How Nex Playground Turns UGC Into Marketing Assets 5x Faster Using Archive

About Nex Playground

Nex is a computer vision startup that gets families up and off the couch while playing their favorite games. When the Nex Playground console launched on Shopify in 2023, the team noticed that Nex customers didn’t just love the product, they loved talking about it on social. 

‍

Belle Liu, VP of Customer Experience at Nex, knew she needed a way to track all those mentions and repurpose UGC to keep the brand’s momentum going. That’s when she found Archive.

‍

The Challenge

In true startup style, Nex had a huge hill to climb when it came to brand awareness. The team invested in influencer early on, starting with paid ad deals. When the first Nex Playground pre-order campaign blew up, they added a gifting program.

‍

Nex Playground is naturally highly shareable because it gets kids moving around and having fun. Gameplay reels, unboxing videos, happy families… tons of priceless UGC was streaming in fast. But Nex had no way to track all those mentions, regardless of whether they were organic or paid.

“Finding a tool to keep track of content and analyze the impact of our influencer program was very important.” 

Belle wanted a way to capture, organize, and manage all her UGC visually. She went searching for a tool that was intuitive and easy to use. She saw other startup founders recommending Archive online, so she signed up and started working with Nex’s UGC on her own. 

“Being able to use the tool without going through a salesperson really helped because I could see whether it worked for me right away.”

The Solution

Nex now has eight marketing employees across the paid, performance, and social teams all logged into their workspace on Archive. 

“Archive makes collaboration much easier. I really like that I can onboard all my team members without worrying about paying extra.”

Instead of hunting down content manually on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, paid and organic UGC appears automatically in Archive. And instead of tracking who posted what in clumsy homemade spreadsheets, the Nex team can see all their content laid out in a visual repository, complete with real-time analytics.

‍

The team uses labels to organize content based on the featured game or a specific Nex Playground community, like homeschool families and neurodivergent kids. That way, when they’re ready to repurpose UGC or create an ad, finding the perfect piece of content is simple.

“If I want a piece of content showing this type of family, playing this type of game, I can easily find it.”

When Nex hosts in-person events, Archive makes it easy to capture all the social buzz that makes those events worthwhile. Then the Nex team sorts that live event content by follower count or engagement stats to identify creators worth reaching out to for their next campaign.

‍

Nex also uses Archive’s Shoppable UGC Feeds to showcase highly engaging content on their website. Whether the team is highlighting a Kung Fu Panda game or creating a landing page for kids with ADHD, they can add relevant UGC to the site in seconds. 

“It’s very easy to maintain; we don’t need to go through a technical person to update it or make changes.”

The Results

Archive helped Belle grow Nex’s program from 0 to 400 creators. At the same time, Archive’s in-depth reporting features have helped increase Nex’s influencer ROI, since they can source high-value creators, identify opportunities to deepen those relationships, and expand paid ad deals based on accurate performance metrics.

‍

Belle shares reports with the entire Nex team, showing how each campaign moves the needle compared to the brand’s baseline impression and engagement rates. This helps the team refine their campaign strategies, creative, timing, and more, increasing effectiveness over time.

‍

At the end of the day, Archive makes Nex 5x faster at utilizing UGC in marketing assets. Whenever the team is ready to create a UGC ad, design a landing page, or launch a new campaign, everything they need is right there in Archive.

‍

“Without a tool like Archive, I can't imagine how you’d run a large scale creator program.”