Unpacking the Digital Shelf

Brands are now spending upwards of $15 billion a year to manage and activate their influencer marketing programs. It’s grown from a few celebrities posting a video to millions of micro-influencers driving impact throughout the sales funnel. Rob and Peter sat down with Lyle Stevens, co-founder, and CEO of Mavrck, an influencer marketing platform, to identify what shifts are required across teams and processes to manage and optimize the impact of influencer marketing on your business.

This episode, we launch a new occasional format for the 'pod. A report on books that we think are worthy of your attention, and why. Rob kicks it off with his POV on Leap, by Howard Yu.

Links mentioned in the podcast: Register to our D2C series: https://www.salsify.com/content/webinar-3p-online-marketplacesBen Evans article: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2019/4/15/notes-on-ai-bias

As the importance of Amazon as both a sales channel and marketing channels continues to rise, it is critical that brand executives focus on how to achieve profitability on the world’s largest retailer. Mark Power, founder, and CEO of Podean Marketplace Marketing joins Peter and Rob to talk about the need to invest in the analysis, data, and actions to make Amazon a profitable channel.

Register for our upcoming webinar with Jordan Jewell from IDC talking about the tech stack for D2C. https://www.salsify.com/content/webinar-d2c-playbookOther sources we mentioned:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/business/coronavirus-malls-department-stores-bankruptcy.html?utm_source=Premium+list&utm_campaign=266472b352-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_07_16_05_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_52809a9e4b-266472b352-71156322https://www.ai-cio.com/in-focus/shop-talk/how-do-you-repurpose-a-mall/https://twitter.com/michael_mba/status/1283211274747121664?s=12https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/the-great-acceleration

Based on an article from business and tech analyst Ben Thompson, Rob and Peter explore how the arc of the newspaper industry holds lessons for how brands will need to adapt to masses of markets to win.

Listen in on a conversation with one of the smartest people in commerce and a podcasting legend, at least to us at the DSI. Jason Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis and co-host of the Jason and Scot show, joins Peter and Rob to talk what the heck is going on in commerce and posit brazen predictions of the future.

It was a week of bankruptcies, including a surprise bid at JC Penney by Simon Group. Peter and Rob deep dive on what innovation may result from these painful transformations.

Consumers hate friction in their shopping journey. The new capability on Instagram and Facebook to checkout directly on the social platforms offers brands a perfect testing ground to develop new end-to-end experiences in social commerce. Narain Jashanmal, Director of ECommerce Partnerships at Facebook, joined Peter to discuss how brands can make the most of this opportunity to connect directly with their consumers from discovery to purchase to advocacy.

It's definitely time to find the silver lining in the economic dark clouds. Rob and Peter put the week's news in perspective for the hopeful signs of the new digital age.