Phillip and Brian discuss the forgettable nature of AI music. Corporations' birthdays are an essential thing that we need to care about now. Also, an update on Lammers Law: everything eventually becomes an ad. PLUS: OSHA for the MIND?? Listen now.The Right to DisconnectKey takeaways:- Amazon is scaling back its Just Walk Out technology from its Amazon Fresh grocery stores. Due to technical limitations in grocery stores, it will be constrained to airports and small-format stores.- JPMorgan's use of customer transaction data for targeted advertising highlights the increasing importance of personalized content.- AI-generated music, such as that produced by Suno AI, may lack memorability but showcases the advancements in AI technology.- The "right to disconnect" bill in California reflects the ongoing need for work-life balance in an increasingly digital world.- Corporate anniversaries are becoming a popular marketing strategy and cultural celebration for brands.{00:11:41} - “People want the friction in their local community of chatting with their checker and chatting with people that are in line and living life in their community because they probably bump into people that they know, and it's part of their daily routine or their weekly routine or whatever to engage with the people in their communities as they go about doing their business.” - Brian{00:19:32} - “We all hate this idea, but the truth is that ads, good ads, and contextual ads add to a discovery mechanism in many platforms. Good ads heighten the experience of Instagram, I would argue. The good ads on Instagram make my experience of Instagram better. I think Instagram is a little bit worse if it has no ads because I discover things.” - Phillip{00:29:35} - “In my mind, this is as good as [AI music] will ever be. It doesn't only get better from here. Maybe the fidelity gets better. Maybe it can create stems. Maybe you can do more editing. Maybe you could go in and tweak things, and you'll have more creator tools, but it doesn't mean it gets more creative over time.” - Phillip{00:41:51} - “There's a really interesting amnesiac effect with this AI-generated music is it's incredibly forgettable. There's nothing remarkable or memorable about any of it. And I almost feel the same way about all AI-generated content. AI-generated art, AI-generated writing. There's nothing memorable or remarkable about it ever. The memorable thing is the discourse around it.” - Phillip{01:04:29} - “We are getting to a point now where we're hitting Norbert Wiener's prediction around "the world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves." What we're bumping up right now against is pushing our minds further as far as they possibly can go, and there's a lot of burnout that's happening as a result.” - BrianAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

There are fewer places for kids to be kids, and there are more places for kids to parrot the behaviors and consumer preferences of the adults. This intergenerational response to culture is affecting commerce… and vice versa. Join Brian and Phillip on this special lunar edition of Future Commerce, which turns into something even more *eclipsing*.How Media Shapes Our Buying DecisionsKey takeaways:- Mimesis plays a significant role in shaping consumer trends, particularly among children who mimic their parents' brand preferences.- Multigenerational marketing is becoming increasingly important as brands strive to appeal to both adults and children in the same market.- Media has a direct impact on consumer behavior and brand preferences, as media cycles drive discourse and influence purchasing decisions.- Predictable growth rather than exponential growth should be a primary focus for businesses seeking long-term success.- The trend cycles are influenced by an inciting event, followed by discourse, backlash, and ultimately a potential counterpunch or shift in attention.{00:13:40} - “Part of the consumer education of a child has changed dramatically since the closure of Toys R Us. So I grew up in a world where there are a lot of independent toy stores or game shops, or there were franchised models of those. These were places where you could go that had very specific merchandising that was literally just for me as a kid, and it was the endless aisle.” - Phillip{00:19:13} - “You look at the Sephora Kids trend as an overarching reflection that there is a strong agreement between both older generations and younger generations about what is interesting, what's trending, what's cool, things that are exposed to different audiences, but native to those audiences in their media channels. So whether it's short form video or it's social share or messaging between friends, kids are parroting what their parents are doing…which I would say is a new form of monoculture.” - Phillip{00:25:54} - “One of the dangers of marketing to children is there is something that happens in this mimesis process where kids, when they become a certain age, want to reject the things that they did when they were children.” - Brian{00:35:39} - “The lesson to take away is that world-building has a huge effect on what we buy, and there are a lot of people out there who believe that all this stuff doesn't matter to commerce, but I think that's the whole charter of why we've made Future Commerce.” - Brian{00:36:26} - “There are a lot of ways that people and consumers expect brands to participate in the cultural discourse now, and we have to merchandise at the speed of culture. That is the job and in particular, eCommerce can move that fast. So it's expected that we do.” - Phillip{00:42:19} - “There's going to be some level of disgust that happens at some point in that mimetic cycle. And then you've built up production and you've pursued this strategy for so long and it's going to disappear overnight. And I think the job of businesses isn't necessarily to grow. The job of businesses is to be predictable {in that growth}.” - Brian{00:45:01} - “The same thing happens with viral product trends. There's an inciting incident that creates a discourse and then there's a backlash. What happens is for it to exit the trend cyclical nature, for us to exit that, there has to be a backlash to backlash.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Phillip and Brian have FOMO over guerrilla marketing in the *bathroom*, and break down the Jackson family walkthrough of Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart. Stick around for BigCommerce CEO Brent Bellm’s sit down with Brian live from Shoptalk. “From $70M to $700M”Key takeaways:- ShopTalk has become the biggest pure-play event in North America for e-commerce, showcasing the growth and optimism in the industry.- AI is making its way into various tools and solutions, embedding Gen AI to increase efficiency in teams.- TikTok is seen as a viable platform for brands to engage with new audience segments, and it offers a unique opportunity for creators to collaborate with brands.- Checkout replacement tools are shifting gears, aiming for faster and more adaptable solutions to meet the evolving needs of e-commerce businesses.- Omega Mart by Meow Wolf is an immersive art exhibit that satirizes capitalism and consumerism, allowing visitors to explore a surreal grocery store with twisted products on the shelves.{00:15:41} - “There are a lot of solutions that are actually embedding Gen AI in their tools. Everything from data cleanliness to customer service to product copy to marketing and other tools. I think everyone's just barely actually embedding it in a way that will actually increase efficiency in teams.” - Brian{00:27:15} - “{TikTok Shop} is closer to almost like a B2B2C model. You have your home designers and fabric stores sell to those home designers and they work their fabrics into the homes that they're influencing. It's almost the same thing. Managing these effectively, you know, designers for all kinds of experiences, not just homes, but beauty, fashion, whatever it is.” - Brian{00:52:47} - “The overarching philosophy of metamodernism in that the best way to deliver an experience is to engage in both culture and commerce but to do so with a wink to say, "We both know that for this thing to exist that you really want that I have to play into the commercial nature of the way that it exists. And so I will critique that so that you can't critique it, Mrs Consumer. I will critique it for us, but we both know that the only way that you're going to get this and the only way you can deliver this and experience this is if it's commercialized in some way," and that is the overarching narrative of Omega Mart.” - Phillip{00:59:15} - “You can press a button and have a catalyst store on Next.js and React, the highest performing most popular tech in the world of composable, in under 60 seconds pre-integrated with all of our functionality, as well as leading content management solutions, as well as leading search and merch engines, out of the box hosting from top partners like Vercel. We have so lowered the bar to the world's best composable tech that we think that's the future, and it's perfectly timed with the growth again of MACH enthusiasm in the US.” - Brent{01:07:21} - “What if we turned Makeswift, not just for content websites, which is what it was built for, into commerce websites too? And that was the sort of the magic aha idea, and I think we are going to transform the industry.” - Brent{01:13:29} - “We're open sourcing the React component library. Meaning, any agency, any developer can come in and contribute a new component or enhance a component. We'll make sure it's secure. We'll be sort of the gatekeepers on the quality, but you're not dependent just on the components that BigCommerce builds. Anybody can be building new extraordinary website components that go into the library and make it that much more powerful to leverage that library.” - BrentAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

“Customer obsession” is an overused phrase. But for Frette, it just might be true. Phillip and Brian sit down with Paola Pugliese of Frette to discuss heritage luxury, DTC-specific category extensions, and the future of brand activations at cultural events. Recorded live at eTail West.“Quiet Luxury is Not a Trend”Key takeaways:- The power of consumer demand has grown, with brands needing to be true to their values and work closely with customers for relevance and delight.- Frette focuses on partnerships with select partners, such as hospitality properties and designers, to ensure their products land in the right environments.- Quiet luxury is inherent to Frette's DNA, focusing on quality, heritage, and timeless design rather than logo branding.- Brand partnerships expand brand reach and offer opportunities for exclusive experiences and collaborations that go beyond just selling products.{00:08:12} - “You have to be true to your value and really work with your customers firsthand and understand what is the best way, as I said, to serve them, to also delight them, surprise them, and keep being, in a way, present in their daily lives.” - Paola{00:11:23} - “For a luxury brand, especially, services are fundamental. And there's no better way to design your next relevant service or product than actually asking the people that are going to use it.” - Paola{00:14:56} - “When you really have the same vision about the importance of the experience of the customers and the way you want them to enjoy the product, then you can also create interesting partnerships that go beyond just selling the product.” - Paola{00:25:38} - “Quiet luxury in itself is not a trend, buzzword. We were there before. We are gonna be there after. What is gonna speak for us is forever the quality, the heritage, what we stand for. And that is always going to be the best value for us.” - Paola{00:29:19} - “I love what you're saying about brands being the new muses, which is also building on the fact that brands need to have an opinion and share the values, and executives need to put their face after what the brand stand for. So we start with what might be interesting and relevant for the customers.” - PaolaAssociated Links:Learn more about Frette and Paola PuglieseCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Get ad-free episodes and bonus content, including the full recording of this podcast, by joining Future Commerce+ at futurecommerce.com/plusSave 15% on Future Commerce print journals and merchPrivate GPT access with BundleIQExclusive invites to physical events, dinners, and priority invites to industry events (SXSW, Art Basel, VISIONS)Ad-free episodes and bonus content!

For FACEGYM, what is the multiplayer future? What are those incentives, and what do customers want in return? PLUS: A teardown of Web3 as it enters the slope of enlightenment. Listen now and join the discussion!“What does ‘better’ mean?”Key takeaways:- Web3's potential for mass adoption is still hindered by regulatory conditions and technical barriers, but a breakthrough use case could emerge with advancements in technology.- Purpose and values are fundamental in connecting with customers and building brand loyalty in today's market.- Deepening relationships with localized communities and empowering creators can help brands create more meaningful connections with their customers.- Decentralized ownership and collaborative multiplayer experiences offer new possibilities for brands to engage their audience.- Niche communities are becoming increasingly important, allowing brands to embrace fragmentation and connect with specific audience segments for more authentic brand building.{00:10:08} - “A lot of people in Web3 were looking to Web3 as a solution, but actually, the same problems still present themselves. A lot of what I find is that we're just using new words to talk about the same things.” - Alexa{00:16:02} - “Whatever happens in the future, whatever technology winds up underpinning, it's going to take more consumer adoption to make any technology pervasive and ubiquitous, and that's what any technology needs to be able to survive.” - Phillip{00:22:36} - “When you give customers, certain kinds of customers for certain brands, maybe not every brand, the tools of creativity where they can now reimagine the things that you're making in a way that they think is more powerful or more emotionally resonant, that becomes very disruptive for all industry. That's the scary thing.”{00:22:56} - “What brands are missing is the methodologies and the toolset to pick up and give those people that are ready to raise their hands a way to engage in a really meaningful way.” - Brian{00:26:09} - “What is better is always the question, and that's where I think you bump into challenges where different people have different visions for what better means, and I've definitely seen that cause problems.” - Brian{00:27:07} - “Community has become such a buzzword, but community at scale is actually quite difficult to achieve in a meaningful way. And so then you end up watering down your incentives to kind of like the minimum viable incentive set, and then you're actually not really achieving what you set out to achieve.” - Alexa{00:40:52} - “I don't want to say that brands have no responsibility to their customers or to the world that they live in. I think that they do have responsibility. I think that we ask more and more and more of them over time because of the failings of other parts of our society that are not working the way that they used to. Or maybe we romanticize the past.” - Phillip{00:43:34} - “Instead of your brand being what you say it is, your brand is what someone says about it to their closest friend.” - AlexaAssociated Links:Learn more about Alexa Lombardo, Atomic Number 8, and FaceGymCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Breakout brand BK Beauty’s co-founders, Lisa and Paul Jauregui, discuss the potential consequences of a TikTok shutdown on the eCommerce landscape. While many brands use TikTok Shops as a growth channel to reach new audiences, the House passing a bill to shut down ByteDance's operation in the United States has sent shockwaves through the industry. 

MrBeast has some recent learnings in trademark legalities and how hard DTC chocolate can be, and McDonalds is not answering back Phillip’s question. Plus, was the Super Bowl really the most-watched human event or do we just have too many ways you count who is watching, more people, and more widespread and varying broadcast options? And could a giant sphere be coming to a city near you? Or perhaps even your very own home? So much to talk about, so listen in now!“The McRib and Shamrock Shake Loophole”Key takeaways:- McDonald's continues to activate its brand through innovative partnerships, this time with popular anime studio Studio Pierrot.- Mr Beast faced a trademark violation for using the term "Deez Nuts" on his chocolate packaging, leading to a rebrand.- Las Vegas transformed its identity by shifting away from vices through family-friendly experiences, emphasizing business conferences instead.- Companies may need to constantly reinvent themselves as competitors catch up or as markets change.- There is a growing demand for immersive experiences like the Sphere, which could revolutionize entertainment venues and advertising formats.Rather than making the world obsolete, tech has created an opportunity for historical modalities to rise from obsolescence.{00:17:17} - “The algorithm thrives on the type of content that produces dopamine hits because it's stuff that people keep coming back to. So we are in the dopamine economy. That's where we live, the addiction economy.” - Brian{00:33:56} - “Live events are on the rise. The Golden Globes, the Grammys, and the Oscars have all posted not just double-digit, but insane growth multiples year over year since the pandemic. And so when you look at these live events, these are elements of the monoculture, the things we've been saying are dead for the last 10 years. However, they have also become hyper-cultural events where people sort of multiplayer mode their way into participating in the discourse.” - Phillip{00:39:24} - “Whatever you have that used to make you unique will eventually be competed away. You have to continue to reinvent yourself.” - Philip{00:43:23} - “You go to a movie theater because you wanna see a movie sooner, not necessarily because it's the experience that you want to consume that particular movie in. Only a few movies are worth that. But movie theaters were basically what the sphere is to us when they first came out. Really immersive experiences you couldn't get anywhere else, because your tiny little TV at home was hard to watch stuff on.” - BrianAssociated Links:Headed to SXSW? RSVP for our VISIONS SummitCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Get ad-free episodes and bonus content, including the full recording of this podcast, by joining Future Commerce+ at futurecommerce.com/plusSave 15% on Future Commerce print journals and merchPrivate GPT access with BundleIQExclusive invites to physical events, dinners, and priority invites to industry events (SXSW, Art Basel, VISIONS)Ad-free episodes and bonus content!

Has "doomerism" evolved since last year's report into something much more global? Has the wellness obsession been taken too far? Is the appeal of being a semi-luddite on the rise? Friend of the pod and cultural theorist Matt Klein discusses the findings from his annual META Trends Report. “Going Airplane Mode”Key takeaways:- A key takeaway from analyzing over one hundred trend reports spanning several years: many of the reported trends remain unchanged year after year after year.- Language used to describe disruptive changes often relies on established nomenclature instead of introducing new terminology.- There is an opportunity to hack trend reports by strategically seeding ideas and language that can shape future trends.- The ranking of meta-trends in reports can differ between what is frequently mentioned and what exists in cultural data, creating a discrepancy and an opportunity for manipulation.- Understanding the deeper human needs beneath trend manifestations is key for organizations to find success in addressing cultural shifts.{00:04:50} - “It's quite cliche, but it's a call to action for a little bit of bravery of not what's already being reported and said and what's comfortable, but what do we want to see, what does not yet exist, and how do we put our neck out there and really speak about the things that are uncomfortable, fringy, edgy, and strange because after all that is where change emanates from.” - Matt{00:12:57} - “The problem is the scant few people that are actually doing this type of work and research and will put the quantifiable and qualitative mind to analyzing trends is a small group of people that are all highly self-referential because they're all analyzing the same cohort of data because they're all kind of tapped into the same algorithm.” - Phillip{00:19:47} - “The meta trends act as trailheads for understanding all else within culture. When you acknowledge what's trying to be desired here… you understand beneath the surface what people actually need, that's where organizations find success.” - Matt{00:26:59} - “There's certainly importance and maybe I'm saying that because there's a livelihood or a career anchored or tethered to it, but I would say there are some implications and serious business consequences that come from this, but it is also fun. It is entertaining to be talking about these things and to be dissecting and analyzing.” - Matt{00:30:39} - “It's all from fear. No one wants to be disrupted. No one wants to be the disruptor either. That goes back to this idea of bravery, being the first to say something or sticking their neck out or reporting on the thing that no one else has reported. So you operate from a sense of, "Well, we wanna be the first to be second."’ - Matt{00:39:42} - “Every business is unique, everyone has their different challenges, everyone has their different audiences, and those audiences or those products interpret each of the meta trends uniquely. So what this really is is the starting point, not the answer key.” - MattAssociated Links:Learn more about Matt KleinRead the 2024 Meta Trends ReportCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The allure of building a retail space is strong these days, but doing it right is critical. How do you know when to spend big bucks on fancy tech and when to equip your employees more instead? What is the special sauce to creating an environment where customers will keep coming back? It’s an exciting time in retail and Rebekah and Libby give us insight into why and their take on what is coming in the future in the world of physical retail. Listen now! Retail is Alive and HotKey takeaways:- One critical advantage physical retail has over the digital space is human interaction, which can make or break how a customer feels about a brand.- The similarities between theater and retail highlight the importance of behind-the-scenes work in creating an exceptional customer experience.- Pop-up shops aren't sufficient for testing physical retail viability, but they can provide valuable insights if brands know what they want to achieve.-  Well-trained store employees are crucial for creating positive brand experiences and building lasting customer relationships.-  The future of physical retail lies in personalized experiences, smaller store formats, and operational agility to meet changing customer needs.‍{00:10:27} - “When brands go into a popup experience, they need to know what it's for. What are you trying to get out of it? Your customer is physically in front of you. That doesn't happen on a website. So how are you taking advantage of that?” - Rebekah{00:14:26} - “What they have in the physical space is one critical, critical tool that they do not have in the digital space, and that is people. Because at the end of the day, people buy from people. And what a customer feels about a brand in a retail space lives or dies by that human interaction.” - Libby{00:21:37} - “We're like, "Put down the expensive tech. First-time retail brand, put it down." Focus that, take that money, and be able to pay each one of the people that you're hiring to work in your store an additional couple dollars an hour more because that is gonna go so much farther…” - Libby{00:32:39} - “Inevitably, if you're gonna build a physical location, you want to do more than just sell things. You want to connect. You want to connect with the customer. You want to build brand affinity. You want to teach them something about your product that they didn't already know.” - Rebekah{00:34:57} - “It is about leaving a lasting brand impression and helping the customer discover something about the brand or the product even if they don't actually buy today.” - Libby{00:45:18} - “Brands are looking for ways to really connect with a customer and give them something that they can't get somewhere else, like with a competitor.” - Rebekah{00:51:11} - “Typically, we say, the first 7 to 10 stores go where your customers are. Then after that, after you've established that foundation and that base, then go where the people are who you want to be your customers.” - LibbyAssociated Links:Learn more about Rekon Retail and Rebekah Kondrat and Libby ShaniCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Get ad-free episodes and bonus content, including the full recording of this podcast, by joining Future Commerce+ at futurecommerce.com/plusSave 15% on Future Commerce print journals and merchPrivate GPT accessExclusive invites to physical events, dinners, and priority invites to industry events (SXSW, Art Basel)Ad-free episodes and bonus content!

Kyle Chayka joins us to discuss Filterworld, and the impact that algorithms have on culture and connection. Are we at the mercy of rapidly-changing algorithms and recommendations? How do we overcome ‘algorithm anxiety’ and become more intentional and thoughtful in our content consumption and decision-making? Listen now.The Digital Front PorchKey takeaways:- The rise of huge social media platforms has led to algorithmic recommendations and feeds becoming the main way we experience culture on the internet.- A personal algorithm cleanse can help reset our relationship with the internet and inspire us to think for ourselves.- Friction is an important concept—algorithmic feeds try to eliminate friction, while slowing down our process of consumption allows for more intentional decision-making.- Algorithm anxiety is real, particularly for those who make their living on the internet; they are at the mercy of constantly changing algorithms and recommendations.- As consumers, our preferences are influenced by both algorithms and personal curators; we should recognize our role as tastemakers and actively participate in shaping our own cultural experiences.{00:08:17} - “Not being sort of plugged into the matrix doesn't mean that your life and the things that fill it in changes, it means that you're enduring more friction personally.” - Phillip{00:17:13} - “It's knowing who your customer is, and cultivating a longer-term relationship, and that requires a kind of friction or slowness or patience in a way. You don't just want them to frictionlessly convert from a viewer to a buyer. You want them to actually think about something.” - Kyle{00:19:29} - “The digital platforms treat us as passive consumers of content and as fungible user eyeballs. And so that's how we act. We act as these passive consumers who don't think about what we're consuming until we're given a reason to, and that's unfortunate.” - Kyle{00:33:25} - “We're seeing another wave of Internet development happening with smaller platforms that are not so algorithmically driven. I think user behavior is changing, albeit slowly.” - Kyle{00:39:53} - “I also grew up in AIM-era AOL chat rooms, and those aesthetics are still captured somewhere on the Internet, and they're memorable because they stuck around long enough to make an impression on us. I don't know that anyone pines for the 2019 brief interface change on Instagram as it was. There is no era anymore because it's constantly in motion.” - Phillip{00:52:41} - “You kind of have to ignore that someone else has already thought about the problem that you've thought about or come up with a good book on whatever. You have to have this willful amnesia to make something new.” - Kyle{00:59:14} - “The sheer ability of people to move quickly and change ideas and information is going to create that homogeneity. It's just that algorithmic recommendations and feeds make the speed of that exchange even faster, even more granular.” - Kyle{01:04:14} - “It's about connecting with what's around you, connecting with people who are in line with your philosophy or whatever. We can build communities without everything having to be for everyone, maybe.” - KyleAssociated Links:Learn more about Kyle Chayka and get your copy of FilterworldCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Kyle Chayka joins us to discuss Filterworld, and the impact that algorithms have on culture and connection. Are we at the mercy of rapidly-changing algorithms and recommendations? How do we overcome ‘algorithm anxiety’ and become more intentional and thoughtful in our content consumption and decision-making? Listen now.The Digital Front PorchKey takeaways:- The rise of huge social media platforms has led to algorithmic recommendations and feeds becoming the main way we experience culture on the internet.- A personal algorithm cleanse can help reset our relationship with the internet and inspire us to think for ourselves.- Friction is an important concept—algorithmic feeds try to eliminate friction, while slowing down our process of consumption allows for more intentional decision-making.- Algorithm anxiety is real, particularly for those who make their living on the internet; they are at the mercy of constantly changing algorithms and recommendations.- As consumers, our preferences are influenced by both algorithms and personal curators; we should recognize our role as tastemakers and actively participate in shaping our own cultural experiences.{00:08:17} - “Not being sort of plugged into the matrix doesn't mean that your life and the things that fill it in changes, it means that you're enduring more friction personally.” - Phillip{00:17:13} - “It's knowing who your customer is, and cultivating a longer-term relationship, and that requires a kind of friction or slowness or patience in a way. You don't just want them to frictionlessly convert from a viewer to a buyer. You want them to actually think about something.” - Kyle{00:19:29} - “The digital platforms treat us as passive consumers of content and as fungible user eyeballs. And so that's how we act. We act as these passive consumers who don't think about what we're consuming until we're given a reason to, and that's unfortunate.” - Kyle{00:33:25} - “We're seeing another wave of Internet development happening with smaller platforms that are not so algorithmically driven. I think user behavior is changing, albeit slowly.” - Kyle{00:39:53} - “I also grew up in AIM-era AOL chat rooms, and those aesthetics are still captured somewhere on the Internet, and they're memorable because they stuck around long enough to make an impression on us. I don't know that anyone pines for the 2019 brief interface change on Instagram as it was. There is no era anymore because it's constantly in motion.” - Phillip{00:52:41} - “You kind of have to ignore that someone else has already thought about the problem that you've thought about or come up with a good book on whatever. You have to have this willful amnesia to make something new.” - Kyle{00:59:14} - “The sheer ability of people to move quickly and change ideas and information is going to create that homogeneity. It's just that algorithmic recommendations and feeds make the speed of that exchange even faster, even more granular.” - Kyle{01:04:14} - “It's about connecting with what's around you, connecting with people who are in line with your philosophy or whatever. We can build communities without everything having to be for everyone, maybe.” - KyleAssociated Links:Learn more about Kyle Chayka and get your copy of FilterworldCheck out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

This week on the podcast, Phillip and Brian discuss the debatable success of the KITH loyalty launch, the “debauchery” during the prior eCom boom cycle, and the forthcoming Apple Vision Pro’s impact on Commerce. PLUS: Save the date for SXSW 2024! Listen now!“No one wants to make a decision about the future without data from the past”Key takeaways:- Incorporating tier-exclusive products into a loyalty program can provide real value and make customers feel special and incentivized to continue purchasing.- The potential for current technology was always built into the technology itself, often requiring new ways of thinking to fully realize its capabilities.- Pattern recognition, which is necessary for successful commerce, can be mentally exhausting, leading to reliance on algorithms and machines for assistance.- Building a standout loyalty program requires an understanding of the shifting landscape of commerce and media, and adapting to new technologies and mediums.- True loyalty programs should focus on customer engagement and long-term success rather than solely relying on historical data or familiar strategies.{00:12:04} - “Kith's got a loyal following already. This is a great way to formalize it and reward people who are already incredible buyers and give them a reason to never leave. It builds a nice moat.” - Brian{00:15:09} - “This is the interesting psychology of what a good loyalty program can do, and I think only a multibrand retailer can pull off, is that I started looking at what else can I buy here and shift my spending. I wound up filling up my cart with the other things that I probably would have bought anyway over the next few months and pulled it forward but away from those brands, which is what loyalty is intended to do.” - Phillip{00:35:11} - “We've lived through one of those cycles already, so we understand the excesses of the prior cycle, and we're just young enough to reinvent ourselves and have already begun to do so because we saw the end of the era coming.” - Phillip{00:37:40} - “When technology changes, context often changes, and the message changes too because it's a new medium. No one wants to make a decision about the future without data from the past. They think that that is the indicator of what to do next. And it often is from a year to year basis until things have a bigger shift.” - Brian{00:41:25} - “Skeuomorphism in the abstract, not in the practice of the iPhone, but skeuomorphism in the abstract is taking tangibly something that is familiar and extending it into the new media format's unfamiliarity so that there's a bridge.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce + for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

There are some compelling storylines to follow already in 2024, and Phillip and Brian have some hot takes on X creator payments and deepfakes, why “boring” seems to cut through the noise now, and some excitement about Vision PRO. Also, are we to the point now where innovation means working with the algorithm versus working around the algorithm? Listen now for this and more.A Boring Membership for EverythingKey takeaways:- Deepfakes are becoming more prevalent, creating opportunities for both entertainment and deception.- Shop Pay is helping Shopify build a strong moat in e-commerce by offering a seamless payment experience across various platforms.- Applebee's Date Night Pass may have been sold out quickly, but was a genius marketing move that was an earned PR campaign at best. Read Phillip’s critique in The Senses.- Memberships can still be successful, provided they offer real value to customers and are sustainable long-term.{00:10:54} - “If you spend over $4,000 on something unnecessary for your job or to complete anything in your life, it is a purely experiential purchase. This is just the greatest advertising play in the history of advertising. It is the most natural place for high-end brands, luxury brands, brands that are going to sell experiences that are not commodity-based to put experiences in front of people who are prequalified.” - Brian{00:20:34} - “The old methodology of making people pay for things and then gathering stats about how much they're willing to pay for something is a better indication of how much desire or loyalty they had to that thing, as opposed to just a quick peek at it or a quick chuckle.” - Brian{00:26:31} - “It's an interesting sign of the times that deepfakes are such a part of the public discourse. It's only gonna ramp up as we have a political season in a fight. - Phillip{00:31:06} - “Shop Pay is an unbelievable moat and has all of the consumer penetration that everybody in the one-click payment infrastructure wanted.” - Phillip{00:48:56} - “There are crafty ways to put together membership programs that people will wanna buy. But you need to be really careful with them, and don't do things that aren't sustainable like so many membership companies have done in the past. Make things that are smart for your best buyers and make it actually a B2B thing. Your best consumers will appreciate it, and you can reward them and lock them in.” - BrianAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce + for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Our Predictions episode was packed with many great insights and discussion points, but the guys had even more to discuss regarding what 2024 has in store. PLUS: Rite Aid gets a hefty penalty from the FTC, healthcare trends, “Trendcore” and “trendwashing”, and what Phillip and Brian are reading right now.Product is Content{00:08:41} - “The terminally online people are the ones who are constantly trying to gain recognition by glomming onto other people's visible success, and Yotpo just didn't have that kind of brand affinity in social media.” - Phillip{00:28:41} - “2024 is just gonna be another really rough year in health care because we've been saying forever that a lot of the technology does exist to bring some of these technologies to homes. It could be, but the problem is adoption by the ecosystem and by consumers. And that's not gonna hit in 2024. Sorry.” - Brian{00:35:50} - “The Rite Aid issue {is} a great example of this where people are actually genuinely relying on technology that ultimately is able to fail in ways that no one understands. As technology becomes more and more of a black box, it's going to be harder and harder to identify what the cause of something actually is.” - Brian{00:39:23} - “If you look at the Hailey Bieber dress can trend because Hailey Bieber in a red dress becomes a meme, and Shein produces it within a week, and then people are buying it within another week, and then it turns on social media as a result within a couple weeks. So the meme half-life of about a month is able to reach mass cultural and commerce adoption, and then necessarily dies to whatever is next.” - Phillip{00:42:39} - “People who have made phenomenal monetary investments in the last cycle get left out of the next two cycles, and that's how you get old.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The Vogue of eCommerce{00:10:02} - “Depending on where you sit in your economic pessimism, if you believe that the economy continues to rip in 2024, then Costco is a no-brainer choice. If you believe that the economy is going to see challenges in 2024, then Costco is still a safe choice.” - Phillip{00:22:05} - “The problem is a lot of these brands, Joanns and Michaels in particular, did a really bad job with digital enablement. And so it's gonna be a really hard road for them to come back around and have someone who's really far down the road of digital bring them along for the ride. It almost might be easier for a Pinterest to just run their own stuff from the ground up.” - Brian{00:52:52} - “This idea of real-world commerce is that you'll be able to transact in real dollars directly as if it were eCommerce in the platform for the first time for real-world goods. Not digital goods, not digital fashion, not credits for experiences, not whatever it is. It is an actual real-life transaction that gets fulfilled. And that seems to me to be a massive opportunity for brands that have been investing in that universe with a very young crowd that spends a stupid amount of money.” - Phillip{00:57:10} - “ Literary TikTok is a place that is creating a new generation of readers and making reading fun again and making people excited about being part of a conversation around reading. And in fact, Barnes and Noble, 20% growth year over year, store footprint is expanding. Who would have thought?” - Phillip{01:11:46} - “This is the challenger to Google that everybody said TikTok was going to be.” - Phillip{01:16:37} - “I feel extremely validated right now, and I'm gonna go ahead and take that victory lap here because it was like the opposite of every possible trend that you could have ever thought.” - Brian{01:51:18) - “If the prevailing culture is digitally obsessed, then the counterculture will be analog obsessed. It's inescapable because it's already happening.” - PhillipAssociated Links:The Siren x Wells Fargo Gene Therapy ChartDr. Nicole Paulk’s presentation at All-In SummitThe MUSES Journal is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Kicking off our 2024 season of the podcast, Phillip and Brian discuss the storylines of the upcoming NRF Big Show. PLUS: the spatial computing hype cycle is upon us, as is a new handheld device revolution. Listen now!The Year of Spatial Computing{00:09:54} - “Shopify has conquered down market, and so naturally, the most obvious place for growth is in the enterprise, and it's just where they have to go. And then, one of the reasons why Shopify struggled mightily trying to sell to the enterprise initially is because they didn't hire what I would consider to be truly enterprise-grade sellers, and they didn't give the toolbox to be able to sell.” - Brian{00:13:18} - “Even if you don't go to NRF, the halo around The Big Show is now big enough to incorporate all of these brands that survived the tech and SaaS recession over the last year and a half. The companies that have come out the other side are now stronger for it. Even the ones that have received some critique online.” - Phillip{00:26:55} - “I think what we see in an AI-centric future is not just a gesture. It's not just, "Hey, Siri." It's not just language, it's "And this doesn't require an Internet connection for it to work.’" - Phillip{00:35:36} - “Every AI use case, every one of them, even OpenAI, in the opening demo is a commerce-centered use case. It is "Order me an Uber." It is "Get me a pizza." It is "Put this on my shopping list." Commerce is such a requirement for human existence and our connection with each other that you have to have commerce at the center of these experiences.” - Phillip{00:46:43} - “In the current state of the world, you have to capture mimesis before you actually create product market fit.” - Phillip{00:47:57} - “There's a reckoning on multiple fronts with app stores, in that app stores are about to become democratized. And they cannot be the walled gardens they have been in for 15 years. App stores are about to get disrupted.” - PhillipAssociated Links:The MUSES Bundle is here! Grab your copy of our latest annual journal today at musesjournal.comHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

LIVE from MUSES, join Phillip and Brian as they sit down with Boys Club podcast host Deana Burke and Context podcast host Blake Finucane for a lively discussion about technology, art, and culture and the resurgence of print in the digital age. 

Recorded live during MUSES, art curator Tam Gryn and performance artist Arantxa Araujo discuss the intersection of science and dance, the influence of ancient Muses on contemporary innovation, and offer insights into the creative process, the neuroscience of movement, and the historical inspiration behind the various forms of art featured during MUSES.

Michael Miraflor and Alexa Lombardo join the MUSES Live panel to explore the future of Consumer marketing roles and activations. Topics range from the “death of the CMO” position to Range Rover's activation at Art Basel Miami Beach; and how technology and vision may help solve the Loneliness Epidemic and the decline of the “Third Place.” Listen now!

The team from Acrylic Robotics is giving independent digital artists a new opportunity to sell on-demand artwork without ever picking up a paintbrush. Joining us for our three-day activation during Art Basel, CEO Chloë Ryan talks about the market opportunity and the solution that Acrylic can provide emerging artists; and how brands can partner with artists to reach new audiences. Listen now!

What happens when brands forecast poorly? They fail to compete in the marketplace, and they have to sell excess inventory at a loss. Taped live during Future Commerce’s MUSES activation during Art Basel, this panel comprises DTC competitive intelligence platform Next Big Shop’s co-founder David Hoffman and Resale.com’s co-founder Sachin Pawa. Together, they predict the challenges ahead for eCommerce in 2024. Listen now!

Recorded live at MUSES during Art Basel 2023, join Phillip and Brian and special guest Ashley Batlz as they discuss and recap BFCM 2023 and how the need for better data drives every new experience for the future of marketing. Thanks to our partners at Dotdigital for supporting MUSES. Listen now!

It's a Christmas Eve miracle! We return with a FULL WRAP-UP of Walmart's first shoppable "RomCommerce" series, "Add to Heart"! Join Rhian, Jaci, and Phillip as we unwrap the greatest gift of all — a shoppable Christmas holiday rom-com!This episode is made possible by BundleIQ. Get your own private GPT, chat with websites and videos, and summarize Youtube channels with their exclusive Google Chrome extension today by signing up with our exclusive offer! Go to bundleiq.com/futurecommerce

Did you miss MUSES? Tune in for a mini recap at the beginning of the episode. Stick around as Phillip and Brian dive into the intriguing world of how digital media influences and sometimes distorts our memories and perceptions, particularly in the context of business and cultural trends.Ripples in a Stream{00:08:20} - “We had Chloe Ryan, who's the CEO of Acrylic Robots, sit on the panel, and her perspective is this is a new technology that allows for reproduction, not mass reproduction, but reproduction for digital artists to actually sell web to print, direct to consumer, print on demand paintings of the first of its kind and sort of launching a marketplace, which is a commerce-centered marketplace.” - Phillip{00:21:34} - “Brands no longer are in full control of their own story and their own destiny and customers now have the tools en masse to be creative and to contribute to the lore and the story and world-building that is going to be required to build brands in the future.” - Phillip{00:29:50} - “We sort of build on top of whatever takes hold at the moment. And so these worlds that are being built now, if you're a world builder now, who knows how adopted that might be in decades to come. We don't know what kind of foundation we're laying and what will end up becoming the foundation for a lot, lot, lot, lot more.” - Brian{00:33:35} - “What's so fascinating about something like Gag City where it used to be just fan fiction, the Gag City background could be a setting for many stories in the future, and that could elevate the next level of creators to a really well-realized universe where almost anything can happen.” - Phillip{00:43:52} - “The reason Future Commerce feels different is because we're making content for ourselves first and for an audience, not even second or third. I think we're doing things that pursuing things that are uniquely passion projects for us. That's why we are so early all the time on so many things.” - Phillip{00:46:58} - “Retail is both one of the best applications for technology and one of the best ways to understand how technology should actually be used and then spit out for other reasons.” - Brian{00:57:24} - “That's what a lot of brands are trying to do, which is make a mark in the culture that allows them to sit outside of the stream of consciousness. And maybe some photography from Haus is a really good example of it was profoundly of the time and will never escape its own gravity. It will be stuck in that time forever. And maybe for the brand equity, that's a good thing. That's what brands want. So that means you go through an awkward phase where at some point in the future, people make fun of it and deride it, and then it becomes nostalgic.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Grab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

A lot of brands say they want to make their customers’ lives better with their products, but how do they go about actually achieving that? The storied brand, James Baroud, is creatively connecting with their audience and finding new ways to not only help them want to purchase their products but also to enjoy their products even more, and therefore enjoy life even more. It’s a big task, but Bobby Huang is all about it. Listen to this episode to hear from him on the heart behind that and what the future holds for James Baroud.History and Innovation{00:06:58} - “When you evaluate yourself against your competition, the first thing you do is you identify the things that it's said that your competitors can't copy. And then you ask yourself if you can lean into it and do that really well.” - Bobby{00:21:31} - “There are lots of steps along the way for when you see this thing today on top of a car to be what it is. And so when you open up that tent and you crawl inside and you look around, all that history, innovation, and iteration in that process surrounds you. And so that is kind of the message that I wanna tell to a broader audience.” - Bobby{00:26:19} - “I would like this product to serve as a muse for families and their ability to just enjoy life more.” - Bobby{00:32:19} - “I can't help but think there's already a multiplayer story involved here. Because when you have a high-value resale market, that means that people are really committed to the product, and believe in its value. And when something goes up for sale, it doesn't sit on the market long. It's gonna get snapped up because people know and trust the quality.” - Brian{00:45:27} - “In terms of building trust and getting folks unified around a strategy, I wouldn't say it's a strategy, it's our strategy. It's something that we learn into together as a team.” - Bobby{00:47:41} - “Today, our website does not do DTC sales, for a couple of reasons. One of the side reasons that everybody can understand is these things are really big and heavy and shipping can be really expensive. But in an effort to build trust and do cool interesting things in 2024, we are going to put some hidden gems on our website and do some limited edition artistic colored tents for folks who can find it on the site. And there'll be some hidden portals to be able to buy some really cool artist-designed tents next year.” - BobbyAssociated Links:Learn more about Bobby Huang and James BaroudINSIDERS #107: DORK MODE: AN ANTIDOTE TO THE SEA OF SAMENESSGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Phillip sat down with Deana Burke for the 100th episode of the Boys Club pod. They talk the Multiplayer Brand and some of the Future Commerce thinking about what makes eCommerce special and how brand operators are trying to tune out the noise and think bigger than tactics. We're moving up out of strategy into vision and how company leaders are looking at new channels to grow digital outside of just websites. One of those channels, of course, is metaverse.Our Work Has Range{00:11:02} - “There is a percentage of people that wanna participate in building a brand, for sure, just like there's a percentage of people who want to make TikTok videos, but there's a much larger percentage of people who want to just passively consume TikTok videos, and they don't wanna actually be creators. And I think that will always be true. There are these different types of consumer behaviors and not everyone wants to participate.” - Deana{00:11:59} - “Any strength overextended is a weakness. So you can be too multiplayer, for instance.” - Phillip{00:28:55} - “There's probably one way that capital can accelerate and lose your soul. I think there's another way that having a long, long, long, long-term outlook on preserving the history and the future of the brand can restore a soul as well.” - Phillip{00:32:27} - “Gaming as an industry eclipses any other form of media when combined. You know, you put the movie industry and newspapers and television together, and it comes nowhere close to the amount of daily active eyeballs, and time that's spent in these communal experiences.” - Phillip{00:38:28} - “There's something really powerful about Costco is not actually the thing, but it's the connective tissue in between the things that are life. And the trips to the store actually make a really big impact on you and your behavior both as a consumer and as a person.” - Phillip{00:42:51} - “Innovation is at the heart of being and finding the muse in our modern era. And commerce has a role to play in the way people find personal inspiration and fulfillment.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Learn more about Deana Burke and Boys ClubGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The holidays are a time for giving and receiving gifts and sharing in schlocky Hallmark-style TV movies. Walmart's 23-part series, "Add to Heart" capitalizes on this trend by turning RomCom into RomCommerce! ASSOCIATED LINKS:Sign up for BundleIQ to start your own private GPT and searchable data for your eCommerce business.Add to Heart on Youtube.The Walmart Corporate press release for Add to Heart RomCommerceHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! 

TEASER for After Dark Episode 4.Get ad-free episodes and bonus content, including the full recording of this podcast, by joining Future Commerce Plus:https://futurecommerce.com/plus  

The shift towards low-code platforms like ServiceNow has changed the landscape for service agencies, requiring them to adapt their approach and focus on specific solutions. Phillip and Brian sit down with friend and mentor Jon Klonsky to discuss his new venture, which will specialize in implementing and rescuing failed implementations of the ServiceNow platform.“Measure twice, cut once, and test often”{00:12:55} “Only organic growth, as opposed to purchased growth, can be a better line to run so that you don't get ahead of your skis.” - Brian{00:13:59} - “So many people, especially if you talk to the investor community, are like, "eCommerce is done. Let's move on to the next thing. AI," which is also important. I don't wanna take away from that, but I think eCommerce is still growing and probably gonna continue to grow and change and do incredible things, and we're just at the tip of the iceberg now with some of the new technologies that are coming into the space.” - Jon{00:19:47} - “You have to have a strategy that you can stick to and sustain because, you know you're going to build a team in a culture that has to be simplified for them. I think you have to be really smart and definitive about what you're gonna be doing.” - Jon{00:37:25} - “A strength is knowing when to spend your first few dollars. We know to be patient and not get ahead of {our} skis. ” - Jon{00:48:55} “It is about focus, but my focus to start is gonna be on the solution and the technology. I'm casting a wider net across some verticals because, frankly, I don't know where all the business is gonna come from yet. So cast a wider net and then I will start to narrow or we will start to narrow as we evolve as a company.” - Jon{00:50:36} - “I've learned mostly through my failures, but I now think that that's a strength of mine. Being able to hire and retain great teams.” - JonAssociated Links:Learn more about Jon Klonsky and Halokinetic LLCGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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Phillip and Brian sit down with Natasha and Deana, Co-Founders of Boys Club and mavens in the web3 and crypto world. They discuss what place legacy brands have in web3, what the challenges are for adoption, who’s helping, and who’s hurting. But what will it take to get there? A Well-Governed Potluck{00:20:20} - “A big part of the value set of web3 is this idea of shared and distributed ownership, and governance, but ownership being a big part of that. And I think if you're a global corporate brand, that's gonna be at odds with shareholder values.” - Deana{00:41:03} - “As more and more fake news, deep fakes, weird AI content is put into the world, we're gonna want to know what is human-generated and what isn't. And decentralized, trustless, open, permissionless blockchain is a great way to do that. I think that we're quite a far ways off from what that user experience is for that set of tooling and how that comes to life in the apps that we're all using every day.” - Deana{00:43:48} - “web3 and crypto, we've always had the perspective that it is just a mirror to your interests and the things that you care about.” - Natasha{00:47:41} - “It's only a matter of time until brands like that do see wallets as a new type of acquisition channel for them. Now today, there's probably not enough data, not enough wallets for it to be worth it to them, but I would invite them to experiment, and I know no better place to do that than Boys Club World.” - Deana{00:52:07} - “We have found that you have to have a really strong vision and a vehicle for people to come in and play in. And that multiplayer mode has to be in the parameter of a game that we all set together or that a few people set and then a lot of people get to join in and have fun with.” - Natasha{00:54:03} - “To do anything in multiplayer mode, you have to be a really good listener and hear the other person and what they're saying and what their vision is and what they want. Many people aren't very good at that, so we've over indexed to this. “Let's co-create. Let's do all these things together,” and we're all just talking over each other. And it's really ineffective and inefficient, and nothing ends up happening.” - NatashaAssociated Links:Learn more about Natasha Hoskins and Deana Burke and Boys ClubGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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The boys are back for a round of musings on the impact of Ozempic and Kim K’s marketing genius! And then, Brian sits for a live interview at Retail Summits with Mike Beckham, CEO and Co-Founder of Simple Modern, who shares how he has built a team that has been built on generosity and relationships and making a real difference in the world around us.The SKIMS {00:07:51} - “Manufacturing virality is not so difficult in 2023. SKIMS leaned into a really smart product launch that created a halo around the thing they really needed to draw attention to, and it completely reoriented the brand at a time when they were being both hyper-feminine and hyper-masculine.” - Phillip{00:10:21} - “‘Your enemies are your best PR." {Marshall McLuhan} The critics are almost always the ones that provide the most value. And you're right. This is right out of the multiplayer brand. This is critique at work and in an aged, art form. It's something that was purely utility at its start, and now it's an art form that deserves critique or needs critique.” - Brian{00:16:10} - “The problem with tactics is that they work until they don't. If we want to build strong companies, we want to build resilient companies, you've got to build on a strategy that's going to work in a bunch of different climates, and that's not tactic dependent.” - Mike Beckham{00:19:55} - “I love the idea of building employees who understand the strategy, who are flexible enough and adaptable enough to understand that tactics have an end date. And, yes, you do have to apply them, but it's because of these bigger strategies that you make those changes.” - Brian{00:21:46} - “If you're trying to create profit, then giving money away works against your primary goal of being able to make money, but I had this theory that, no, that's not actually true. What actually happens with generosity is when we give, it turns out, and I don't know why this is, I mean, some of it's reciprocity. Maybe it transforms us in a way, but it just tends to be that people want to repay that and people want to give back, and you end up getting more than you started with in the beginning.” - Mike{00:24:41} - “We tend to build teams, as these highly, disinfected, like, you bring these skill sets, I bring these skill sets, like a puzzle. We're just trying to match up all the skill sets. But the reality is great teams have chemistry. And chemistry comes from affinity and trust and affection, and that gets built through relationships.” - Mike{00:32:26} - “This generation, there are things that they're gonna need to grow in, and there are things that they're strong in. One of the things they're strong in is that they are particularly focused on that gap that I talked about between the world that is and the world that can't be, and they care intensely about that gap.” - Mike{00:39:59} - “People don't leave because they got a better offer from somebody close, and I'm not convinced that that's because we're a perfect company. It's more just that we're thinking intentionally around how are we creating high quality of life.” - MikeAssociated Links:Learn more about Mike Bekham and Simple ModernFC Insiders #113: BrinkmanshipGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

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This season on "Decoded," presented by BigCommerce, we'll delve into the intricate processes behind successful brands. Discover how they conceptualize and debut new products, set their objectives, make pivotal decisions, and foster seamless collaboration across their teams to breathe life into a new product.Our guest on our 5th episode of Decoded Season 2 is none other than Brian Schmitt. He is the Co-Founder at surefoot, which is a conversion rate optimization testing company. He has 20 years of experience in delivering optimization. And by his account, testing hasn't really changed all that much in these 20 years, and maybe the shopping cart and the nature of the shopping cart really haven't changed all that much either. “Lies, damn lies, and statistics."{00:08:02} - “A lot of those sites just don't have the traffic to support testing in the proper way. And they're making decisions then on bad data, and that's where people get frustrated with A/B testing.” - Brian{00:09:05} - “There are opportunities for a timer to actually improve conversion rate, but I would say, in general, no, a timer is a bad thing, creating a dark pattern of false urgency for your customer, and they trust you less over time.” - Brian{00:24:49} - “We've certainly had clients where the longer that quiz is, the more bought in the customer becomes by the end of the quiz because they really feel like it's been optimized to them and what products they're seeing. And if you make that too short, too easy, and you have too broad of answers at the end, people don't believe to quiz, and so they're less likely to trust the answers that come out at the end of it.” - Brian{00:33:34} - “I think the practice of optimization is not a specific treatment of a website. It is the practice of trying things and measuring the difference, of the new thing versus the old thing. That is it.” - Brian{00:40:52} - “The leaders that excel in businesses that are generational, like the Nordstroms of the world, that can continue to stay culturally relevant over time, they have high conviction and high intuition because they are in tune both with what the brand delivers and what their customer expects of the brand, and that has to come through in the eCommerce channel today more than ever before.” - Phillip{00:41:95} - “If they haven't really dug in and detailed out customer desire, behavior, life stage, priorities and if they're not really able to articulate that, the rest of the whole thing is gonna be garbage. You've got to get to a pretty significant and specific level of detail to develop product. And if you're not able to develop that level or have that level of knowledge, your product isn't gonna be good enough because you don't even understand what you're going up against.” - Loretta SoffeAssociated Links:Learn more about Brian Schmitt and surefootGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

"Everything's dopamine-centric" and today we explore how the industry of logistics and eCommerce are no different. PLUS: Kris Gösser join us to discuss the rise and fall of Convoy. Listen now!We Need More Daring{00:17:03} - “Everything's very dopamine-centric. And it is, it is preying on your like, "I'm going to gamble a little bit. I'm going to spend a little money and see if this is worth it." And sometimes the thing that is worth having spent the time is the dopamine and not the product that you got at the end.” - Phillip{00:28:34} - “I think Shein is the most multiplayer brand because they only produce the things that customers tell them they want. Their just in time manufacturing, their operating model is specifically designed in the same way that software engineering created an operating model around scrum and sprints where you have an agile process that allows you to only make a certain set of features at a time and only focus on those and then move on to the next thing. This is a new operating model for a certain type of a retail business that is fundamentally multiplayer.” - Phillip{00:30:55} - “Overcorrection in design breeds a lot of innovation and copycats come along and then that becomes the trend. And that is, I think, what we're seeing, and what we hope to see actually in a lot of design, especially in website design.” - Phillip{00:44:20} - “Tech-enabled logistics was a fun party while the party was happening. But really this is a story of the fed. And when rates were increased and you saw every industry from banking to telecoms to consumer electronics to whatever, whatever, whatever, that impact is so foundational and central that it shook through every system out there.” - Kris{00:47:37} - “The capital costs just didn't have enough time to pay off. Basically you have all this heavy investment in tech and then when the market's cratered and the market wasn't there anymore, they had all these high costs.” - Brian{00:54:23} - “What's going to happen is you're going to see this kind of knock on effect of the innovations Convoy had, the innovations Flexport has had, the innovations 3PLs are doing, whether it's Shipium or other companies that are software-centric are now going to be able to help improve the industry with a lot of their ideas, a lot of their concepts and just in general help achieve maybe over the next five years, the impact on the industry that a lot of the tech-enabled logistics companies are trying to do.” - Kris{01:03:53} - If someone's not looking at the business holistically, or at least with a modern lens of how technology is actually going to affect the business at every touch point, then it's going to get really hard to focus on the things that will make a meaningful difference.” - BrianAssociated Links:Live stream video mayhem mentioned at 24:24FC Insiders #113: BrinkmanshipGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The world’s most recognizable brands employ artists and storytellers to preserve their legacy.  Today, on Episode 2 of the second season of VISIONS, we're going live to the VISIONS Summit, recorded in June of 2023, in Chicago, and we'll listen in to our special guest, José Cabaço, the former Global Creative and Storytelling Director of Adidas and Orchid Bertelsen, the COO of Common Thread Collective and former Head of Innovation at Nestle Foods. Two experts who discuss the very real challenges we face in an ever more artificial world.Artificial Ignorance{00:03:25} “It's easy to get into the fandom business, but it's really, really hard to be genuinely adopted by the culture that you're trying to be a part of, engage with, promote to the benefit not just of your brand, but that culture that you're putting the spotlight on. I think there are very few brands that do it nicely.” - José Cabaço{00:07:07} “Oh, innovation happens. It happens because you listen, you collaborate. The outcome, the data conversion of that is product that then betters your performance, becomes desirable beyond the function it was created for.” - José Cabaço{00:18:28} “It absolutely takes courage from a brand to very meaningfully and intentionally open up a platform and use a very iconic product that they have that has a lot of history, a lot of legacy.” - Orchid Bertelson{00:19:52} “You already mentioned the notion that if it's generated in AI, it's not property of anyone or a brand can claim the property of it or the ownership of it. Kind of. Because, for example, if you look at these two brands and you see the amount of archives that they have of their own products, if that is their prompt, that is theirs still.” - José Cabaço{00:23:35} “The line is very clear. You either are willing to be led in a conversation that you decided to engage with a certain culture, or you're not.” - José CabaçoGuestsOrchid Bertelson, Chief Operating Officer and Common Thread CollectiveJosé Cabaço, Artist and Global Creative Director and Head Storyteller at brands like Hurley, Nike, and AdidasHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

We love a good chart, and every year, Gartner provides us with one that gets a *lot* of buzz. In this episode, Aaron Sheehan joins Phillip to unpack and unlock the mysteries and myths of the Magic Quadrant and ways it can benefit those having a look and those who have been placed on it. Why is context so important in understanding this and other reports, and why doesn’t anyone talk about The Critical Capabilities report that comes out simultaneously? Listen now to this insightful discussion!Smoke-Filled Rooms{00:17:05} - “These methodologies get a little calcified probably over time, but that's by at some level design. They're not meant to be sort of continually updated because they're meant to be a point of comparison year over year.” - Aaron{00:18:36} - “If Gartner or Forrester or whoever had a completeness of vision rubric, let's say they understand every single vendor's vision, their roadmap, and where they are on their progression of the roadmap, then in reality, every point on this quadrant, at least on the Gartner Magic Quadrant, is not relative to each other, but relative to their product roadmap.” - Phillip{00:26:37} - “It's not about movement within a fixed scale, it's that the scale is constantly moving in both directions and your velocity as a business and your total addressable market as a business determine where you stay on that stretching canvas.” - Phillip{00:26:56} - “Like a lot of human endeavor, the analyst reports are an attempt to impose a scientific rigor on what is often a somewhat emotional set of judgment calls.” - Aaron{00:38:00} - “It probably hurts you not to show up and participate in the RFI because you lose the chance to present your vision and your roadmap and cast yourself in the best light to the analysts. So that's a good thing for you to do if you are wanting to rank well.” - Aaron{00:57:57} - “The more specific context you can bring into your graphic, the better, the more useful your two-dimensional graphic probably is because that context is the actual third dimension in that 3D visualization that I was advocating for at the beginning. It's the context that helps you interpret the graphic.” - AaronAssociated Links:The long-form breakdown of the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Commerce Platforms — from Cocktails and Commerce by Brian WalkerThe 2021-2023 comparison chart of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Commerce Platforms by Slava Kravchuk, CEO of AtwixGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand for just $20 with free shipping in the U.S.Have you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Phillip and Brian discuss current events and news in the eCommerce space, Phillip reveals how he likes long walks with ChatGPT, and what if Brian was right all along about AI Butlers? What limitations will be needed as products like Rewind become more adopted? What constraints to context will these types of technologies overcome? And how much should brands strive to meet the moment? Listen now for all of this and more!FaceTiming with ScarJo{00:11:42} - “We talked a lot about body data early on and even for many years and those biometric markers and things like that. I see our collection of data about ourselves, our specific bodies being the next frontier for how we're going to interact with technology. But along with that, we're also going to be collecting data on our minds.” - Brian{00:23:03} - “Algorithmic segmentation is only constrained to that known person who picked up a cookie and is browsing around the internet, but it doesn't have context of everything else happening in their life. Maybe Rewind and other products in the future, like Meta's live streaming technology, will give eCommerce context and be able to adapt the experience to what your present moment is, not what it presumes it to be, or someone else's behavior.” - Phillip{00:26:56} - “An additional layer of context may be that these ambient devices, this ambient computing is happening, and that's where I think there is an opportunity for commerce because the thing that was promised to us with Alexa that never really happened was it's all there, we already have ambient devices, we're just not using them because they're not literally on our person.” - Phillip{00:33:37} - “Really what's happening right now is the wave of nostalgia is meeting at the same time that millennials really, really are hitting peak Costco membership years. And Costco has done an incredible job of continuing to make that membership worth its money with the types of products that they're putting in their store.” - Brian{00:45:33} - “Brands and people who constantly try to change just to meet the moment often lose something along the way. And brands that don't change at all can miss out on opportunities. But sometimes that authenticity comes back around.” - BrianAssociated Links:Get in on our Muses Mail and join us at Art Basel in DecemberGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

This week we dive into competitive intelligence: what are your rivals up to, and how does it affect you as a brand leader? Josh Wilson, CEO of Particl, reveals how observing competitors and smartly leveraging that data can distinguish you from the rest. PLUS: A brand review of Popsmith, and we rehash the concept of DISloyalty. Listen now!Biggest Month Ever{00:14:38} - “{Competitive intelligence} is harder and easier in multiple ways now. Your next competitor can come from anywhere. Where I feel like historically there were capital requirements and technology kind of barriers of entry that prevented that. But then on the flip side, the shift to online gives you kind of a great pulse on signals and what everyone else is doing. It's great for brands just to be thinking about and to have a strategy around.” - Josh{00:17:26} - “It's essentially impossible to block bots without blocking customers unless you put everything through a lock behind kind of a login portal. I would focus more on how can you use it to your benefit.” - Josh{00:25:20} - “What we'll do is we ingest our customer's data and we will look at the products they're selling and the product types. And with that, we've been able to guide customers towards product types that we feel better overlap with their business, make more sense for their customers to buy, and kind of a natural progression of the business.” - Josh{00:28:40} - “We saw pink start selling like crazy. And then we had brands that were kind of the major capturers of that, like a SKIMS, for example. They basically took all the pink products, put them in a collection for Barbie, and those products sold off the shelves. Now, the thing is, those products actually hadn't been selling very well before. It was a very clever way to use existing inventory, package it slightly differently, and sell it.” - Josh{00:32:11} - “Like my Co-Founder says, "The opportunity of a lifetime comes once a month." So it's important to stay current and up to date. It's important to not read yesterday's newspaper. That's why we think you need data for what's going on right now, not a week ago or whatever. By that point, it's too old.” - Josh{00:34:45} - “Brands can move the needle with very small changes, as well as they can ensure that they're not just discounting and lighting good money on fire, good margin. It's actually less about vertically looking at the brand down and from a data and correlation perspective, it's actually more about looking sideways at the product type because the customers are comparing your leggings to someone else's leggings to someone else's leggings. They're not comparing your product to your t-shirt or your leggings to your t-shirt to etcetera.” - JoshAssociated Links:Learn more about Josh Wilson and ParticlGet in on our Muses Mail and join us at Art Basel in DecemberGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

This season on VISIONS will explore the content of VISIONS: Volume IV by Future Commerce. VISIONS is an audio-visual Annual Trends report that examines the changes in culture and commerce and their impacts on the technology industry that serves them. VISIONS: Volume IV took place over three months, from April to June 2023, bookended by two events.Today we go live to the first of those events at the Celeste Bartos Theater at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, where we'll speak with a panel of modern culture reporters, foresight analysts, and media creators and ask them the question, “Where is the counterculture?”Trends are Change{00:04:11} “What we have right now is a lot of interesting niche subcommunities with their own cultures and then countercultures to those. And I think the result of that is it's very hard to know what's trending because trends really exist within these sort of niche subcultures and microspheres. And then by the time they exit, they're no longer a trend, they're more like a trend discourse.” - Daisy Alioto{00:06:47} “You can't really talk about counterculture without talking about the capitalization of it all. You can capitalize on these weird trends, whether it's something like Dimes Square, and then you see a year later, the entire Marc Jacobs campaign for a massive fashion brand is these characters. So is that really counterculture if that's cool now?” - Emily Sundberg{00:09:00} “Sometimes I do get bummed about the lack of existence of new things, and that's why we're going so hard on fashion history because everything feels really referential. But also there's something fun about new combinations and seeing a couch where there's a guy from the White Lotus on it, but there's also a girl that you saw at a party last week.” - Alexi Alario{00:11:26} “Is there counterculture or subculture or monoculture? It's completely dependent upon the sample size in which we're looking at. And for the most part, I think it behooves us to really broaden our aperture of really understanding what's most important to the most amount of people, because if we have to select too small of a sample size, we're just speaking to ourselves and really ignoring the masses.” - Matt Klein{00:16:14} “When we're talking about nostalgia and memory as some of the strongest mechanisms for marketing and the relationship that nostalgia and memory have to certain mediums, like the type of film or camera you were using when you first encountered something or the type of car you were driving when you first encountered something, it's very hard to package that in an authentic way, but if you can, that becomes the brand moat. And that's the thing that allows you to excel past all of your competitors.” - Daisy Alioto{00:24:02} “The thing about de-influencing is, yes, there's a little bit of stoicism of screw it, don't buy this thing, but it's still a form of influencing.” - Matt Klein{00:28:42} “Daisy Alioto: it's also important to remember that, for every counterculture movement, the response to it will be part of the cycle of the next culture, even if it's happening in this very fragmented way now.” - Daisy Alioto{00:35:34} “Nothing gets better without criticism. So I feel like it's okay that everyone is a critic as long as I think it creates a heightened awareness. And especially with algorithms. If you're not a critic, you're just going to let them like run over you.” - Alexi AlarioGuestsDaisy Alioto, CEO and Co-Founder of DirtEmily Sundberg, Writer, Creative Strategist, and Publisher at Feed Me SubstackAlexi Alario, Co-Host of the Nymphet Alumni PodcastMatt Klein, Cultural Theorist and Publisher of ZineHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

With AI-generated content becoming so prevalent, it’s sometimes harder to tell what is real and what is fake. How does this change the way people invest in search, and what kind of ramifications does it have on Google, for example? Also gadgets are cool, but the commerce implication is not just that you have to buy it, it's that they provide a new platform for customer shopping modality. Listen now for this and more future forecasting with Phillip and Brian.Fooled in the Present{00:06:22} - “Maybe there is this idea that we need to continue to constantly index the Internet and have increasingly less relevant results because it continues to index AI-generated content, not human-generated content. Maybe there is a future where that becomes less of a problem because we don't need to do as much indexing anymore for most of the types of search activity you'd be looking for.” - Phillip{00:11:41} - “At this moment, we are primed to be skeptical and to notice and to look for disinformation in areas of politics, in areas of religion, maybe even celebrity news, things that are sensationalized or weaponized to make you think a certain way or feel a certain thing. Where we are not prepared for it is in the area of commerce where you are not prepared for disinformation. You are more likely to be persuaded.” - Phillip{00:20:34} - “People are hoarding content that was the originally created content because it is getting removed and pulled out and things are being edited and changed. We've talked about this a lot, but it's just another example. I guarantee you there are a whole host of content hoarders right now that are making sure that they have the original Star Wars.” - Brian{00:34:48} - “That's a far-future idea. But the {retailers} that start to think about how to collaborate with technology companies to release bespoke gadgets to assist with their ecosystems might find a competitive edge. That's probably a 5 to 10 year out thing. But I really believe if you're really a far-thinking leader in commerce right now, you should be thinking about how these gadgets are going to roll out and what that means for your ecosystem.” - Brian{00:37:03} - “Apple Vision Pro, I think will change everything. I really believe that. I'm starting to really believe that. I think it will change a lot of things. It will change the nature of some types of work. I think it'll change the nature of remote work because having physical hardware devices will be very different as an experience in ten years than it is today.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Blimp Commerce episode with faux-out of home referenceGet in on our Muses Mail and join us at Art Basel in DecemberGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

The Lover is brave enough to go against convention, driven by the need to connect with another. They are positive and courageous, bringing out the best in others and seeing love as a universal force. The Lover creates meaning, passion, and connection. Frownies has been building this way for over 130 years, and the Fifth-Generation Female Owner and Face of Frownies, Helen Morrison, gifted us with some incredible insight into what it looks like to be a Lover in the world of commerce.Real Connection{00:03:43} “Jumping on board and getting involved with Frownies, what I wanted to do most of all was just connect with people. I love this version of business so much because it is so connected. It's all about just creating those relationships and reaching out to people and caring for people and supporting people on this skincare journey.” - Helen{00:10:23} “When you build that human connection and you create a culture of we connect with each other, we take care of each other, we support each other, then yes, the customers are doing that in the comments together for each other.” - Helen{00:13:16} “I think you see that or you see people, you see before and after photos or ads for people with skincare. And it's like, oh, come on, you did not achieve that with moisturizer, and I get that. And because I feel that way, I have leaned so far in the opposite direction when it comes to our content and what comes to the honesty surrounding Frownies. Now, I'll tell you, you can't take this approach if you don't have a good product. Frownies is a great product. It's been around for over 130 years.” - Helen{00:15:23} “We just want to say, "Here is this product and this is what it can do. And before you buy it, I'm going to set the expectation of all the weird things about it, of all the reasons you might not like it, so that when you start using it, your expectation is realistic and then you see the results and you're blown out of the water and it's like, "Wow, this is worth it.'" - Helen{00:18:28} “The way you handle that delicately is part of why people feel so connected to you. This through line of connection, connection, connection is really what is such an imperative part of The Lover archetype and why we need The Lover archetype in the landscape of commerce and in our lives.” - KristenAssociated Links: Learn more about Helen Morrison and FrowniesCheck out other Future Commerce podcastsSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world! Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

This season on "Decoded," presented by BigCommerce, we'll delve into the intricate processes behind successful brands. Discover how they conceptualize and debut new products, set their objectives, make pivotal decisions, and foster seamless collaboration across their teams to breathe life into a new product.Ever wondered how customer service evolved from merely addressing post-purchase issues to shaping the broader, more influential customer experience? How has this shift transformed our interactions and relationships with customers? And how is customer experience becoming more proactive rather than just reactive? Dive in to uncover these insights and more. Tune in now!“You can’t spell retail without AI.”{00:08:42} - “Ultimately we want those shops who we heavily rely on to sell our bikes to have that same passion, that same understanding about our bikes. And also to know, this is why the price point is where it's at too. They need to understand that.” - Matt{00:16:03} - “All these different manufacturers were rushing to get this e-bike out on the market because they wanted to capture that right off the bat. We took five years to develop that e-bike. Five years, 25 custom molds. And then we also created six different prototypes or mules, what we call them, in order to ride them, test them, try to blow them up, and see what we can do with them. And then ultimately we started racing them to see how they work and perform on the racetrack.” - Matt{00:22:06} - “How do we get people to buy something in the midst of replacing a product? That's what the AI-driven solution is for SaaS in your customer experience team. But it's not going to make your support team fanatical about the product.” - Phillip{00:26:01} - “The website is the gateway, whether it be chats, whether it be calls, whether it be emails. As recently as when I started 8 to 10 years ago at Industry West, we were still taking faxes, and so it is multichannel, but it all starts and ends with the website.” - Ian{00:32:28} - “Marketing is not any longer where you're just figuring out who your target demographic is and how you're going to communicate to them and then which media you're going to use. Marketing now is every single touchpoint that the consumer has. All of that needs to live under the marketing function.” - Ingrid{00:42:00} - “Customer experience directly is probably not involved until we are in the prototyping stage. But I say that because everything we prototype is built with the customer service team in mind.” - Kabeer{00:49:42} - “Maybe the age of AI does help you create this media with the team you already have and the insights you already have into your relationship with your customer.” - PhillipAssociated Links:Learn more about Matt Hicks and Yeti CyclesLearn more about Ian Leslie and Industry WestLearn more about Ingrid Milman Cordy and Nestle Health ScienceLearn more about Kabeer Chopra and BurrowGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

What happens when your personal fulfillment is overshadowed by tech advancements and rapid business growth? Thomas McCutchen shares his journey of finding purpose in the realm of commerce as an elder millennial while pushing strategy and vision forward for clients in DTC and eCom. From the early days of bootstrapping his passion project to the organic yet intentional growth that led to an Inc 5000 designation, Thomas's story is a testament to the power of authenticity, resilience, and the human touch in a digital age. Listen now!“It Left Me Wanting More”{00:06:08} - “Software on these thick apps where the people using the app are employees that are paid, the user experience leaves a lot to be desired. That bothered me. I wanted to make intuitive systems. I wanted to make systems that were easy to use, that were delightful, that actually the user experience itself was the very thing everyone was talking about.” - Thomas{00:13:57} - “What's baked into subscribers is they are your most loyal customers. They already are by leaps and bounds, so there should be rewards for those. So the ecosystem grew dramatically. And with that, so did agencies, and the tech space got pretty crowded, too. It's still an absolutely great business model and there are still better ways to implement it than others.” - Thomas{00:17:05} - “I didn't found an agency focused on Inc 5000. Really, I became passionate about commerce and eComm. I had an experience building the in-store apps and it left me wanting more. This didn't feel like the promise of technology that I signed up for. I wanted something better.” - Thomas{00:21:09} - “You have to be resilient and that means you have to be dedicated to the problem space. I think that's where a lot of agency owners struggle is they let the happenstance of the customers that walk through the door dictate the directionality of the business as opposed to them being obsessed with a particular problem and trying to solve it.” - Phillip{00:34:16} - “Will AI replace us all? I don't know. But for the time being, it can very much help us do our jobs. So it's important that we embrace these things and figure out ways to leverage them for value and then look at the overall market trends as well.” - Thomas{00:42:23} - “We're continuing to see value in tying content and commerce. Not only do we want to be subject matter experts, but we want our clients to be subject matter experts. So no longer just offering a product, but kind of owning the domain of knowledge around that product.” - ThomasAssociated Links:Learn more about Thomas McCutchen and Bear GroupGrab your copy of The Multiplayer Brand hereHave you checked out our YouTube channel yet?Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!