TRANSCRIPT
Peter:
Welcome to unpacking the digital shelf where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age. Hey, Peter Crosby here from the digital shelf Institute from the hallowed halls of Ogilvy, where branding was born, comes a new set of thinking around how brand can and must be infused into every stage of the consumer commerce journey. Edward Kim managing partner of the commerce practice at Ogilvy and Dan Saltzman, their VP design and user experience joined Robin may to discuss how teams of misfits at global manufacturers are coming together to reinvigorate the role of brand in commerce. So, ed, thank you so much for joining us also, Dan, thank you for, for being with us and, and uh, and I wanted to start with you, you know, Ogilvy, everyone knows the name who's anywhere near advertising and branding and it's a storied place, uh, of in the development of what a brand is, but you're relatively new to Ogilvy. What have your fresh eyes told you, you know, how is Ogilvy thinking about brand and, and the role of brand in this new kind of digital first age?
Ed:
Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's an interesting question that you, you kind of highlighted there, Peter, and the fact that you're using like new digital first age, um, you know, it's kinda like, you know, when you say that it kind of conveys the fact that, you know, digital is kind of now everywhere and it's basically table stakes at this point. Right. So, um, you know, one of the interesting things about my time here at Ogilvy is, you know, really, you know, I've always understood and appreciated a brand, but the actual power or brand, right. And what, you know, I've come to embrace and realizes that, you know, brand is in a kind of a sea of everybody's got digital, right. And everything is kind of now acting and feeling the same, but it's now going to be to the point where like brand is the differentiator.
Ed:
Right. Um, and that's what helps stand out in front of the crowds. But, you know, and, but almost as at the same note, is that, you know, having a strong brand message isn't enough anymore in a way. Right. Um, and so what we're beginning to see and notice is that, you know, it's really about how companies are able to orchestrate that brand throughout the entire spectrum of commerce. That's really going to pave the way in our opinion. Right? So when we talk about the spectrum of commerce, right, that's everything from targeting to acquisition, to points of conversion, wherever those might be for. And there's a variety of those that we've been saying, um, as well as into the areas around service and how we talk about services is really around things like customer service or fulfillment and things along those lines, but all the way down to the, to the last part of this, and probably the most important, which is around retention, right? So the aspect of how companies are able to, you know, appreciate find that strong brand voice that's I think, you know, being there, but then understanding how to weave that through and unify that into something meaningful and engaging for the customers. You know, that's something that we really think is going to be like the next battleground that's going to be taking place. And we're already kind of seeing that in places around the world and different types of types of verticals, but, uh, really starting to amplify, um, and a lot of exciting stuff that's happening.
Peter:
Yeah. So often brand was air cover, right? Like, so a BR uh, a manufacturer who is a brand manufacturer would ship their pallets away and then they'd make a brand out on TV somewhere. And then the rest was kind of left up to chance kind of in a way, but now there's both the opportunity and the need to inject brand in every phase of the conversation, because you never know where the consumers, what stage they're going to be at when they're exposed to a digital experience. Right.
Ed:
That's exactly right. And you know, it's funny you say, um, you know, where obviously if I, but like, you know, where you never know where the customer is going to interact. Right. And so, you know, we probably heard a lot of people, you know, consultants, consultants are really good about talking about end to end. It's almost, we need to kind of flip the script or break the script in a way, right. It's not about a linear fashion anymore. It's about understanding that you need to be present. You need to show up, well, you need to be able to connect no matter where they're at. So that's a really cool theme that we're playing around with these days.
Peter:
Yeah. You know, as you know, our listeners are the digital leaders that are working with their brand partners often to, to accomplish this, to inject that and make sure they're showing up across that spectrum that you talked about might be helpful for our listeners if we dig into each stage and, and, and maybe just kind of highlight some brands that are doing it right within these stages. So, uh, Dan, let me, let me bring you into the conversation here. Tell us where should we start in your spectrum of, of commerce?
Dan:
Sure. Yeah, absolutely happy to, you know, as ed mentioned, really the, the, the place to start are the first two pillars, which are targeting and acquisition, and these two things as any, any good marketer knows, are sort of inextricably linked. And, you know, as any, uh, as any great performance marketer will tell you, you know, really these two, you know, at a nuts and bolts perspective are about a understanding your audience and then B you know, skating to the puck, meeting them where they are bringing them to you. Right. But that, you know, any, anybody can do that. And that's the table stakes that ed was talking about. And what's, what's really exciting with, you know, with regard to opportunity for brands in the digital commerce space is brand is again, that opportunity to really differentiate. And what I love about these first two phases is that there's, there, there, there's no sort of like tools or window dressing to hide what you're doing here and how you're performing, right?
Dan:
There's no website experience. There's no anything else. This is about pure brand strategy. And that's where brands can really stand out in these first two phases. And so while there's some science to determining, you know, who your audience is and which channels you're going to meet them on, there is there is an art and a level of confidence and knowledge of your audience and how they're going to grow and change that that brand owners have to have even, even we as Ogilvy agency partners. Um, we, you know, we, we can provide great ideas, but ultimately we're looking to, you know, our clients and the brand and brand owners to be willing to take those ideas, know that they're gonna work for their audiences and, and put them out to market. And so where, you know, where we had an incredible partner, that I've been really excited to see what they've done is with yum brands and KFC in particular.
Dan:
Uh, last year they launched a whole slew of Instagram ads, which were incredibly exciting because on the face of them, they look directly like ads, but what it, what it allowed, uh, their customers to do was to directly interact with those ads and order menu items directly from the ad without going to another page, without switching interfaces and, and the beauty of that, and why they succeeded in these two first phases is because they knew who'd been target yet. They knew which day part they wanted to target them during. And they knew that the audience that they were targeting was going to convert at an incredibly high rate to make impulse orders, uh, through this expression of the brand. And it's their first, it's the first impression in the entire journey. And so really exciting to see a brand that was willing to take it on and, um, and put an engaging idea out there that ended up being very successful. T
Rob:
Teenage Rob would have absolutely clicked by so many times. I was, uh, I was a soccer player back in high school. And, uh, I would sometimes for lunch eat a KFC family size bucket of chicken by myself. Oh gosh, that sounds delicious. Actually, I would do that right now.
Dan:
I'm sure we can get it here before the end, before the end of the show.
Rob:
That's right. Let's, let's put full spectrum commerce into work right now. That's awesome. It's really interesting that the classic marketing funnel, and I think the way that ed teed this up, the classic marketing funnel people think of is this linear process. And it's not linear in digital and each of these stages connect, but they also have to be thought of independently on their own with strategy and with stories and whatnot. So, uh, we've, we've gone through this road of targeting and acquiring folks, and then you've got them in these experiences, whether it's on Instagram, direct checkout, whether it's direct on a, on a direct to consumer site that you're powering, whether it's on Amazon, whether it's like all of these places that a consumer might interact with you where they've got a conversion opportunity these days. Um, what, what are the, what's the thinking about brand in the conversion moment in all of these different places?
Dan:
Yeah. Happy to talk about this part of it. I come from a, an experience design background. So for me, you know, point of conversion that own.com, you know, that's the place I always naturally gravitate toward, but, you know, as we open the aperture as wide as we need to, with regard to conversion and, and commerce overall, you know, we, we, we know that owned own channel is not the only, the only name in the game anymore. There's marketplaces and E retail and, and, uh, you know, all the social commerce that's starting to emerge, uh, pretty regularly. And so, you know, there there's a, there's a really solid need for not only a brand, you know, brand message, but also consistency of presentation, not only from offline to digital, but across the digital conversion landscape. And it's, I mean, look, it's, it's not easy. You know, we support brands, you know, that, that are everywhere from E retail to Amazon Walmart back to own.com and, and it's, it's a, it's a dance and it's something that requires, um, you know, constant, um, constant support intending to, but you know, what, what, you know, what I do think is really exciting is brand is kind of in this golden age with regard to digital commerce, uh, when we focus in back on that own.com that you know, that branded.com where you are, where you as a brand have the most control over your customer's experience, that you're going to have anywhere in the digital conversion landscape.
Dan:
And it's, it's an opportunity to differentiate yourselves as a brand creatively. And, and that's what we did with our, our luxury partner and client. Uh Mikimoto they are for, for anyone in your audience. That's not familiar. And I hope star, uh, what, uh, the only luxury Pearl house in the world, uh, they actually, uh, engineered their founder, engineered the original process for, uh, culturing pearls, um, you know, way back in the end of the 19th century. And so, um, you know, they are a well-known storied, uh, heritage luxury brand. Um, and so that.com is incredibly important for those of us that have spent time in luxury. Luxury is nothing without the narrative. Uh, and so we needed to, for that audience that we helped them target and acquire rebuild. And re-express a luxury, a luxury experience for digital commerce that, you know, that, that didn't necessarily recreate the, the story boutique experience, but it had to create an analogous experience online.
Dan:
That meant something to a new class of buyer that was only going to, uh, to purchase and, and, and convert online. And so, you know, through, uh, through know visual expression of that brand through, you know, talking, talking to customers and, and boutique managers, et cetera, we were able to create that, um, you know, from your traditional kind of visual experience perspective, but we also knew that we needed to, uh, convey the gravity of making that purchase in a boutique to this new, uh, kind of customer as well. And so while we had the art on one side to represent the brand, we dug into data and through analyzing purchase behaviors and, um, and other behaviors that, that occur throughout the journey of a considered process of a considered purchase like this. We were able to knock down several barriers to conversion through analysis of data, drive that conversion rate up and still convey the gravity of making such a considered purchase for a buyer that was going to spend at least as much online as they wouldn't boutique and never set foot in a boutique at all. And that's where I think, uh, it's, it's critically important to take advantage of the opportunity creatively that brands have, uh, once again, with their own dotcoms to convert.
Rob:
Yeah, I, I'm looking@themickeymoto.com right now and shopping around. And I mean, these are, I mean, there's a Mickey mono reserve, Pearl necklace on my screen for $54,550. So you're talking about transacting. I mean, this is real luxury here. This is not stuff that Rob guys typically you're going to have to now. Well, no, Rachel, doesn't Rachel, doesn't listen to this podcast. You're not allowed to send this podcast to my way.
Dan:
Um, I mean, luxury luxury is a high bar, but a lot of opportunity there. And, um, you know, certainly, um, ed has very deep experience, uh, you know, here as well and, and, you know, knows what the stakes look like in the luxury space when it comes to conversion.
Rob:
I'm just, I'm just picturing what you're trying to do on Mikimoto. Um, what the checkout process would look like and try to map the boutique. And I'm picturing, remember, uh, you ever see love actually
Dan:
That's a long time ago. Wow. Rob that's, uh, you're digging deep that
Rob:
Well, I, because it's got the great Alan Rickman in it, um, and Alan Rickman is in a luxury boutique and he's trying to buy a necklace and the necklace is being packaged for him by Mr. Bean. Who's like, who's the, I don't remember the actor's name. I just, I just remember if it was Mr. Beam and he's just adding sense and adding herbs and he's just packaging it up and God, I remember that scene, isn't it? Yeah. But it's this thinking about that? And you're so right. That I hadn't actually thought about the shopping cart is a branded experience until now, but if you're Mickey Mikimoto, this is, it's a, it's a really important part of confidence in buying a $54,550 pro necklace online is actually doing that in a way that's not just like checkout with a credit card,
Dan:
Correct? Yeah. It's, uh, there there's, there's, there is added gravity, uh, throughout the entire process and that's, again, a really exciting opportunity for brands, um, and something that we, you know, hold very near and dear on the Ogilvy side as well.
Ed:
Yeah. You know, what I love about that is that, you know, when we talk about brand and love how that's a temple of our conversation here, right. Um, because when we started to focus on brand, even in areas around experienced, like it calling out Rob like conversion points of conversion is a, is a part of the experience, but brand would, I've come to appreciate more and more of now is that it gives us the latitude to not only think about how we show up at a particular experience, but actually how we go to market, right. And allow companies to be able to interact in the communities that they serve and the consumers that they serve. And kind of some, some cool ways. So we've been talking about luxury, you know, one of the ideas, or one of the examples that just kinda came to mind was, um, you know, and that's your name, the name, but, uh, one of the world's largest, uh, food and personal care consumer goods manufacturer, right.
Ed:
A little bit different than the luxury. So they're selling like maybe four or $5 bars of soap versus $54,000 pro necklaces. Uh, but the, the, the, the, the interesting thing is that this particular company's brand was all about purpose and being purpose driven. Right. And, you know, doing what's right for the consumer doing what's good for the consumer, but also what's good for the world. Right. That was their that's their mantra. Right. And, uh, what was really cool was, you know, they had reached out to us to find out ways. Is there something that we could do to be able to connect with their consumers in, in a meaningful, purposeful way, because when they gave us the call, it was actually probably about two months after lockdown. It happened across the world. And for this specific market, it was for LA Tam. Right. And you can imagine what happened, right?
Ed:
Like the stores were shut down, goods were making into people's hands and for a company that does personal care, which are cleansing products, kind of an important thing. So, you know, what we did was kind of actually helping them explore ideas and come up with ways to be able to engage. And we almost kind of went back and said, look, you know, this is your brand and your stated mission and purpose. Well, why don't you go ahead and like, explore trying to create a marketplace right. Where it's not even you guys, it doesn't have to be like, you know, some, like, as example of making a motive, right. On brand branded digital experience, almost kind of taking the aspect of like show up as the purpose driven kind of site that's actually doing good. So what it really was about it's kind of effectively and kind of commerce, because it's a, B to B to C model. So while it was showing this brand's products, it was actually shown to the consumers, it was actually connecting the, those consumers to the local bodegas that were struggling to try to get the foot traffic in and also be able to shop Safeway. So kind of an interesting spectrum to kind of use that, that phrase again, about where you can kind of take these things, you know, if, you know, when companies kind of appreciate the essence of the notion of the brand and how that's supposed to show up.
Peter:
Yeah. It feels like, it feels like it needs to shift from brand as presentation to brand as conversation. And that's what it sounds like, which I think it's, it's harder because you really need to pay attention. You need to be able to shift. I would imagine more rapidly or react more rapidly and create new channels of conversation that you have never had to before as a brand. But I bet that knowledge then drives success in the, in the next phases of the full spectrum that we're, that we're talking about. Right. And so, and maybe let's, let's do that. Let's go to, um, to service, which I think is an interesting name for, for this phase. Uh it's it's, uh, it's, it's, I think it's broader right. Than what you might normally think of in fulfillment.
Ed:
No, absolutely. Um, because, you know, we, we, we think of, um, service as also a point of connection with your consumers, right? It's another touch point along that journey. And if you think about what brands and companies do in terms of service that fulfillment, like you had just mentioned is one method, right? It's like sending the, the product to a consumer from a digital engagement and so on and so forth, but it could also be things around like call center or customer service as well. And being able to understand how brand can be expressed to those types of areas. So that's how we, we approach this, this next phase and really kind of broadening that aperture and talking about it from a, a more comprehensive perspective. Um, you know, just to kind of going back to, again, you know, our conversation here about brand and getting brand to show up consistently or effectively across some of these pillars, you know, uh, some of my clients who may be listening to this podcast probably be like, ah, there, it goes out again, this example, but, uh, the one that I really love to give, and I didn't know about, uh, until I actually arrived at Olvey was this activation that we did for blade.
Ed:
Um, and the whole campaign was called scent bike light. And what was that? And this is the aspect of fulfillment and the service domain. We took something as mundane and as plain as a Brown box and turned it into an on-brand fun experience. So some of you, I'm going to have, you guys have probably seen this, but within the, you know, the, the shipment. So you would get this box show up with the products that you had purchased from, from played, but the air pillow packs that you see other ubiquitous in these boxes, we actually took the idea and filled it with other scents made by Glade. So it turned into, you would open the box kind of a little box, and it's like, we'd have something written on there, pop this to try something new, and you would see this innate kind of just went viral. Right? So really kind of a cool thing where if you think about Glenn and what they stand for and being all about the home and being areas of freshness, being able to take something as, you know, normal of an experience that just ripping the tape off a box and during this something special was kind of cool,
Peter:
Right. And, and ed, how can, how can that be measured the impact of that, because I'm sure that was, you know, a brave of them to let's give this a shot, but, uh, how do they measure that in terms of what its results were? Because it's not really connected to clicking a buy button necessarily, unless you're sort of extrapolating, but that's a fascinating approach.
Ed:
Yeah. You know, it's a, it's funny, there's no, there's no a cookie.
Peter:
Yes. Unless it's a cookie scent, which I would love
Ed:
On the box to lead back to that purchase. But, um, you know, it, it is a bit of a secondary method, right? So you look at things of when you go to activate, you know, an idea like that, and you look at the impressions and the hat on, on sales. But in addition that we're also to, you know, kind of go back to Dan's earlier comments about, you know, targeting acquisition, other techniques around using social listening tools and seeing how that was also be able to participate or capturing the audience. And that those conversations were ways that we were able to be able to do that. So you had to get a little bit creative when you, when you lose a cookie, but, but there are ways,
Peter:
Well, everyone's going to be dealing with that soon. Right?
Dan:
Yeah. There's, there's one other point here that I think is really, is, might be really interesting for your listeners. Uh, Peter and Rob is that this, this opportunity for creative execution, uh, you know, along all of these pillars, but particularly in conversion and service, maybe even more pointedly is that, you know, to your point about presentation around creativity, uh, you know, is no longer simply presentation, right. It needs to be experiential. And, you know, behind what's, what's sitting behind some of the, the virality of this, the Glade activation is the, the use, which I advocate for hugely. And I, you know, I'd love to see all of your customers and all of, all of the brands we work with use this more is, is a lot of the ideas that come to us via behavioral science, part of what is really fascinating about why we expected the Glade thing to be so successful is all about, uh, you know, the, the anatomy and structure, um, you know, uh, and, and relative positioning of the nose to the point in the brain where memory is created. Um, and that's why scent is always so powerful and so connected to memory, but we, we intentionally fuse those things together when we, uh, powered the creative idea. And so, again, you know, I keep harping on this golden age of creativity for brands and commerce, but we have so much more latitude at this point because the expectation to create experiences rather than just presentation is so incredibly high.
Rob:
You know, when this takes me to the, the last pillar here is that if you do branding well, then they can, a consumer will buy you again versus buying a competitor. The second time they'll buy you again, even if you're more expensive to buy you again, even if you're harder to find, right, th there's the, the, the there's equity in having a brand that's executed successfully. And, uh, this is the last pillar here is retained. And what's interesting about the way that you guys think about retain that I I'd love to hear you talk about is most people look at retain as, as a KPI, whereas you guys are not looking at it as, as like the actual retainment as a KPI, the routine mint, like the repurchase, the loyalty, all that, that's the result of good work done upstream of that. So can you guys talk about the, um, the, how routine from a branding perspective has gotta be done differently in this age?
Ed:
Yeah. W would love to, um, because as much as I kind of said that, you know, brand is kind of B is going to be the last battle room, you know, I feel like the aspect of retaining your customers, um, is really kind of like the brave new world of commerce in many ways, right. Because who doesn't know retention in a way, at least in the way that most of the audience think about it, right. It's loyalty programs and points programs, you know, it's, it's miles that you accrue and things along those lines, so fairly mechanical, but it's been around for such a long time. And, you know, again, you know, we're, we're in the business of trying to find, you know, disruptive ideas and creative innovations across all of these areas at a level pay. Right. And, um, you know, what we're trying to do is actually, you know, combat the whole aspect of like keeping a customer on its head a bit, but coming at it through again, through that lens of the brand.
Ed:
Right. So, you know, if we think about, you know, and we're actually doing this with our clients today, I can't give away too much of the game. I think my CEO might be listening to this and he's like, Hey, but, uh, what I can say though, is that, you know, we're really leaning into very, very heavily with our clients, rather this aspect of usage, right. And how usage, um, should be thought of as a way to be able to retain, because it's, when you start to think about how your consumers use your products, right. That in effect of, there's a way to be able to engender, you know, things that you could do from retaining that customer. So we're kind of, kind of, uh, coming up with some areas around like, no, could you reward behaviors the, of your consumers that are doing things that are on brand, right.
Ed:
So if you're like, if it's a, if it's a brand that's all about, you know, healthy eating habits and you go about sharing, healthy eating apps, using the food that they make in healthy ways, well, let's reward you for that. Right. Um, or if it's, you know, about, you know, um, doing the, you know, mission is about doing what's right for the world and being good for the environment, and you go to show that, that you're being able to do something right, for say, ethnic groups or things along those lines, they will reward you for that. So it's a kind of an interesting twist to things, right? Well, listen, not like purchase, earn points and kind of this, this mechanism, but being able to embrace and get the consumers into that aspect is really kind of fun. Right. Because then, you know, once you have that, you're kind of effectively creating the sense of community, which is at the end of the day, is what it's all about. Right. Because once you have the community, as we all know, the Apple's done extremely well with the ecosystem and that ecosystem is what drives that retention and that growth. So, yeah.
Rob:
Yeah. I, I read, um, a book on branding that was a bunch of essays curated by Debbie Millman, um, where one of the stories was about thinking about branding as a tribal. So you've got like a, whether or not you've got a community like Apple has it. Um, if you've got a strong loyalty to a brand, you're actually by, by purchasing and repurchasing, you're signaling to yourself that you belong with that brand and those people. And, you know, you get, you know, on some, on, on an extreme version, you get people like Harley Davidson fans actually tattooing the logo of the company on their own bodies, which is, which is crazy to me. But people have Disney tattoos. People have Apple tattoos. I mean, there's there, there's a self identity, um, aspect to it that you're, I I'm just, I love the way that you're thinking about it in terms of usage and engagement as, as the way to think about retaining rather than simply, you know, the end goal, which is, which is repurchased.
Rob:
Um, now I'm thinking about the DSI tattoo, so thank you for that idea. Yeah. You should get it. You should. I know. Or you should get it. I got some ideas I'm sure. Because go with your Peter. Maybe I'll have you guys design it and somebody like, let's try to take this home a little bit. I got you, basically you, the way that you guys are advocating for treating commerce strategically, is that thinking about the, uh, the brand experience and the digital experience as full funnel, every single touch point and, and very thoughtfully and every single touch point. So this, this touches, I mean, every department within a company, right? It touches not just the branding team, but the digital execution team performance advertising, supply chain. I probably even product development and assortment planning, I at some level. Um, so like we're going through this conversation and all I can, that's keeps running back through my head is change management, change management, change management organization restructuring. So, so ed, tell me, uh, how do you actually work with these giant companies and, and get them to take, to go through this? What type of big org changes are needed to, to give them a prayer of succeeding here?
Ed:
Uh, it's, it's a great way that you're framing that rod, because yeah, it's almost like if, um, knowing what is at stake and what's required to be able to do this. Great. Yeah. It can be, it, it touches all parts of your organization. Right. And, you know, you can imagine, plus with some of the examples of clients that we've been talking about to affect that kind of level of change is an enormous task and almost kind of paralyzing in many ways. Um, you know, I, I think, you know, when it comes to spotting trends, what we're seeing in clients, I think, you know, it's, it's, it's nascent and it's growing because I think there's a whole aspect about understanding the holistic value of understanding a customer's journey, right? What the spectrum is supposed to entail is starting to have a ground swell with an organizations.
Ed:
Uh, but what we're seeing now is that, you know, companies are actually starting to make an investment of not to try to do wholesale changing of an organization that may already be wedded in its positions, you know, 50 plus 75 plus years. Right. What we are saying is that they are taking advantage of what they have already established from an infrastructure globalization perspective, but being able to actually assemble disparate teams or unique teams is probably a better way to say that that actually bring a lot of these capabilities and disciplines together. Right? So we're beginning to see now where, you know, you know, a lot of the listeners are probably in this audience right now are listening and hearing, you know, I've got my marketing team, who's doing all the stuff that, you know, Dan had talked about from targeting and acquisition. I got my sales team is, you know, more about, you know, the service functions and the conversion functions that I, you know, I was talking to talking about, but what the strategy now is recognize that, Hey, look, they don't have to do like massive overhaul and changes, but if they can begin to organize the right talent with the right thinking, and as kind of like, you know, tried and true the saying is, but thinking about the consumer once they've actually been able to assemble, that's kind of the cool thing, right?
Ed:
So that's what we're saying. Now, a lot of these brands being able to huddle up very quickly, come up with ideas. And now that they're thinking about this through lens, they have coming up with so many great ideas that all you need to do is just test and pilot test and pilot. So that's where we've seen a lot of these things kind of happen and a lot of fun. And you know, who knows maybe, maybe the team that was only 75 days old will have some impact on the rest of the organization that is 75 plus years old. So, but, but those are the kinds of the, the, the trade winds that we're kind of seeing within our clients.
Peter:
That's really great to hear that that is happening because I think to your point, you know, we, we hear about it all the time from, from the executives at the DSI, breaking down those silos. Ultimately, ultimately you want to change people's incentives to be aligned with the, the new, the new spectrum of commerce. Like how are people incented to deliver a performance across all of these? And how are you, you know, each one of these later stages of the, of the funnel that you've talked about, because things like social media opportunities and things like that are incorporated into them, they do have the ability to have a direct impact back up at the top of the funnel, again, through channels that we'd never considered before and driving people's incentives to be aligned with that kind of behaviors, I think would be ultimately, would be part of that people sort of, you know, you can't manage what you don't measure and you, people won't work towards something that they're not incentive to work towards.
Ed:
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, what, on that note there, uh, the example I gave earlier about that, uh, that food and consumer and personal care consumer goods company, that idea would have never happened unless we actually brought those small little group of like misfits and, and, and, and thinkers from those disciplines to come up with an idea like that. Right. So, um, you know, hopefully we'll get to see more of that. Right. I think the more that we get to see our clients and companies and brands around the world do that, like, I think all of us are going to enjoy the world
Peter:
Well with that. I mean, Dan, I'd love to come back to you just to close out. Uh, when you think about what's on experiment and experimentation and scaling in 2021 for these commerce experiences, what should be on the mind of our brand leader, listeners, uh, of what shifts might be coming and what they should be prepared for?
Dan:
Well, um, I mean, there there's for us, there's just one big one for us, 2021. Is this, is it it's the end of e-commerce as we know it, I mean, let me, let me dig into that a little bit.
Peter:
Good. So I can go home now, wait, I am home.
Dan:
You can cut the podcast here. Um, no, but, but in, in all seriousness, um, it, it really is, um, I'm, I'm already starting to like pedal back from the word whenever I see it, you know, in a deck, um, you know, in, in an email, et cetera, because really it is about, um, whether we call it full spectrum commerce, digital commerce, you know, three 60 commerce overall, you know, e-commerce is, is going the way of, you know, uh, of social, you know, in, in 2016, 2017, right. You know, it was, you know, these things get initially viewed as siloed channels. And, you know, I think, unfortunately we see some brands hang on to that, that point of view for too long and, and, and sort of get caught, uh, as the world changes, but what we're out, uh, advocating for and, and proactively encouraging all of our clients and anyone that'll listen to the two of us, um, you know, talk about it is that it, it all has to be integrated at this point, right.
Dan:
Um, moving forward, uh, digital commerce is as critical a part of your entire commerce strategy, as, you know, as your, you know, as your retailer, your annual, you know, retailer JVPs or agreements or anything else like that, um, your, that, that strategy is critical because it's not even that, Oh, we're going to see a customer start digitally and end in bricks and mortar or vice versa anymore. The, the number of touch points and the number of bounce backs between online and offline are, are just going to continue to become greater and greater. And so this all has to be fully integrated and, and, you know, the brands have to show up in a completely consistent and integrated, authentic way, uh, across, across that full spectrum. And so, you know, we're, we're kind of, you know, declaring the end of e-commerce and the beginning of, you know, real integrated digital commerce. And that's, what's getting us really excited.
Peter:
Well, D Dan and ed, I mean, I certainly agree with that view. Um, my guess is that, uh, no one out there will probably argue with that view, even though many of our people have e-commerce in their title, they know that their remit is much bigger and, and ideas like this. Uh, I think, uh, we'll add to that and, and, uh, and, and we appreciate both of you joining us. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us.
Dan:
Absolutely. Thank you guys.
Peter:
Thanks again to ed and Dan for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with a colleague or leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for being part of our community.
