Latest / The Retail Podcast / Shoptalk 2025: Innovation, Luxury, and The New Market

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Shoptalk 2025: Innovation, Luxury, and The New Market · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to the Retail podcast live from the Hive
• 0:03
  offices. I'm lucky enough to carve 15
• 0:06
  minutes with Sophie Weber, the CEO of all of the.
• 0:11
  President is my weird title global?
• 0:13
  President, OK, yeah, but across all of the brands, right.
• 0:16
  So shop talk, Bruce, you talk shop talk ball.
• 0:18
  It's it's January 2025. What's top of mind?
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  What? What?
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  What's keeping Sophie wake up right now?
• 0:23
  We have so much exciting stuff going on this year.
• 0:26
  We've come back kind of raring to go for for 2025.
• 0:29
  The thing that's top of my agenda is we have two new
• 0:32
  launches that we're working on this year and so as well with
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  four existing shows. So you talked about those
• 0:37
  already. We have a new of shot talk
• 0:41
  spring this year called the new markets, which I'm very, very
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  excited about. So that's new home for retail
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  media as well as, you know, the sort of feature of the attention
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  economy, we're calling it everywhere that customers
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  discover new products and the new purchase journey.
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  And then we have also very, very excitingly gone live just today
• 1:00
  with the announcement that in early 2026, January 2026, we're
• 1:04
  going to be launching Shop Talk Lux.
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  Oh, wow, yeah, absolutely exciting.
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  So that's a a brand new event that we're running in Abu Dhabi,
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  which is for the luxury and the and the premium and retail
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  community. So yeah, we're really, really
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  excited to be kicking that off. We've been working behind the
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  scenes on that for a little while, but it's lovely to have
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  out in the world and then we'll talk about it publicly.
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  So I mean that. I mean, that sounds like an
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  whole episode in it, so. Oh yeah, we'll come back for
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  that another day, yeah. Isn't lights in the venue and
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  everything's been, is that like? Yeah, absolutely.
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  Yeah. So we're running it at Emirates
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  Palace. Oh my God, iconic Emirates
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  Palace. And actually really excitingly,
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  this is a very different sharp talk experience.
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  So we're taking all the kind of best bits of sharp talk that
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  people know and love. So the incredible content, you
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  know, the real deep dive on the content front, the meet up
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  experience, all of those, all of those great bits that people
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  love about the shows, but we're kind of elevating the experience
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  so well as elevating the conversation.
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  So yeah, it'll be almost the whole event's going to be taking
• 2:01
  place outside. So we'll have meet up on the
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  beach. We're going to have yeah, it's
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  going to be brilliant. It'll be able to experience.
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  Yeah, exactly it. Sounds emergency.
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  On the agenda? Yeah, actually on the
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  experience. I can imagine all the folks at
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  Caring LVMH, all of these are about time that there's
• 2:16
  something for us, right? Believe it or not, we're only
• 2:19
  two months and away from your big Manson's show.
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  Yeah, the big daddy of his show. What?
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  I mean, what's in store this year?
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  Oh, we put so, so much on the agenda.
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  I actually am going to introduce you to Joe Laszlo, our Head of
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  content, because he'll be able to delve into all of the trends
• 2:35
  that we're picking up on Shop Talk Spring this year.
• 2:37
  Thank you. For covering that some time and
• 2:39
  hopefully see you in a couple of.
• 2:40
  Months. I'll see you on in Vegas.
• 2:42
  So. I'm here sat with Joe Laszlo,
• 2:44
  head of content for Shop Talk in the US.
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  Joe, I'd love to understand what is head of content What?
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  What is behind what the the title.
• 2:54
  Yeah, well. Thanks for having me on Alex.
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  It's a pleasure to be chatting with you today here in our our
• 2:58
  office shop talk is always, since we started in 2016, taking
• 3:02
  a very editorially driven approach to our agenda and
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  speakers. So we start about nine months
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  before one of our shows. We start with a blank sheet of
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  paper or a blank whiteboard and start thinking about nine months
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  from now, what is going to be on the minds of executives at
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  retailers and consumer brands? What technologies will they be
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  concerned about? What new industry trends will
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  they be thinking about? How can we programme an agenda
• 3:26
  that will most serve their needs in that moment?
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  It's, it's tricky if it takes talking a lot to smart people in
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  the industry and, and reading a lot about what's going on.
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  But, but once we have that framework of an agenda together,
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  then we focus on who would be the best possible speakers.
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  So it is a, a long and thoughtful process putting our
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  agenda together, but and, and getting to be a, a subject
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  matter expert at the same time. We, we create our own take on
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  this moment in retail called the retail Zeitgeist that we deliver
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  at at shop talks. So it's a, it's a combination of
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  that, that logistical finding the right speaker for the right
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  topic, putting together panels of people that you think are
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  going to have a really great conversation and occasionally
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  getting to lead the industry a little bit as well.
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  As far as you know, kind of our our thoughts, our direction help
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  shape what what is on the minds of senior executives at
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  retailers and consumer graphs. Joe, I'm really fascinated about
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  last year you made the announcement about the new
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  market. Is it a different conference?
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  Do I, does my ticket get me into the new market?
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  What's it focused on if I don't know if you can expand on that
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  for us? Absolutely, I'd love to.
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  We're really excited about the new market at Shop Talk this
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  year. First of all, New Market content
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  is available to anybody who has a Shop Talk ticket.
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  It's not a a separate show, although it is a show within a
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  show in some major ways. You know, we live at this really
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  interesting moment where I don't know, even six or seven years
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  ago when Shop Talk started, consumer brands were consumer
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  brands and retailers were retailers and agencies were
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  agencies and media companies were media companies.
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  And everybody sort of knew the role that they played in this
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  ecosystem of how to get and keep customers attention and how to
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  get products in in the hands of customers who wanted them.
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  But now we live in a world where the retailers are all
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  reinventing themselves as media companies.
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  They're selling advertising to consumer brands.
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  Consumer brands are creating TV shows to promote themselves to
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  customers. So they're kind of getting into
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  the media business too. Agencies and media companies are
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  both becoming retailers because they're creating marketplaces to
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  sell goods. So all of these roles are
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  blurring together in a way that makes it hard to programme a
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  show, but also makes it a really compelling, interesting moment
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  for the industry. And, and that I think is really
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  the motivation behind the New Market.
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  The New Market is going to be a show within Shop Talk, a stage
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  on its own right that's running all three days of the conference
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  focused on the future of how companies can best get and keep
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  their customers or their prospective customers attention.
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  So be exploring the state-of-the-art of retail
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  media. We'll be exploring other sorts
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  of platforms and media and opportunities as well.
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  And and just again, ways that brands are succeeding at cutting
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  through the clutter and and finding their customers and
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  really kind of create a those those compelling, either top of
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  funnel emotional. I love this brand kind of
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  moments or those compelling. I got to go buy this now moments
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  or that blurry line in between the two.
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  So I'm really excited about the new market.
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  I think it is an interesting experiment of ours.
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  We've always programmed a track on the future of marketing and
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  advertising, but this just expands, makes it more senior,
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  makes it more serious and and hopefully really serves the
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  needs of our audience. That's fantastic.
• 6:32
  What do you think is the ideal profile of an attendee?
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  Not an ideal, but who do you feel that resonates with the
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  most? Shark Talk has always been
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  designed to attract and serve the needs of a diverse set of
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  retail skill sets, Expertise sections.
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  I I think historically, because Shop Talk is a conference
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  focused on retail and innovation and technology, I think it makes
• 7:00
  total sense to me why folks with digital or Omni channel or
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  unified commerce titles find it really valuable.
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  Executives with marketing or product type titles also find it
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  valuable. But but I think beyond those, we
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  also try to programme the conference for and deliver value
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  to people from the operations and supply chain teams, people
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  from the stores team, because, you know, we live in a world
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  where, you know, everybody needs to have their area of expertise,
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  where they go deep. But all those lines are so
• 7:31
  blurry these days that you kind of have to know a little bit
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  about everything in order to be successful at a retailer or
• 7:36
  consumer brand. And so we try to give people
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  opportunities to get a little outside their lane and learn
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  from executives, from other parts of organisations, as well
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  as go deep on what they know and what they need to do day-to-day.
• 7:46
  Alex, thank you so much for having me.
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  It's a pleasure talking with you and look forward to seeing you
• 7:51
  on March 25th in Las Vegas.