Woman shops at department store. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
If you want to know where marketing is headed, two events in January can help set the stage for the year. CES (the Consumer Electronics Show) kicks off in Las Vegas in early January, followed by NRF (the National Retail Federation event) in New York, which just wrapped.
This year, both shows were bigger and better than before – yet another sign the pandemic is in the rearview mirror. CES, the “biggest tech event in the world,” welcomed 135,000 attendees. NRF, “Retail’s Big Show,” had more than 300,000 square feet of expo space and keynotes featuring everyone from Walmart US CEO John Furner to Drew Barrymore (with her Beautiful brand). I can attest, NRF was BIG – all the major players were on show with some exhibition booths larger than my apartment!
While January might be “dry” for some, this conference cocktail served up six “Marketing Truths” to help guide my thinking for the year ahead.
Marketing Truth #1: The Consumer IS the Product
The product era of marketing is long gone – now everything must revolve around the consumer. This means new levels of customization and personalization, from messaging to product to experience. AI (Artificial Intelligence) will help facilitate that shift and there was plenty of evidence at NRF, including Microsoft launching new AI-driven features of its Azure OpenAi Service, allowing retailers to build personalized shopping experiences. Beyond tech though, it’s also about executing in service of the customer, not your company. As 7-Eleven’s Marissa Jarratt said on the main stage, “be open minded, seek to understand and listen.” Absolutely. We need to mine for, and act upon, consumer-first insight and delivery in all that we do.
Marketing Truth #2: The Store Is the Epicenter
Most purchases (and an even bigger percentage of purchase influences) still happen in a physical store. At NRF we heard that rising generations love bricks and mortar – because of the brand experience and level of social engagement that stores deliver. H&M’s Linda Li claimed that the GenZ customer “actually prefers to shop in stores”. Bricks and mortar is also at the center of a retailer’s ecosystem for pick-up, and forms the hub of their retail media networks. And now that stores are smarter, they start to match online for targeting and trackability. If you are a digital native, time to go physical. If you are a legacy physical retailer, consider prioritizing investment in upgrading the physical channel, from store builds to tech integration and overlays like AR.
Marketing Truth #3: If It’s Not Unified, It’s Broken
Omnichannel was once a dream, now it’s cost-of-entry. The imperative is to tightly stitch together the entire consumer experience, with different channels performing different roles at each stage of engagement. All should be in service of building the brand and – unapologetically - making the transaction. That’s easy to say but tough to execute, and if there are breaks in the chain, shoppers are quick to penalize. The Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) platform companies are at the heart of this transition. They showed up strong in and around NRF and are all building the capability to go beyond e-commerce and connect all channels.
Marketing Truth #4: We Are In A Collaborative Era
No one person, company or tech vendor can do everything well. Partnerships are where it’s at – whether that is between brands and creators, marketers and agencies, or companies and tech vendors (or even between tech vendors). A good example at NRF was “Buy with Prime” – Amazon making available Prime benefits like one-day delivery and payment off-platform to non-Amazon brands. The whole notion of “composable tech stacks” is a partnership play too – choosing best-of-breed tech solutions which can be “composed” into a cohesive offer.
Marketing Truth #5: AI Is The Head, But Humanity Is The Heart
AI was ubiquitous at both CES and NRF, and in so many ways it is a major inflection point. But it’s nothing if not used in a human way – that is insightful, relatable and useful. At CES, Walmart spoke about GenAI Search – type in “Super Bowl party,” for instance, and the app intelligently shows you everything you might need, from chips and wings to a new 90-inch television. At NRF, bitHuman showcased interactive virtual assistants, trained by AI to answer questions about the event or direct attendees to the snack bar or rest room. A retailer I spoke with is using AI to personalize messages in a way never before possible, with conversation rates up 30-40%. The equation for success for marketers in 2024 is Technology + Humanity + Creativity.
Marketing Truth #6: Retail Media Is Taking Over
I was part of a full-day, sold out Retail Media Networks event at NRF. Retail media has grabbed the spotlight because it can tie an impression to a SKU-level sale. Anyone with an audience is realizing that they are now in the “attention monetization business” and are thinking about how they can turn their physical retail footprint into a media network. Used properly, retail media can deliver not just on sales, but also on brand value. That’s why modern marketers are diverting dollars from mainstream media and linear TV to retail media. (In fact, as WARC notes, retail media will overtake linear TV “within a few years.”) Retail media ad spend is projected to hit almost $70B in the US alone in 2025.
January has reinvigorated me about what is possible now and into the future. My final “truth” is simple: there has never been a better time to be a marketer, but I believe it’s important to ditch the divisions between brand and commerce marketing – to me, it’s ALL commerce. And don’t get overwhelmed by the myriad of possibilities – develop your own set of truths and use them to navigate your path this year.
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