Victoria’s Secret? Livestream Hasn’t Earned Its Wings
Welcome to Friday, futurists.
And just like that we’re at the end of the official fall conference season, and it couldn’t come a moment sooner.
Shoptalk Fall took on a “mission possible” theme this week in Chicago’s McCormick place, reminding us that that venue is, in fact, capable of hosting an event that doesn’t feel like a ghost town.
When Busta Rhymes took the stage to close Shoptalk Fall’s event, you could hear a collective sigh from the attendees that our biggest challenge is yet to come; when he sang “I Know What You Want,” the crowd behind me shreiked “A KILLER BLACK FRIDAY!”
We’re going to need it; consumer pressures were the topic of every conversation I had during the brief stint in Chicago, and this year we’re facing one of the shortest Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) seasons in recent history, driven by a late Thanksgiving date on November 28th, the latest day that Thanksgiving can fall on the calendar.
Busta’s closing act “made it clap” indeed; as did Ja Rule who headlined Groceryshop last month, and Nelly, who got ‘hot in herre’ in Vegas back in March.
As long as we have industry conferences, aging 90s rappers will have gigs.
— Phillip
P.S. Brian Lange breaks down the ‘lechery and debauchery’ in the eCom ecosystem at the very first Shoptalk, circa 2016, in this legendary piece from Insiders. Read Insiders 160: “Warning Signs at End of Empire” on futurecommerce.com.
Shop the Runway? Struggling to find its voice since its split from L Brands, lingerie brand Victoria's Secret revived its annual fashion show after six years, leaning into nostalgia to find some brand relevance. While some critics say the strategy feels outdated, the Amazon Prime livestream featured a shoppable component that allowed every item on display (save one) to be purchased through Amazon.
This year’s show featured a more diverse cast, including plus-size models like Ashley Graham, transgender models Alex Consani and Valentina Sampaio, and older icons such as Kate Moss and Carla Bruni.
Our Take: This is Future Commerce bait for three reasons: event viewing is back, livestream still doesn’t work, and the Ozempic Effect is fully on display in the culture.
We’re on record over and over and over again that livestream shopping isn’t a strategy that works for brands outside of beauty in the US market. Had Amazon and Victoria’s Secret had the gumption to actually enable shopping within the video platform we’d likely be eating crow right about now. But they didn’t.
What they did provide during the stream was commerce in context alongside the largest entertainment streaming event of 2024, with over 2.67 million peak streaming viewers.
If Amazon isn’t bold enough to deploy actual livestream shopping in the experience alongside the biggest entertainment streaming event of the year who is?
Nutrafol Dominates Amazon's Single SKU Race. Hair wellness company Nutrafol is cashing in $8.2 million monthly from a single product on Amazon, earning the title of highest-revenue single SKU on the platform, according to SmartScout data.
Bero Me, Mate. If your ‘celebrity brand’ spidey sense was tingling, it wasn’t the alcohol. Spiderman’s ‘web fluid’ has been non-alcoholic for at least two years now, which means it’s time for Tom Holland to launch a non-alcoholic beer. The jury’s still out on calling it “Bero,” but the design nerds are praising the gold package.
“I Do Not Comply.” A YouTube Short demonstrates emerging techniques employed by content creators (and customers) to bypass AI systems. The technique in the Short shows the content creator ordering absurd quantities of free items like "18,000 water cups."
As much as things change, they also stay the same. In the bad old days we’d mash the "0" key to reach a human operator. When phone trees evolved, millennials maintained online search directories that cataloged the buttons to press—in order—to get to a human. Those directories, like Get2Human, later became SEO farms that sold ad products to the very companies whose automation they were circumventing. Capitalism really is beautiful.
We’re in a constant cycle of consumer pushback against automation, generation after generation.
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