"Just Don't Say Metaverse"
🔮Welcome to Friday, futurists.
We just wrapped a strategic training with our friends at Klaviyo for their Champions Program, helping them create new and powerful Archetypes-based personal brands. The feedback was incredible, and we’re excited to bring more executive and community workshops in the Fall.
📆 SAVE THE DATE: October 10th. Our VISIONS Summit is coming to Los Angeles!
Discounted tickets are already available for Future Commerce Plus members.
Your promo code is in your inbox, or you can reply to this email for support. Not a member yet? Save 20% when you join.
“Don’t Say Metaverse”
This week on the podcast we sit down with the Head of Brand Marketing and Innovation at Walmart, Justin Breton, who walked us through their new strategy to futureproof the Future Consumer.
“Walmart is now the most adaptive retailer,” said Breton. They’re making big bets to continue to adapt to an accelerating future. Through their Walmart Discovered on Roblox with Real-World Commerce, they’re beginning to sow seeds with a new type of shopper who prefers to spend time in non-linear, communal digital spaces.
But don’t call it “the metaverse.”
“We are doing things on Roblox. We are doing things with immersive commerce. We've expanded to these platforms and technologies. And then over time, conversion that is meaningful to the brand and business,” he elaborates.
The ultimate goal: a three-plus-year vision to drive $1B in GMV in these new ventures and begin to shape the future into Walmart’s image: discovery, familiarity, exploration, gamification, creator partnerships, and partner brand activations.
Watch the interview on YouTube or listen on Apple and Spotify.
— Phillip
P.S. Talk Thirsty to Me. Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death, shares their playbook for driving hundreds of millions in earned media with infinitely small budgets. We sat down with Dan to talk thirsty at RICE in Chicago. Queue up your weekend listen to “How Liquid Death is Murdering Marketing” on Spotify.
Sauce Opera. Jesus’ favorite chicken brand is set to launch original content on its own streaming platform, marking a bold fusion of brand identity and entertainment. This venture into “cultural commerce” blends faith-driven narratives with a broader cultural footprint. In 2021 and 2022, Chick-Fil-A tested The Stories of Evergreen Hills, an animated narrative short film series about faith and family during the holidays.
This Week in Lammers Law. Perplexity AI plans to integrate search ads by Q4 2024, blending AI-driven search with the consumer empowerment movement. This shift challenges traditional search paradigms, testing consumer trust in algorithmic recommendations while subverting the standard ad models.
This decision reflects the influence of Lammers Law, which suggests that as a technology platform scales, the pressure to generate revenue through advertising increases, often at the expense of the user experience.
Olympic Muffins Pop-Up. In a nod to cultural nostalgia and experiential commerce, a NYC cafe has partnered to import muffins from the Olympic Village for a special pop-up event. The muffins popularized by USA gymnasts created viral memes and recipes on social media and short-form videos, creating 4+ hour lines waiting for a sensory way of extending the Olympics discourse.
TikTok's Cucumber Craze: A viral TikTok trend has doubled demand for cucumbers in Iceland, disrupting a local supermarket's supply chain. This phenomenon showcases the power of algorithmic influence and how social media trends can drive real-world consumer behavior, creating cultural shifts at a pace previously unseen, a concept frequently explored in The Multiplayer Brand.
Quantum Magic. Quantum computing is a key initiative for cybersecurity as a modern Manhattan Project is racing towards preventing codebreaking computers that would threaten national security.
Cybersecurity and generative AI governance are key ares of oversight for the US Department of Commerce. In related news, new research reveals that magic plays a crucial role in boosting quantum computing power, interacting with entanglement in unique ways. How does the government oversee “magic”?
.svg)
