Scott Savitt, Senior Partner, Director of Digital

Just how many dollars are fueling the retail economy?

Retail consumer spending in 2018 is predicted to increase 4.5% vs. the same period last year according to the National Retail Federation. While 4.5% may not sound like a big percentage, it tops out 2017 which was the best year for retail sales in over three years spanning all categories including auto and foods (per the Department of Commerce).

And for this online holiday season, Internet Retailer projects U.S. shoppers will spend an increase of 15.5%—that equates to $120 billion—compared to online spending during the same period last year. This year alone, Black Friday was a record-setting $6.2 billion as well as Cyber Monday which pulled in approximately $7.9 billion, an increase of 19.3% from a year ago according to Adobe Analytics.

What’s the sense behind these dollars?

One of the reasons for this unprecedented growth in retail is the way top retailers are creating frictionless shopping opportunities for their users especially via smartphones. Retailers such as Amazon (Amazon Go), Walmart (Google Home) and Wayfair (AR) are adopting strategies to deliver “experiences” to users vs. just selling their stand-alone wares and “products.”

These savvy marketers are creating more compelling reasons for why to shop and how by modern messaging and capitalizing on modern function.

As technology evolves and data becomes more accessible, these retailers and others benefitting from that $120 billion in transactions are more than ever in a position to personalize, automate and own the entire shopper journey on a path to continuing that 4%+ growth year-over-year.

How to add the dollars and sense for future retail growth?

Whether it’s comparison shopping in real time, an optimized mobile checkout process, live chat, user-friendly ordering options, click-and-collect services or smartphone push notifications, one of the foundational goals of frictionless shopping is to serve consumers whenever they want to be served enhancing the experiences leading to conversion.

Brands should be adopting more of a frictionless mentality when thinking about how to construct their consumer experience, especially in digital. The need to eliminate friction between customer and brand is a key factor in creating a positive customer experience and favorable brand attitude. This means brands think big picture when it comes to “purpose” and strategic positioning, but also non-optional consideration of the “micro-moments” during the customer journeys—literally down to each customer interaction and on each channel.

Whether it’s speed and convenience or instant access to content and/or product information, brands can meet customer’s expectations and gain share of the retail growth market by leveraging more frictionless thinking.

Steve Connelly, President and Copywriter

I attended this year’s ANA Masters of Marketing as a newcomer to the much-hyped annual event. I had high expectations (and a fair amount of skepticism) for the networking, ideas from brand leaders I could take back to my agency and golfing in the sun to spark unrehearsed conversation.

While industry heavy hitters graced the stage, I didn’t leave feeling inspired or armed with a lot of new ways of thinking. In fact, I often felt frustrated. Here’s why:

1. Diversity is not casting. To many at the conference, diversity felt like a checkmark approach. Simply cast a diverse group and mission accomplished. A superficial solution at best that misses both the point and opportunity. The observation reinforced to me how far our industry has to go to truly represent the spirit and opportunity of diversity and to realistically represent new and different voices that reflect the world we live in.
2. Data is strategic not strategy. In this forum, data wasn’t considered as organic at all … just numbers they seem to follow like fish downstream. There were no real insights shared, just a lot of data pontification. True marketing power and impact comes from a combination of real powerful data AND real life experience.
3. Brands sure do rely on agencies yet are slow to credit them. This was the year of the hotly debated in-house versus agency discussion. We should never devalue or denigrate what in-house agencies can do—they have great value. But outside agencies with a broader perspective of and appreciation for empathy and creativity have never been needed more.

Overall, the presentations were hit or miss. Put me on stage for next year or lose me forever. I will share the agency models that (without throwing stones) identify the value outside agencies have over in-house shops, how diversity should be with defined and used and how powerful data becomes even more powerful when it is humanized.