Gen Z Buys the Vibe, Gen X Pays the Bill

Phillip: Welcome to Future Commerce. We're live at Shoptalk, and we're on day two, and it feels like it's day five.

Brian: Yes.

Elizabth: True.

Brian: We did party last night.

Phillip: Yeah. Well, some of us partied last night.

Brian: We had a fun party last night. The party was good. The vibes were good. People came. There was a lot...

Elizabth: It was busy.

Brian: The room was loud.

Phillip: Very busy party. A lot to talk about. A lot of content to talk about.

Brian: Yep.

Phillip: And I think a lot of things were said. A lot of main stage content. A lot of breakout track content that I think generally, I think covers a lot of things that you might expect that retailers are concerned about. A lot of tariff talk. Right? A lot of AI talk. I had some really interesting conversations in the hallway track, but I really wanna break some of that down here today for people who aren't here at the show. I also wanna talk a little bit about what we're doing here at the Lore Bookshop. So we have our pop-up here at Shoptalk Spring. So this is great, but we have never introduced Elizabeth Schmidt. So welcome.

Elizabth: Thank you.

Brian: Welcome, Elizabeth. Yes.

Elizabth: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Phillip: And this is your second show with us. Introduce yourself.

Elizabth: Yeah. Well, I've been in marketing for going on twenty years. I've worked with brands including Disney, Target, Verdarte, Threadless, Blavity Inc on the media side. So I come with experience that bridges the gap between both media and commerce. And so I'm really excited to be working with you all now today too.

Brian: Yeah. We're so happy to have you.

Elizabth: Thank you.

Phillip: We're excited to be partnered together. And so you caught a ton of content yesterday.

Elizabth: I did.

Brian: Way more than me. Yeah. I hallways tracked it the whole time. Yeah. I can't wait to hear your impressions.

Elizabth: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I learned a lot and there were some really interesting feedback. I caught the CEO, President and CEO, Richard Dixon of Gap Inc.

Brian: Woah. I want to hear about that.

Elizabth: He was interviewed on stage, and that was a really interesting conversation. I really appreciated some of the quotes that he said, and I'll share one in particular that I took away. He was mentioning just about how Gap is a canvas, and they take pride in being a portfolio of American brands that shape culture. And one of the things that he said is he spoke to someone backstage who pulled him inside and said, "You know, my first t-shirt ever, my first polo t-shirt was," and funny how I use the word polo. It's not a Gap brand. {laughter} But he said, "...was a Gap t-shirt." And that just brought such joy to Richard's heart, you know, and he was just talking about that is the lore behind Gap. Another really, really interesting takeaway that I was really quite surprised by was when he was posed the question of defining digital first. And, you know, that's something that I think everyone was... {laughter}

Phillip: What year is it?

Elizabth: Everyone was probably surprised by.

Phillip: What's a Robin Williams meme?

Brian: What year is this?

Phillip: Oh, wait. What was the question? What was the context of the question?

Elizabth: It was truly, "What is digital first?"

Phillip: To Gap? Okay.

Brian: Wait. Who asked the question?

Elizabth: It was a CNBC reporter, Courtney Reagan.

Brian: Oh, yeah.

Elizabth: She asked that question. And it's possible that a publicist wrote that question, maybe.

Phillip: I've had a publicist write a question for me or two in my day.

Brian: Maybe it was ChatGPT. {laughter}

Elizabth: That also could be possible.

Phillip: That's generous too.

Brian: Yeah. Maybe.

Phillip: Because I've had ChatGPT write a question for me or two, in my day, too.

Brian: No question. No question. Although it doesn't feel sophisticated enough for ChatGPT.

Phillip: No. You know what? Okay. So I'll be generous. Again, maybe that's a fair question in the context of Gap who's sort of like reinventing itself and maybe trying to reinvent itself around nostalgia

Elizabth: Yeah.

Phillip: And maybe trying to drive more influence and traffic back to stores. I don't know. What was the answer I think is the question.

Elizabth: Yeah. He did a really good job about describing every way that they value digital and how they're bridging the gap between both digital and in-store experiences, which I think a lot of brands are really paying more attention to what that in-store experience is and how you can still integrate digital into that. It's both. You're not just walking to a store and not interacting with something digital, also.

Brian: Yeah.

Elizabth: So he did talk about how they're really trying to focus on that. I didn't hear him say anything specific about nostalgia aside from the conversation that he had with that person backstage, but there is such nostalgia behind their brands. They've been around for decades.

Phillip: Yeah.

Elizabth: And everyone knows who they are, and they're really innovating. And especially with the Gen Z market now and how they're creating their marketing campaigns, how they're leveraging even shapes of some of their products and whatnot, and catering to that new, wide, loose-leg Gen Z appeal, which is hard for me.

Brian: It may be going away already. Supposedly.

Elizabth: Right.

Phillip: I don't know, actually.

Brian: Who knows?

Phillip: So our number one written essay in 2024 was a piece... Sorry. I should quantify this. Our number one social click-through essay of 2024. It's a totally different metric.

Elizabth: Yes. That's true.

Phillip: Was a piece written by a partner of ours, a friend, Alex Greifield, and she wrote this piece called "Is Gap Good Again: Does It Even Matter?" And it was based around a campaign they launched with an influencer, and it was based around dance and a revival of an old capsule collection that they had from the nineties. And part of that is, they were basically running back the playbook that they ran with Banana Republic. So, a revival of an old ad campaign, a revival of old sort of nostalgic capsule collections. And I think that that is probably a playbook that's gonna work really well for them.

Elizabth: Absolutely.

Brian: Totally.

Phillip: But both with Gap and with Banana Republic, and I'm not in fashion at all, it doesn't seem like they keep that up beyond the initial launch. They don't sustain that.

Brian: Maybe. I feel like Banana actually benefited. So, actually, I feel like the question about digital first, was actually answered when they hired Ana Andjelic to helm Banana. And that's when they actually relaunched the Gap website. It used to be really bad.

Phillip: That's true.

Brian: The Gap website was a pain to work with. It's beautiful now.

Phillip: Yeah.

Brian: And it's fast. It used to be slow.

Phillip: What did he say about tariffs? Did he have anything to say?

Elizabth: He did. He did. He said, in fact, he was singing the praises of their supply chain throughout the entire conversation, which I really appreciate because clearly they've spent a lot of time diversifying their supply chain. He said only around 10% of their supply chain comes out of China. He said less than 1% comes out of Mexico and Canada combined.

Brian: Yeah.

Elizabth: So they're not really gonna be dramatically impacted, according to him. And that's smart. So they've been thinking ahead this whole time.

Brian: Totally. So smart of them. Yeah. I think that a lot of people made some shifts during the first Trump presidency.

Elizabth: Yeah. Prepared.

Brian: And during COVID. COVID actually changed the pipeline because of all the shipping issues with China. Although I would have thought Mexico would have been more heavily invested because it's right here.

Phillip: I think a traditional apparel retailer is probably sourcing a little differently than a Chinese-based fast fashion apparel retailer these days. So they're probably talking a book that was probably differently structured based on a traditional apparel assortment anyway. Let's talk a little bit about what Kevin O'Leary spoke.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Phillip: I love listening to a shark.

Elizabth: Same.

Phillip: I've had the good fortune of spending some time with Mr Wonderful. What did he have to say? I think he was talking about linear advertising.

Elizabth: He had a lot to say about TV advertising. He was the whole time, he was talking about the importance of driving down your CAC and lifetime value. And he said if you aren't able to prove that within your ROAS, you're not doing performance marketing right.

Brian: I feel like that's a line. It's like such an obvious line.

Elizabth: Is it true?

Phillip: I don't know. But it does feel like like that's a more mature conversation than what we've heard in years past because it feels like it's a new channel. I heard TikTok a lot the last couple of years.

Brian: Sure.

Phillip: That's a new channel. But linear feels like a very mature channel beyond just...

Elizabth: But becoming more and more accessible.

Phillip: Right.

Elizabth: So Kevin was talking about how they're actually spending 40% of their ad dollars on TV, and that is not just streaming.

Phillip: Wow. That's a lot.

Elizabth: And they use I wanna say, Tatari is the name. Yes. Tatari is the only service that does all of TV, not just streaming. So they're doing linear and streaming.

Phillip: Wow.

Brian: Yep.

Elizabth: And that's the tool that they use. He established some kind of strategic partnership with them. Which is really smart. That's 40%.

Phillip: Let's bleep that out and put that behind the paywall.

Brian: Yeah. I was going to say.

Phillip: No. I'm just kidding. Call us Tatari.

Brian: Yeah. Feels like this was an ad for Tatari.

Phillip: I love that. He works with them.

Elizabth: Yep.

Phillip: And so he has a portfolio of brands, obviously through Shark Tank.

Elizabth: Yep.

Phillip: Okay.

Elizabth: Some of them were on stage with him. Next to him.

Phillip: Yeah. And there's and they're spending 40%?

Elizabth: 40%.

Phillip: Wow.

Elizabth: And he was saying that any brand that's spending $50,000 on advertising per month, if you're not doing TV, you're doing it wrong.

Brian: I think it got really cheap. That's what I think. I think these things come in waves, you know, and when all the dollars shift over to a different channel, the prices come down in any other.

Phillip: I can hear him now. He's like, "It's about the money."

Elizabth: Well, with social costs rising, seriously.

Brian: Totally.

Elizabth: You know, TV costs are lowering. And so it's again, it's an accessible marketing channel. Everyone should be doing it. I agree. I've been singing its praises for years.

Brian: Stores and TV, baby. Let's go.

Elizabth: Yeah. Right?

Phillip: Everything old is new again. {laughter}

Elizabth: {laughter} So true.

Phillip: But there is like a really interesting cultural angle to this though because which I think Walmart is really tapped into. And our friend John Packer who I shared a flight with on the way here. We both flew in from Fort Lauderdale.

Brian: Nice.

Phillip: We're on the same flight. John Packer from Goat Foods. They have this amazing portfolio of brands. It's like Licorice.com, Caramels.com. I think they have Chocolate.com, Pretzels.com. They have all of them these days.

Brian: I just bumped into him in the hall, actually.

Elizabth: How did they get those domains?

Phillip: So that's the incredible part.

Elizabth: It's genius.

Phillip: It is genius, actually. We'll have to actually have him come tell the story, but his father-in-law has been holding domains and acquiring domains for twenty five years.

Elizabth: He had the right idea.

Phillip: Yeah.

Brian: Yeah.

Phillip: It's an incredible business. Amazing vertically integrated business too. But he was telling me, you know, their television advertising was the huge unlock for their business, massive growth for their business. And a lot of their unlock in that business was like, they gatekeep like crazy. You do not tell anyone who you work with in the television space because getting the right people and the right agents and getting space in advertising and getting the right people, that's the game.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Phillip: And part of it too is that the people that buy off of television advertising are culturally people who have television playing in the background twenty four hours a day. And so there's this like totally different cultural behavior and it skews older. But I think everybody gets older eventually. But it skews older and he says, you have an always-on advertising channel that's just playing ambiently all the time.

Brian: Terrifying.

Phillip: And that is like, it's extraordinarily powerful.

Brian: It is. Yeah. I know. And even like there's in the same vein, there are demographics and segments out there that have radio on all the time. That's their workplace. And radio advertising is extremely cheap as well. Like there's so many channels that have had dollars shift away that are still untapped markets. Or they're getting cheaper. And so things balance out though. You know, the moment a channel gets cheap, it gets expensive again.

Phillip: Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: If they're talking about it on a stage at Shoptalk, it's probably dead already.

Phillip: Have you ever heard the saying the solution for high prices is high prices?

Elizabth: I haven't.

Phillip: It's like whenever prices get too high, people stop buying, so prices come down. And the thing that breaks low prices is low prices because everybody rushes in and drives prices up. And so that's an unfortunate economic reality.

Elizabth: Yeah. Truth.

Phillip: I think what's interesting and what you were saying too is that your losing side, I think everybody's always looking for, like, what's the next incremental channel?

Elizabth: Right.

Phillip: You have a lot of experience in this.

Elizabth: I do.

Phillip: When you're working on the brand side too, what does that channel mix look like? And what have you seen historically? I think a lot of people just struggle with fundamentals. How do you even advise a brand who's just looking for more incrementality all the time? They're probably struggling with TikTok right now.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Phillip: How do they go futzing around with television? At what point... You're struggling with $50,000 of ad spend, and you're gonna go into television? It seems like bad advice. I don't know. That to me sounds like bad advice, but what do I know?

Elizabth: Well, just like any advertising channel, you have to test. And so you don't know until you try it. And one of the things that I've noticed historically is brands aren't often willing to try. I don't know if it's fear.

Brian: Yeah.

Elizabth: They're afraid of how they're gonna be perceived. They're afraid that the content isn't gonna be good enough, but it's just content. You probably already have a thirty second commercial that you can cut together without thinking too hard about it. You don't need some wild, massive, you know, 6 figure production.

Phillip: Yeah.

Elizabth: You just need something... Give someone an iPhone and go shoot something. The amount of iPhone commercials I've seen...

Phillip: That's true.

Elizabth: And they're good, and they're relatable. And you just need something that's gonna tug at the emotional heartstrings a little bit. And then you have a beautiful piece of advertising. And so I think if you're not doing TV, you're missing out. I also think if you're not doing SMS, you're missing out, and a lot of brands aren't doing that. The biggest qualm about SMS that I've tried to get brands to think differently about is it it should never be a consistent promotional channel. You should utilize it to simply brighten your clients or customers' day. At Threadless, at one point, I was scheduling a post a month, you know, minimally because you don't wanna ever send more than three messages a week maximum on SMS. That is like maximum. But occasionally, would just have our designer create a custom GIF that was just like, "We hope you have a beautiful day." And that's what we would send. No link. No nothing. I kid you not. Some of those messages were our top grossing messages.

Brian: Believe it.

Elizabth: Wow. Because people were just manually going to threadless.com and purchasing because they loved getting that message. So these are channels that you can utilize to really build community. And if you're not doing it, you're losing.

Brian: I think another thing about TV and linear and some of these older channels is that it used to be that when someone invested in those, it was really hard to track return. The tools in those channels have gotten a lot lot better.

Elizabth: Exactly.

Phillip: Yeah.

Brian: And so you can actually measure TV. Before when you would try TV, it would just be like blasting messages out into the world.

Elizabth: Impressions. {laughter}

Brian: Yes. Right. Exactly. And so I was talking with one of our sponsor's marketing architects and they were telling me about like how much there is available now, how much data there's available. That's probably another reason why Kevin's saying invest in TV because it's actually it's a much more measurable channel than it used to be.

Phillip: What else did you hear about? I think there was a... There's some luxury conversations.

Elizabth: Yes.

Phillip: You caught up on some Essence. I've been showing off my, all of my AI styling at this show. I've been using Doji. Doji is this, like, AI styling app, And so I've been very influenced by that. Doji is sort of famously trained only on Essence sort of catalog photography. So maybe I can't afford to shop at Essence, but I would love to hear what they had to say here at the show.

Brian: By the way, I swear, Everlane is using Doji to do their images now.

Phillip: No. There's no way. There's no way. There's no way because it has some problems as I've documented on this show.

Brian: I'm sure it's getting QA'd by a person.

Phillip: It must be.

Brian: It feels just like it.

Elizabth: That's the future.

Phillip: What the session that you checked out and give us a little background?

Elizabth: Yeah. It was it was a conversation with the Global Luxury Lead from Accenture who interviewed The US CEO of Zidig and Voltaire and the Head of Marketing at Essence. And it was a fascinating conversation. The global luxury lead initially walked us through essentially the desirability framework of luxury brands, which included how she defined it, seven key differentiators. And then after she walked through all of those, and I'll tell you those in just a minute, she then interviewed both of those individuals, which was a really compelling conversation. But the key dimensions that I took away that she walked us through were four main ones that every luxury brand differentiates themselves around. Exclusivity, quality and craftsmanship, heritage, obviously, and iconic status. And then the three other ones, she phrased as how they were basically added for, like, the new generation. So these are things like experience where value is becoming more important for, you know, Gen Z.

Phillip: Sure.

Elizabth: And we're seeing a lot of that with fashion invitations. We're seeing a lot of that with pop ups, especially in Europe, with Prada, with Giacomo doing a lot of really innovative things with with the toast, one of my favorite invites. And then innovation is another big one, and then social value. So the last one being social value that she touched on did in fact talk about DE&I and sustainability, and how important those things really are to these next generations, and how they will effectively not shop a brand because if they don't align with their values, they're just not gonna be interested in them at all. One of the stats she shared was she said that the luxury market lost 50,000,000 customers due to a misalignment in values.

Phillip: And so Accenture, I think the thing that really took me by surprise is that Accenture has a a global lead focusing just on this market. Which is interesting to me because that seems that there's a strong opportunity not just in the consulting realm because I think of as Accenture as like implementation.

Brian: Consulting. Yeah.

Phillip: Right. But they're not just consulting services.

Brian: Sure. Yeah. They have like huge projects behind that.

Phillip: Right. Right. So their delivery. But this seems like this framework is like a thought leadership framework.

Elizabth: Yeah. Right. It's market analysis.

Phillip: Yeah. It's right. So they're thinking about how the new, like a new consumer is thinking about how they fit into a worldview or a cultural analysis of how...

Brian: You know what I heard woven through all that? Lore and myth.

Elizabth: Yeah. Yes.

Phillip: That's true.

Elizabth: Yeah. Absolutely.

Phillip: Well, actually that might just be a wonderful segue. What are we doing here?

Brian: I mean, we're doing some incredible things. So it starts with, of course, our new book Lore, which is all about the stories that brands tell and the stories their customers tell back to them and to each other and how that creates myth and how enduring brands... We talk about the future of commerce. Brands that last a hundred plus years are ones that build myths. And I can see Phillip modeling it over there.

Phillip: This is it.

Brian: I hope this book on into itself is a myth someday.

Phillip: It's beautiful.

Brian: We have incredible pop up here on the floor. We have a 20 by 20 space here at the cafe on Row 2100, nd we have a beautiful display as you can see of all of our books and some really cool Easter eggs over on the other side of this tower that are found in the book. And talking to people about it. We had an incredible party last night where we explored ideas of myth making through, well, writing down stories by hands with a calligrapher and tasting incredible wines and having a party that's worthy of being told or having stories told about.

Phillip: Yeah. One of the important things about being here is that we are partnered with Shoptalk. And they have been incredible partners to us over the years. And this year, we're taking that partnership even deeper. And we are working on a project with them. And so at this party, we ask people to, you know, sort of approach us with their confession, like a five word confessional of what has happened to them at Shoptalk or maybe what is a confessional of what they have done in Vegas, maybe something they shouldn't have done. I don't know. So we had sort of all of these prompts that allowed people to create their own lore in a book of lore. And what we did is we created a book of lore of people who have attended Shoptalk in the past and who have attended this Shoptalk. And in that book of lore, our scribe actually... And in that book of lore, our scribe actually was enrobed, right, as like a medieval scribe, came in beautiful calligraphy and actually wrote in the book all of these people's confessions, their lore. And we're gonna take that with us to Shoptalk Fall later this year in Chicago. And we might intume it. I'm not sure. We might actually put it into a time capsule sometime. So there's some lore that we're gonna co create together with our community and that's, you know, something that we're gonna continue to create. We've got some special things in store as we're continuing to partner with Shoptalk. So thank you to Shoptalk for helping make whole thing possible. This Lore bookshop would not be possible without Shoptalk and it's been a wonderful partnership.

Brian: Fact, part of the lore of Shoptalk is cataloged in our book.

Phillip: That's right.

Brian: Their first show, I have been to every single Shoptalk in Vegas and you've seen the evolution of our industry through this event. And that unto itself is a bit of a time capsule for what's happened in retail. It's part of the myth.

Phillip: Yeah. I think what's also really heartening to see and this maybe is kind of where we like shift gears a little bit is a lot of the conversations that I've had here at at our bookshop and even adjacent. We have some other partner organizations that are right here around us. A lot of those conversations have been I think not just centered on like what's happening here at the show. Like you were saying just before we started rolling that it's a lot of optimism.

Brian: Even in the midst of like the sort of craziness of the market, the optimism here I think was from vendors because all the feedback I've received so far from the vendors is that they've had lots of good conversations and they feel like people are ready to invest in software.

Elizabth: Mhmm.

Brian: That's a good sign. Whether that's maybe, maybe it's cost cutting, maybe you're finding new software that helps things more, make things more efficient. But also some of its experience like friends and partners over in Deer said this is a great show for them, and they're invested in client relationships. Right? And that's not just cost cutting. That's selling. And that's exciting.

Phillip: I had a an extraordinarily heavy conversation, which is rare for us. {laughter} No, I was having... RETHINK Retail was having happy hour just over there. I keep pointing over here.

Brian: They're over there.

Phillip: It was over there. We made great friends with Paul Lewis and and Julia Herron and the folks over at RETHINK, Aliyah Flowers. Wonderful, beautiful people. And so we joined them for their happy hour. Got to meet a lot of folks over there, and I met some really brilliant people. We got into a very deep conversation about the changing nature of how AI, not just in our workforce, but how AI might allow us to do hold out testing for all kinds of things in society. And so we actually wound up at this really interesting use case.

Brian: This might be a long episode.

Elizabth: {laughter}

Phillip: This is going to be a whole other conversation, but this is the kind of thing that has never happened at Shoptalk before. And I think this is the nature of like, wow, we've come a long way.

Brian: Yes.

Phillip: Okay? Because this, I've never had this kind of conversation before. But we were having a conversation about well, and AI actually gives us the opportunity to do all kinds of testing like, well, if we get smart enough and we have a large enough context window, and their example was Notebook LM has a 10,000,000 word or 10,000,000 character context window link. It's huge. Like it's so so large. It's like orders of magnitude larger than ChatGPT. That is so big. It's so big that you could probably get away with trying to treat that as if it's elementary school education. So if it's elementary school education, we could probably play with that enough to say, what does an elementary school education look like by holding out long division and saying, let's treat that as if it's a child who went through elementary school without long division and let's see what kind of things arise to see what might happen if we change the way that we educate in elementary school. And I'm like, woah, we're actually thinking around here now. We're having really deep conversations.

Brian: It is a Black Mirror episode.

Phillip: No. But that's real thought.

Brian: It is. I agree.

Phillip: That's deep thought.

Brian: Totally.

Phillip: And I'm like, that's not a hallway track we were having here three and five years ago.

Brian: People are ready to explore ideas that are worth, I think, talking about things. Things have moved along far enough and people have played around with like new technology enough now in their personal lives where they already have these conversations.

Phillip: Yeah. I think so.

Brian: I think what it took was like a direct to consumer engagement with some of these pieces of technology.

Phillip: Yes. The actual tools.

Brian: Right. Right. Then the implications for all of the other things we can do start to really click into place.

Phillip: We probably just need a two hour episode just to talk about that.

Brian: We do.

Phillip: Because I could just go on and on.

Brian: I mean, dating was the Black Mirror episode where they're like, let's just test these people's personalities in AI. And there's a whole like episode about them trying to like come back the other way.

Phillip: Let's do that episode without Elizabeth here.

Brian: Yes.

Phillip: I don't wan tot hold you out of this episode. What else have you seen here? It could be content, it could be stuff that you saw. What's been interesting?

Elizabth: Well, this being my first Shoptalk, it's really been interesting chatting with people, networking, seeing the floor, seeing what kind of technology exist. Because in my role and in my position, in general, being a marketer, I wanna know what are the tools that people are using to be able to succeed in commerce, you know, in ecom, in digital, in general. And what's most important for people? What are the things that people have to have versus could do without. And there's so much here and so many unique tools to understand and to learn about. So I've just been taking it all in. The thing that honestly that I found most interesting just to like backtrack for one second to dig in Voltaire, that was my biggest learning, which is the shopping behavior of Gen Z.

Phillip: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabth: Because 40% of their customer base is Gen Z. But they're actually winning Gen X because the parents are the ones that are buying.

Brian: Interesting.

Elizabth: So what a strategy that is, you know, appealing to Gen Z and then getting their parents. And to have a brand that can appeal to two completely separate demographics is incredible.

Brian: Oh, it's the McDonald's strategy. {laughter}

Phillip: Yes. In luxury. {laughter}

Brian: Yes.

Phillip: Yeah. It's a Happy Meal and a Big Mac.

Brian: Yeah. Totally. Exactly.

Phillip: That's genius.

Elizabth: Like, that is just phenomenal to me. And that, I think, is the most exciting thing. So, you know, for them to be able to continue to create content that serves both, they were even talking about finding influencers, and they use an AI tool. And I actually really wanna find the CEO to find out what that AI tool is that finds these influencers for them that can bridge the gap and appeal to both Gen X and Gen Z. That's what they said they're doing.

Phillip: Wow. Don't gatekeep that.

Brian: Would it be a millennial that sits between the two generations?

Phillip: That's so wild.

Brian: That's crazy.

Phillip: Yeah. Okay. Anything else? Your first Shoptalk.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Phillip: Did it live up to any expectations?

Elizabth: Yeah.

Brian: Good question.

Elizabth: I think the programming is really most exciting. The accessibility of being able to sit in conversations with the CEOs of some of the biggest brands in the world, some brands that I absolutely love, that I look up to, that I have an affinity towards.  That accessibility is really exciting.

Phillip: I agree with that. Wild to me to have a CEO on stage, second keynote of the day, walk off stage of the main stage, walk in here, and buy two books off of our shelf.

Elizabth: Amazing.

Phillip: To me, I don't think that that happens a very... That's a cool thing to happen.

Elizabth: Yup.

Phillip: That's a pretty cool thing. And it's a kind of a cool pinch yourself sort of a moment. We're really having... It's been a very, very awesome activation for us. What about you? What's been good for you?

Brian: I mean, I think that this is our first time having a activation at Shoptalk.

Phillip: Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: And I think the conversations we've had here has just been... It feels as nice as a cat, but the cover is...

Elizabth: That linen. Absolutely. This linen.

Brian: It is.

Phillip: It's gorgeous.

Elizabth: The texture.

Brian: The texture is very good. I think being here, having conversations, having people walk up and be like, "What is this?"

Phillip: Yeah.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Brian: I had someone walk up and be like, "You got me. What is going on?" And then having an incredible conversation, CEO of a cool company... Anyway, it doesn't matter what it was, but he's like, "Oh my gosh, I was a art history major and my dad at one point was offered a head of MoMA role that he turned it down and I can't understand why he did that to this day." And just being like, oh my gosh, I get this like pulling art in and like having a viewpoint that's beyond just the nuts and bolts, optimization... Can't optimize your way to a myth.

Elizabth: Say that again.

Brian: He worked for a company that was case made actually, or he's the CEO, who started by building a premium like waterproof case, but now they're like, they've moved way up the market and they do incredible activations with influencers and like he's like, "Brand is everything. I am in a commoditized business and brand is the only reason why people are going to buy something like this. We built something that touches the people's emotions."

Phillip: Yeah.

Brian: More than just the features that are there. And so I'm like, "You're a perfect fit for Future Commerce. Welcome."

Phillip: I had a moment yesterday. Third person to walk up to the bookshop came up and said, "This is beautiful." I said, "Thank you so much." And she's like, I have to ask like, who did the design?" I was like, "Well, you know, we did it. Our Creative Director." She's like, "Oh, I do print. I do design. I do interaction design..." We got into this conversation. I'm like, "Do I know you?" She's like, "No." I was like, "Have we met? I feel like I know you." And she's like, "No. I have a social media account and stuff." And as she's flipping through, she's like, "I was an art history major or whatever." And we as we're going back and forth, I'm like, "No. I know exactly who you are. I have followed you on TikTok for like five years."

Elizabth: Amazing.

Phillip: She's an art critic on TikTok. Her name is Sima Rao. And she has like a million followers.

Elizabth: Amazing.

Phillip: She's like one of my favorite influencers on TikTok. And she delivers like scathing retorts to people who are in her comments who are... She's like a firebrand.

Brian: {laughter} Incredible.

Phillip: And she works in our industry and I didn't even know that.

Elizabth: Wow. I have to follow her.

Brian: She's doing really cool stuff too.

Phillip: Really cool stuff. She works in gamification and builds sort of, she's like a UI interaction like game designer. That's her sort of day job. She's got this incredible background in art history and in fine arts. But as we sort of got to know each other a little bit, it was we just found all this common ground. It's just wild how many people... It's just we find each other.

Brian: Totally. That's another thing I think about this conference is I have met new people here.

Phillip: Right.

Brian: I'm so excited to be friends, but more so than I think in years prior. Something's going on. Maybe it's having a booth.

Phillip: Pretty cool.

Brian: Yeah. I don't know. It's not just that. Maybe it was a party. I feel like I've met such quality people.

Phillip: It's true.

Elizabth: Agreed.

Phillip: I just wanna call out Playably is her company. So Sima Rao, she works for Playably. I think they deserve a mention because I think the world of her and you should follow her. Give her a follow. She's absolutely worth following and she has... I told her a number of years ago, oh, maybe it's probably two years ago at this point. Kith did an an activation when they paired up with Marvel for a number of shoes. So Marvel had some anniversary. I think it was a twenty fifth anniversary for it's like a revival of the the X Men television show.

Elizabth: That's a unique pairing.

Phillip: Yeah.

Brian: It's a Kith thing. Like Star Wars... They do...

Elizabth: Oh is it?

Phillip: They did this giant thing. But what they did was they recreated and probably this is like a really interesting cultural problem that we have at the moment is they piled up shoes in sort of in a certain way that sort of evokes this image of a very famous sculpture. It's because it was a sculpture in dedication to an AIDS patient who had died and the sort of performance art it was candy that was meant to be taken and as you're passing through as a visitor to the museum you're supposed to take a piece and it's supposed to wither away over time. And but because of the way that mood boards work and design and mood boards in our industry, like, that stuff just finds its way into a mood board. And then people at Kith are like, that's cool. And then they recreate it, and they have no context of what it's supposed to mean.

Brian: The reference.

[TikTok Video]: This new Marvel launch is why we need history education in our schools. As Darius says

[TikTok Video]: Is Kith x ASIC's X men collection to celebrate sixty years of X men? Because if you didn't know, Kith revealed that they're releasing an X men collection of seven different shoes, seven different characters releasing on July 28.

[TikTok Video]: So if you haven't heard, these shoes come in mystery bags, a la trading cards, you don't know what you're gonna get, how awesome. In general, great. Shoes look cute, fine. Except. Rather than leaning into the nostalgia of trading cards or focusing on how each of these aesthetics is about a certain character, I've always loved Gambit. They went with this. What's wrong with a pile of shoes? Well, the thing about the image of a pile of shoes is that for many people, it's an unwelcome reminder of violence. Because when people are killed in a mass manner, like during the Holocaust, their material possessions remain. It's also something you see, for example, in much of the violence that happened in Colombia, piles of shoes that were left. And that idea of this pile of something is something that I would guess Felix Gonzalez Torres was drawing on when he created this artwork, which is a pile of candy to commemorate his partner who died during AIDS. In other words, he took that very vibrant and disturbing visual image and tried to make it something else. And I mean, you could argue that, but this is something else commercial and trite, and maybe was a miss. They should have just focused with this.

Phillip: Her critique of that has made such an impact on me. I got to share that with her, and I thought that that was just the coolest thing.

Brian: Happens all the time. Derivative content that where people don't even know the original source of the content.

Phillip: Right.

Brian: And they use it anyway and they have no idea what it means.

Phillip: Yeah. I think that sort of thing is we actually have a lot of that sort of thing in this industry. I think we're finding each other, and that's what I think is most special. Any last words?

Brian: It's still all about relationships. You mentioned TV advertising is all about who you know. I think you gotta guard those relationships. I hope that we're not guarding relationships or gatekeeping relationships though because I think our industry is better when we come together and we share those relationships with each other.

Elizabth: Mhmm.

Brian: And so I think Shoptalk is one of those places, especially this year where relationships are shared.

Elizabth: Yeah.

Brian: So I think that's how myths are made when relationships are formed. I'm very excited about this.

Elizabth: This is a community.

Phillip: Cool. Well, that's it. Just a reminder, we have our new book. It's out from Future Commerce Press. Two hundred and eighty pages and 14 contributors. Brian and I really happy to bring this, our fourth book from Future Commerce, and it's our third annual journal. It's called Lore. You can get it today, shop.futurecommerce.com. It'll be down in the comments and description here on our YouTube, and I would love you to check it out. It's beautiful hardcover linen bound, and it's something that deserves a place on your bookshelf or on your coffee table. And Future Commerce Press, it's shop.futurecommerce.com. Love to have it. $75 shipped, and we go to 200 countries these days, and it could be yours, and we'd love for you to have it. Thank you so much for watching. Remember commerce shapes the future because commerce is culture, and we'll see you next time.

‍