual customers. However, in the months following 1WorldSync’s acquisition of PowerReviews in August 2023, 1WorldSync took a number of actions and made statements that caused our customers considerable frustration and anxiety, including:
- Telling Bazaarvoice brand customers whose content was being syndicated to the PowerReviews/1WorldSync network that they were required to enter into a syndication agreement with and pay a fee to 1WorldSync. In doing so, they falsely implied that this was required by the partnership agreement between Bazaarvoice and 1WorldSync when in fact, that agreement prohibited them from imposing such new conditions on Bazaarvoice brand customers whose content had been syndicating to PowerReviews before June 2023.
- Telling Bazaarvoice they would not fulfill commitments PowerReviews had made in the partnership agreement to upgrade the content delivery mechanisms between Bazaarvoice and PowerReviews.
- Delaying delivery of content from Bazaarvoice brands to 1WorldSync retailers (again without advance notice) and stating they would not prioritize resuming syndication of these brands’ content unless they paid 1WorldSync a fee. This action directly and negatively impacted 1WorldSync/PowerReviews’s own retail customers who were unable to receive fresh content from Bazaarvoice’s many brand customers who sell products in their stores.
Because of these unpredictable actions and their impact on both our customers (and theirs), Bazaarvoice made the business decision that it would not renew the partnership with 1WorldSync/PowerReviews when it expired on June 8, 2024. Bazaarvoice announced this decision to 1WorldSync and our respective and mutual customers on March 28, 2024, so as to give all parties time to prepare for the transition. As we indicated in our announcement, the result of our decision is that, after June 8th, no new content from Bazaarvoice brands will flow from Bazaarvoice to the 1WorldSync network and likewise, Bazaarvoice will not enter into any new network distribution agreements with 1WorldSync/PowerReviews brands (of course, Bazaarvoice will continue to honor network distribution agreements with 1WorldSync/PowerReviews brands entered into before the March 28th announcement until those agreements expire).
Your choice matters
Bazaarvoice will continue to have an “open network,” accepting content into our network from qualified ratings and reviews and sampling providers who participate in the Bazaarvoice Partnership Program and share our same commitment to customer success and the highest standards of authenticity and content moderation; it’s just that 1WorldSync/PowerReviews is no longer one of those partners.
We recognize this may cause short term challenges, but candidly, they are the result of 1WorldSync’s actions. We believe the better and simpler approach is for content to flow directly between parties without relying on such a volatile and unreliable partnership, giving us greater confidence in service delivery. To this end, we have developed solutions by which Bazaarvoice can deliver our brands’ content directly to 1WorldSync retailers with minimal effort on their part. 1WorldSync brands also have options for getting their content into the Bazaarvoice Network through Bazaarvoice or another provider in Bazaarvoice’s Partnership program.
Again, we recognize that brands’ and retailers’ success depends on their ability to deliver the right content to their consumers at the right time wherever they may be on their shopping journey. To make sure this continues to happen, we recommend the following actions:
- Bazaarvoice brand customers: We encourage you to contact your retailers who no longer receive syndicated content from Bazaarvoice and express your desire for them to begin receiving content directly from Bazaarvoice as soon as possible. As mentioned, we have solutions for automated delivery with minimal effort on their part. The alternative is for you to undertake a cumbersome manual process proposed by 1WorldSync with delivery occurring only at comparatively long intervals.
- Bazaarvoice retail customers: We encourage you to reach out to your brands who no longer syndicate content to you through Bazaarvoice expressing your desire for them to begin sending that content again through Bazaarvoice or another provider in Bazaarvoice’s Partnership program.
When brands and retailers engage with Bazaarvoice (or a qualified partner) directly, they will be able to take full advantage of the Bazaarvoice Network, and to resume content syndication reliably and without interruption.
Emma Maddison-Dahdah
Senior VP, Customer Success