Latest / Talk Commerce / The Human Touch in Digital Commerce: A Conversation with January Digital at eTail Palm Springs
Transcript
- Speaker 3 (00:00.174) Here we go. All right, welcome to this special Talk Commerce episode of E-Tail West. Thank you. Thanks for having Speaker 1 (00:21.326) So glad to see you again. So I'm Sarah Engel. I'm the president of January Digital. And we're a digital agency of record for some incredible brands like Kendra Scott and Carhart and Steve Madden. Amazing beauty, fashion, CPG brands. And we are also a consultancy. So we have a whole team of consultants that came from the brand side and can really help make sense of the changes that brands need to make from a digital perspective. And we have a team in New York, a team in Dallas. We can talk more about it. I'll pass to JB. Yeah, JB Brokaw, I'm the Chief Operating Officer. In my day-to-day, I'm more focused internally than externally, so I work on the business quite a bit. a passion point for me is honestly helping brands sift through the noise and figure out who they are, what they stand for, and how to communicate that effectively. Yeah, that's in our green room talk. were talking a little bit about like what is the buzz here and you mentioned just bring the brands right to tell us like that why you opened with Sure, yeah, just, I think, you know, with the proliferation of brands out there in the marketplace today, like the barrier to entry to launch something is next to nothing at this point. And so while you have... Brands popping up every single day, new competitors popping into the category. You've got to give your consumers a reason to either be loyal to you or think about you first in a sea where there are new brands popping up all over the place, Instagram launching its own brands. so like to that end, standing for something and having a meaningful connection with your consumer is far more important than just what the price of your goods are. Price plays a role, but there are other things. Speaker 2 (02:07.906) as well. Yeah, and Sarah, are you seeing a lot of the brands pivot away from or pivot more into human interactions and having a lot of that sort of touch points from actual employees at companies? Yeah, mean, there are... kind of two separate pieces of this, I see it coming to life right now. One is certainly like, stores are back, which makes me very happy. I think, you we learned our lesson during COVID and how important that physical touch point is. And so I'm having more store conversations right now that I've had a really long time. And what does that customer experience look like? And, you know, how are we going to evolve and what data can we get from the stores? And so I think that is, that is what we should be talking about as well. Because, you know, digital only takes you so far. when you look at where most people, most brands are driving revenue, it is still strongly from the stores if they are omni-channel. And so that certainly is a point of conversation. You also see it coming out in physical events and in pop-ups and in so many ways that brands are trying to physically connect with their customers. The other element though that I'm having a lot of conversations around is I still have to measure as a brand, I still have to measure by, you know, comps, by the sales I'm driving right now. That is what I'm held accountable for and that's what's gonna help me keep my job. And yet, Speaker 1 (03:22.892) I need to grow a brand. Brands never been more important. so we're certainly, especially our consulting team, but our agency team too, is working with a lot of brands to determine what are the new KPIs? How do we train, honestly train C-level employees and boards, how to look at something other than just comps, how we can look at new KPIs, how we can all agree on like what timeframe do we have to really build a brand. while we're still building sales. And so that is a big challenge, but I think it is an exciting time in the sense that they're not going to performance market their way to a bigger, more exciting brand. Like they have to have that mix, they have to be able to move things up the funnel, and that is very clear to most retailers right now. You think the rapid the the ability to create something quickly offers brands to start creating other brands as Sub brands gives them that flexibility to hey, let's try this even I see some with sub-brands. I've seen a couple launch here recently where younger brands are actually launching a line for older demographic and vice versa of course. have been so many who've like, we're going to launch a teen line now, that type of thing. But a lot of it's happening within their core brands. It's a matter of how they connect with their consumers at any given point in time. So it's like, okay, they're so used to just... performance marketing, performance marketing, it's all got Google and Meta to saying, okay, how am gonna go up the funnel? How am I gonna have more of brand conversation? Create something that creates an emotional connection and then bring that through the process and give them a reason to buy. not necessarily always launching separate brands, although I am seeing a lot of that, a lot of collaborations, a lot of new brand launches, a lot of ways that they can kind of test and learn quickly, but absolutely within core brands as well and just the way that they're going to market. Speaker 3 (05:12.782) One of the buzzwords around here has been agentic and we talked about that in the green room too. And one of the things that another platform had talked about is deploying AI buying agents that would just go around and shop for you and buy things for you. Do you see anybody doing that yet and how far off do you think that somebody, and I see it as there's going to be some autonomous companies that are coming out. There'll be Amazons that are going out and shopping mainly in Amazon. I would imagine that brands are going to have to accept these agents to talk, right? Yeah, mean, Agentic has been a big point of conversation. I would say it really spiked probably in January at NRF and then having that conversation here. And although it sounds very buzzwordy, like the concept is right. know, AI has come far enough now. We don't want it to just make life slightly easier. We want it to actually, I've trained this AI to do what I need it to do. I want it to do it on my behalf. So that is the natural evolution. It's been possible for a long time, by the way. It's just that it's becoming more consumer friendly. It's becoming more B2B friendly for that matter. And it's not a scary proposition. So I just think it's funny that it's like, we're going to talk about it now, but it's actually been quite possible for quite some time. But those day-to-day real... ways in which people are going to be able to use it. Okay, that makes it real. Like the things that are gonna make my life easier. You know, can you tell me, hey, these are the groceries I have and I want you to go out and replenish the things that I don't have in my fridge right now? That is meaningful to me because that saves me time and I tell you that I'm gluten free and you never buy gluten, you know, laden foods. that's what an agent can do. So like that's an example, but certainly as it pertains to fashion, as it pertains to replenishment. I mean, there's so many consumer elements of that that would work really well. Speaker 1 (07:01.304) But from business standpoint, we're already seeing the kind of rise of the agent that allows you to make things more automated so that we can actually just remove a lot of that busy work and a lot of the mundane things that you don't want humans to do. You want to free up humans for creativity and collaboration. That's the power of humans. So I think my point is it's been possible for a while. I think it's now a buzzword in our industry. And it's becoming more more accepted by consumers whether they actually know that's what's happening or not. And I think you're going to see, sorry to touch on it little bit, it's like, it's those low risk. points of entry that will get people comfortable with it. Like I'm not going to be comfortable with AI buying a car for me. But if they ever want to replenish milk for me and I can train an agent that my groceries are low and my refrigerator can speak, like by all means go for it. That is the stuff I don't want to spend my time doing. And that's kind of like that low risk point. there'll be, you were asking about timing and like how quickly will all of that happen. It'll happen as like, as we get to like the low risk pieces of that, and people start building that into their lives, over time it'll turn into more expensive articles of clothing like those types of things and those bigger purchase items but you're still always gonna have considerate purchases, you're still always gonna have to do your research and so it was interesting we were talking about building a brand before it's like well how are you building a brand if you've got AI bot doing all your shopping for you like who are we speaking to at that point? Yeah that's a good point. And so it like this is where the human element of training in and thinking through and Speaker 2 (08:36.803) where that human touch is actually going to have a massive impact. Yeah, I think one thing that I had been talking about for a long time is humans are always going to buy stuff from other brands, right? And really the reality is at some point the shopping is going to be done by somebody else and then you're going to have to decide do I want it or not. The other part of that is the whole idea of who needs e-commerce and who's buying stuff online. And I just had a debate on LinkedIn, or not a debate, but a disagreement on why you need an AI tool. I think As some of the platforms move more up market, their argument is that they, all other brands don't want to sell things online. And some things people are never going to buy online. And the first thing I thought about is a Tesla and I bought a Tesla without ever driving it. Which who would ever thought about that? Five years ago even, we would have said that's ludicrous, nobody's gonna do that. And so do you think that at some point they're losing an opportunity to sell something online or do you think brands are always going to make that decision to drive like Trader Joe's is one of them that I came up with that doesn't sell online right? They're just making a decision to keep it their online presence as a digital only and then drive people to their stores. Speaker 1 (09:55.15) I have an answer to that question and I'll get more specific but the real answer is they need to understand their customers. Not because they're competitors you're doing it. Not because that's what's possible. All sorts of things are possible but what's right for your brand and so I think so many times like we chase each other down these rabbit holes of like what's possible you should absolutely constantly be testing and looking at what's possible but if brands have real communications with their customers understand the data overlap what their store associates say. have real conversations with customers, social listening, like all these potential ways in which you can communicate with customers, they will tell you what they want. Now, does the customer always know what they might want in the future? No, and that's why you test into it, and that's why you try new things. But like, you know, that to me is the real answer, is like chasing other people down the path because that's, you because it's possible or because you see them being successful is a way in which in about, you know, whatever, 2021, 2022, people destroyed their margins. They're like, I need... same-day shipping and I need curbside pickup and and and and and I need all these things because my competitors have it and all of sudden everybody had a margin issue. So it's like that understanding of your own customer and what they want. You have every possible way to understand your customer. Taking that seriously and driving decisions based on that is going to help people decide what's the right path for them. Yeah, that's a good point. I listened to an interview or I was in an interview earlier today where they talked about walmart.com and how they're selling things online that they would never sell in their store. And Doug, somebody Dougie, the CEO, I forgot his last name right now, apologize. He decided that he would sell a particular cooler in store because it was so successful online and it turned out to be a great in store sailor too. So there is a, I guess there's an opportunity. for brands to test e-commerce, Even if they, like, Trader Joe's could test something. Two-Buck Chuck delivered to your door. Speaker 2 (11:54.734) Well it's also just like meet your customers where they are. You may have some that want to buy through an e-com experience, you may have some that want to go to a store. You may decide full stop, I don't care, I don't want any of that. There are very few brands actually that get to be that prescriptive and make that kind of a call. I mean, can think of a few like earlier in my career, I worked on Hermes and we were selling out everything in e-commerce. Like, well, can you get more? No. That's not, our brand is scarcity and exclusivity. We're not making more. And so like that is them playing by their rules as opposed to many other brands, should be like, wait, we're selling more, let's just keep manufacturing more, let's get more product, let's keep going. And so there are times and places for that, but I would say on the whole, if you want to continue to grow and you're growth oriented as a brand, think you're going to have to have many different ways of meeting people where they are and not just stuck on one, there's one way we do. What at January Digital what are you seeing as shifts in the economy now and shifts in what brands are doing for this year? Yeah, I've heard that question phrase a few ways this week, actually at e-tail. had a brand ask me yesterday, is everybody soft? Are we the only ones soft? So the question's coming up in different ways. what I would say is people are facing kind of different challenges. Across the board, we are seeing that it's taking longer for people to convert. They're considering more. It actually was in the holiday season, too. They're considering more. It's not that they're not purchasing. It's that they're considering things that aren't necessities in a Speaker 1 (13:34.8) different way. So, okay, that means we're going to have more touch points. That means we're going to have to consider, you know, is this actually, you know, incremental revenue or is, this going to happen anyway? So like putting in place a lot of their measurement models. So we, you know, that is a big element. A lot of measurement models going in now, a lot of MMM, lot of incrementality testing, you know, because everybody's kind of figuring out things are shifting, touch points are shifting. I'm not exactly sure what's working and I have different sources of data. And so We are certainly doing a lot of work in that regard with almost all of our clients as it pertains to incrementality and MMM. So that's one big area. The other area I guess I would say is the folks that are doing really well right now are the ones who have a really solid test and learn methodology, who are doing structured testing. So we are very focused on structured testing all of our teams. could be anything. as something simple within Google that you're testing, it could be absolutely trying to figure out other ways to diversify outside of Google and Meta. And so the folks that did that in like Q2 of last year are in a much better shape right now than those who are more averse to testing. And so we're talking, we're running two or three tests. One works, you move it forward. Two didn't work, you throw them out. Just this mentality of the test and fail fast and keep moving. they are doing significantly better and a lot less soft right now because they have options, they have diversified media, they have options of where to shift things, and they can reach their customers in other ways. So those are the two things that I think of. Here at ETEL, what have you seen that is interesting and new to you? Speaker 1 (15:07.192) No. We were laughing about this earlier. We walked through the show floor, know, the exhibit hall, and everybody's rebranded to be AI, so that is funny to me. But a couple years ago, was everybody rebranded to be Big Data, and now we're all rebranding to AI. So in that way, it's not surprising, but it did kind of make me laugh. I think there's a lot more creative conversations going on, which is super exciting in our world as well. I mean, we are having so many conversations about people need, absolutely need more video. They need more creative in general, need more creative iterations, they need more brand media as opposed to performance media. It is just that everybody's trying to figure out how to create more and create something that's more powerful. And I have seen a lot of interesting vendor solutions. There are a lot of point solutions that you'd have to plug together to make this work right now. And I think you'll see that evolve a lot over the next year to 18 months. But a lot more conversation. Creative is the algorithm. Creative is what is actually driving things forward, right? Which is an exciting time for the industry. Creativity's back and I think everybody's really working hard on that. And I've seen that play out here just in the number of, don't normally, you tend to see a lot of ad tech at a show like this, but you don't see a lot of creative resourcing, UGC, content creators. We've had a lot of those conversations this week, which is great. measurement platforms focused on creative and how are things actually performing and getting down to data levels that can really help inform and make a quick turn on creative assets. So that's been really interesting. Speaker 3 (16:37.102) Yeah, do you think we went through this kind of curve from big data to now back to creative like that's what people want to see something a little more authentic I think that, yes, I think so. think that the data infrastructures are in place. What was theoretical before is now just everybody needs to do it. These are just table stakes, right? And so I think it's evolved forward. It's not like, ah, we pushed data to the side. It's like, we've evolved forward. If you don't have a data strategy in place, you're so far behind at this point. So that has evolved forward. the ability to automate so much more from an AI perspective, even at the basic level of content, written content, content creation, creative, that allows you to then spend a lot more time on creativity and that big idea. Great, let AI write you 15 versions of it, but you need that human to go, how does this tie to the brand and what's that big idea? It's this kind of renaissance of the big idea and the creativity, so I think that's an exciting. I view it actually as the payoff now of big data, of what all of that work that went on for 10 years of everyone trying to get their data house in order. Now is actually the payoff. For a while we all thought it was about ad targeting and well if I have all this data I can target this very specific person in this very specific thing, this very specific moment in time. It quite work that way right now. But because people built their data assets and have a much better view of their customer, they can actually speaks like they know so much more about who they are and how they interact with their brand. You can create more compelling content, more authentic content. So actually, I think it's actually all paying off. I just don't think it's paying off in the way everyone envisioned it in its initial phase. But I still think it's really exciting. And I still sit here and say, thank God we went through that evolution to get to where we are now. And I'm sure this will be step two of something where there's 50 steps. Speaker 3 (18:33.326) Yeah, that's awesome. Sarah and JB we have a few minutes left and I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug at the end of every podcast. What would you like to plug today? Gosh, I mean, things that we're super excited about right now. I think with our consulting crew, we are doing so much more work on measurement and on... know, setting up teams for success. And so we, you our whole consulting team came from the brand side. And so we're working with a lot of brands to determine what is the right structure, what is the right tech stack, therefore, what is the right way we measure and like upleveling everybody really all the way to the board level. We're a lot of those conversations, which is exciting. I think from an agency perspective, I'm excited about a lot of things. Like we are, you know, doing a lot of work in Amazon and retail media, a lot of work in affiliate. We have a whole growth team that's really you know, gosh, they've doubled in size over the last year where, and when I say growth team, we tend to work with larger enterprise clients and we have been working with a group of really fast growth, you know, exciting brands that have this opportunity to grow really quickly. And we have the folks who are really, really great at that who've been focused in on it. And so that's been, that's been a really exciting element for our team as well. Yeah, that's great. JB Brokaw and Sarah Engel, thank you so much for being here. January Digital, it's been such a great conversation and I'm hoping you enjoy what's left of eTail now. Speaker 1 (19:54.35) Thank thanks for having us.