[00:00:14] Brian: Hello, and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm here alive at NRF with two of my favorite people in the entire world.

[00:00:23] Phillip: Who are you, Brian?

[00:00:26] Brian: I don't know. Just the guy that hosts Future Commerce every week.

[00:00:29] Phillip: Yeah. Welcome welcome, Alicia.

[00:00:33] Brian: Hi, guys. Alicia. Barely alive.

[00:00:37] Phillip: Yeah. We're doing it. You can hear it in all of our voices.

[00:00:39] Brian: We got...We got the AI kicked out of us.

[00:00:44] Phillip: that's so true. NRF 2026, we're here at the Javits, and we've got a packed forty five minutes or so for you today. We're gonna cover everything we saw, everything we didn't. Got some hot takes. We're gonna give you a little bit about some of the sessions that we sat in, give you a little bit about what we saw on the show floor, a little bit of the hallway track takes. But before we do, we're I think we've got a bit of an outlook on some recent data that we just published. So I just wanna quickly point you over to our most recent piece of content. We did some research. It's available right now over at Future Commerce.com/holiday AI report, and that is in partnership with our friends over at Simulate. It was a piece of research, took part in two studies that surveyed over 2,000 customers and consumers asking them how their behavior with regard to shopping and AI took place before the holidays and after the holidays. I really would love for you to go check it out. If you wanna download the report, can go get it FutureCommerce.com/holidayaireport. If you want to watch it, it's available on our YouTube. And if you want to get either of those, the most convenient way to do it is in the link in the show notes. And getting AI data is about pretty much on par for what we heard at this show. And so you're gonna hear a lot about that here today. I heard a lot of conversation about AI this week.

[00:02:27] Brian: Every conversation was about AI this week.

[00:02:30] Phillip: Alright. Open the can. {Can opens} Oh. There we go. that's a cold one. When...He's a...

[00:02:40] Brian: Red scare.

[00:02:41] Phillip: Okay. So let's get into it a little bit. Let's do a quick roundtable. If we had to summarize your 2026 NRF, Alicia, give me in a couple sentences, how has this year been, and maybe you can contrast it with prior years.

[00:03:02] Alicia: Yeah. I mean, I think we've already said it. AIs the talk of the entire event. Even if the session does not directly say AIn it nor the description, it does come up in some capacity. What I did enjoy about some of the sessions this year is that it went beyond the you better get on the bandwagon or you're going to be left behind of it all, and there were one, more examples, two, more learnings Mhmm. And three, a bit more context into the requirements for success far beyond, oh, we partnered with x company, and this is what were able to accomplish. So that was enlightening for me. I always like to see how the sausage is made, so to speak. I do think there are underlying factors that are really important for technological success. So I feel like the most effective sessions and conversations dug a little bit deeper beyond just the tech itself. That being said, still a lot of copywriting jargon around AI, autonomous, and agentic, but in ways where it just feels like the keywords are jammed in and put on a sign and people think that it will be enough to get attention.

[00:04:25] Brian: I would agree.

[00:04:27] Phillip: Brian, go for it.

[00:04:28] Brian: Yeah. I didn't catch as much content as the two of you did. But one of the sessions I sat on with Alicia, which was actually a pretty decent session, and I'm not gonna say who was on the panel on this particular one because my word, I think that we've jumped the shark on terms of like how we talk about things. not doing AI for AI's sake, I think was that a couple times. Like the level of buzzword Oh my I had a We're back to that

[00:04:58] Phillip: Again with technology for technology.

[00:05:00] Alicia: Blank for blank's sake.

[00:05:01] Brian: Blank for blank's sake.

[00:05:02] Alicia: For blank's sake.

[00:05:03] Brian: For blank's sake. Wow. I think that so you're you're dead on about the copy pasta. We're using words because they feel like they have to fit in. Like, it feels like there's a memetic cycle going on in

[00:05:21] Phillip: As always and shall ever be.

[00:05:23] Brian: And as always and shall ever be in this industry and every industry. But that said, we did have some good conversations. I thought Aliciand I, we had a chance to chat with AWS, the head of retail infrastructure David Dorf. And it seems like he had a really level headed view on this.

[00:05:45] Alicia: Very pragmatic.

[00:05:45] Brian: Yeah. Extremely pragmatic. He understands that AIs expensive, that it's not necessarily like going to do all the things people think it's going to do. It's part of it's a hype cycle and that there are tangible ways to apply it that we can take advantage of in 2026. And they had some really clear cut ones like product development, supply chain, and ads. And like they were all extremely obvious and good use cases. And so I would I would almost say like, yes, AIs gonna do things for us in 2026 but every single booth, not a single booth that I walked by where AI was not put in a copy somewhere.

[00:06:33] Phillip: My favorite booth, Microsoft has a big campaign right now as retail forward Mhmm. Subscript return on intelligence.

[00:06:44] Brian: Oh.

[00:06:44] Phillip: I love that.

[00:06:45] Brian: Oh, yes. I saw that.

[00:06:46] Phillip: And I was like, oh, I was right there all this whole time.

[00:06:50] Brian: Yep.

[00:06:50] Phillip: I do think the return on intelligence is kind of a brilliant reframe, like, reframe of ROI because I think a lot of companies are gonna start asking what their return on all of this investment in artificial intelligence has been because I think we're probably a year and a half, two years now into a lot of companies having invested in the technology with no enablement of the workforce, right, and no change management in the workforce, so we have access to the tools, but what is the substance behind it that's doing anything to drive any return on the investment, the return on the intelligence? So I really like that. It's also the first thing that you see when you walk in at least four of the doors of the the 3rd Floor of the Expo Hall.

[00:07:41] Brian: Well, and I mean, personally, I think it's kind of awesome because Microsoft was my pick for tech winner earlier. And I feel like Microsoft's so well positioned to work AI into business tools in an actually effective

[00:07:58] Phillip: Way. Distribution wins. Right? Yeah. Alright. I have a my big I can't wait to take.

[00:08:05] Brian: We already know what it is, so we know it is. Tell the people.

[00:08:07] Phillip: So I was at a session, and it's one of these, like, meant for business, like, retail industry insiders. Right? So I would say just like a this is a gut check. I don't have hard numbers here, but I'm gonna say 95% of that audience, which I would you know, I'm pretty good at crowd estimation. I'm gonna say probably 300 people in the room. Most of the people in that room are technologists or retail professionals. These are people who work at brands or they're people who work in the technology side of the implementation side of this industry. They're agency professionals or or they play one on LinkedIn. So that's

[00:08:51] Alicia: Take that for what it is.

[00:08:51] Phillip: Right. One of the presenters asked from the stage, and this is a little ways into the event. It wasn't right at the beginning. Everyone's seated. Everyone's paying attention. Ask from the stage, alright. How many of you here in this room have used AI to search for a product that you would like to buy? And my head popped up, you know. I was I was in my notes, so it's taking was writing some stuff down, and I my head popped up because I wanted to see I wanted to I wanted to take that informal poll of the room, and I kid you not, Brian, Alicia, I'm this is not an exaggeration. No hands went up. Not a single hand.

[00:09:32] Alicia: That's insane to me.

[00:09:33] Phillip: That's crazy. So then I was like, okay. They're all asleep. They're all on LinkedIn. They're not in their they're in their phones. They're not paying attention. So the presenter did exactly what I would have done and sort of called them out. They're like, alright, everybody. Let's wake up. You know? Who here reiterated the question. Who here has used ChatGPT? Like, got specific. Who has used ChatGPT to search for a product period? Three hands goes up.

[00:10:04] Brian: Three out of three–

[00:10:06] Phillip: Three out of three...Three out of 300.

[00:10:08] Brian: So we're talking to 1%.

[00:10:10] Phillip: I mean, and this is a room of people whose jobs are to know about this, apply this, thought lead about this. Again, this is my gut check. I don't know this. I don't have hard data on this, but I presume that this is the focus of this whole of this of this track. And then the follow-up question is, how many of you who have searched have then bought a product using AI?

[00:10:35] Brian: So now we're talking about an audience of three people.

[00:10:37] Phillip: You have three people and all the hands go down.

[00:10:39] Brian: Yeah.

[00:10:39] Phillip: And I'm thinking to myself, like, I'm the only person with...the schmuck with his hands still raised. I'm like, I just find that to be fascinating as, like, you have to dog food it to be able to prescribe it to your consumer. Otherwise, we're building something for people that we could never even predict or begin to put ourselves emotionally or psychologically in their shoes. So I find that to be fascinating and also very indicative of how a lot of this industry has worked for a very long time is that we tend to build experiences, especially ecommerce in my experience. I'm not saying in my opinion and in my experience. I saw a lot of professionals in this industry who did no online shopping, who built a lot of online shopping experiences, and they didn't buy on Amazon. They had no idea how Amazon worked, and they'd tell people how to build best in class eCommerce experiences all day long. And so tell you about the consumer, but they were not an online consumer themselves, and I think that we are heading into the exact same era with AI.

[00:11:46] Alicia: Same trap.

[00:11:47] Phillip: Yep.

[00:11:47] Brian: Yep.

[00:11:48] Alicia: Well, and the irony is that the basis of all of these conversations, the ones rooted in AI adoption or embracing AI, how everyone frame it, they the narrative is being customer centered or being customer led. So if you don't even understand firsthand what that experience looks like and why your consumer may be gravitating towards these platforms, how are you supposed to design for it? How are you supposed to select the right partner or craft the right experience, not just within those platforms, but within your own platform? Because, like, that was another key theme that all of these search behaviors, all of these experiences, whether it's more pointed queries or more broad trend based ones, they're happening within these platforms, whether it's ChatGPT or Perplexity. So what do your ecommerce sites need to be instead? What do your stores need to be instead? I actually had a great conversation with the head of retail for Verizon, and he brought that up on his own. He said, We know consumers are coming into stores. Maybe they're not typing into ChatGPT. Maybe they're talking to ChatGPT while they're in the store aisles. So what do the stores need to be instead to either add to that experience or differentiate from that experience enough, whether it be through digital signage or interactivity or service? So there are little blips of people looking at it the right way, but I think the root of it is a lot of people just don't know how it all works firsthand. So how are supposed to solve those problems for your customers or differentiate effectively?

[00:13:32] Brian: Percent.

[00:13:33] Phillip: Can I say the thing that's shocking to me? So AI obviously is doing a lot more than consumer engagement, consumer transformation. I think it's having a massive impact on teams' CX. It's doing a lot. Right? So it's not just how we search. So I wanna be I wanna be somewhat gracious there. It's impacting Teams for sure. Another thing that I've heard this week was a session with PacSun. And in the same session where PacSun was claiming hey, have to be technology forward. We're a technology forward brand. And we've I think we've had lots of great conversations with PacSun. I wanna continue to talk with brands like PacSun. I think that you can have a really great you can have the same sort of, like, in one area of your business, can talk about all the good that AIs doing for you and then also you can sort of talk about, well AIs also allows us to have all the bandwidth and give us so much more productivity that we don't have to hire 200 seasonal workers.

[00:14:41] Phillip: And you have to be really careful Yeah. When you're messaging like that in public too because when you talk about how Gen Z and Gen Alphare your customer Mhmm. And then you turn around and you say things like that, I think that you can be find yourself very quickly on the other side of having to manage message that like somebody can take that out of context and start saying, well, I thought AIs not supposed to be hurting us in the workforce. Right. Right? So it does provide additional productivity. It's making the people who do who have jobs more productive. It means they're better at their jobs, but it does mean that you're not hiring seasonal workers anymore too. So we have I do think that there's a different perspective on this that we're all as an industry having to think about and having us maybe even learn how to message differently. So that's just another way to think about this whole thing and it's something I heard this week.

[00:15:36] Brian: Yeah. I think that it's really hard. This is always the challenge with any new technology is that new technology, what does it free you up to do and invest your money in? So when you get rid of a piece of friction and you replace a person and it's a more seamless experience or more efficient experience, does that save time go into building a better customer experience? Or does it just drive cost does it just drive the market down? Right? Like, does all of a sudden you're like, oh, I have these efficiencies. I can sell my product for less. Yeah. And so that

[00:16:14] Phillip: But that never happens.

[00:16:15] Brian: Well well, I think from actually, I do think it does. It does happen in certain industries like creative industries.

[00:16:26] Phillip: Right. It happens when there's competition that that leads to competition.

[00:16:32] Brian: Price competition or you end up spending more on advertising to get people in the door. Like, where does the money go that you save? Does it go into people? Does it go into technology? Does it go what does it go into? Does it

[00:16:43] Alicia: Go to the end customer? Right. Yeah.

[00:16:45] Phillip: And Executive compensation.

[00:16:47] Brian: Yep. I'm just kidding. No. No. Dead on actually. I think that that's the in a market like ours that's demanding quarterly results that are up and to the right. This is

[00:17:00] Phillip: Not always.

[00:17:01] Brian: The eternal question, like efficiency to what end?

[00:17:05] Phillip: Oh, that's I well, it needs to be efficiency. I mean, let's let's

[00:17:12] Brian: To the facts on point.

[00:17:13] Phillip: Yeah. Jay, face the facts, right? Like Yeah. We not even ten years ago, we're talking about retailpocalypse every six weeks.

[00:17:22] Alicia: Oh, the good old days.

[00:17:23] Phillip: Remember that?

[00:17:24] Alicia: Yep.

[00:17:24] Brian: Not even. Was like five years ago.

[00:17:26] Phillip: No. That was 2018 was retailpocalypse, and then 2020 And also had the retail Yeah. Oh,

[00:17:31] Alicia: Remember that? NRF? That was

[00:17:35] Phillip: You know, the fact that were having a record size of an NRF and a record PO and there's like that's And a

[00:17:43] Brian: Sales are up and to the right right now.

[00:17:45] Phillip: Look at the size of the economic activity. Yep. Apparently, today, we had economic data 2.7 inflated CPI. So, like, we're we're kind of I think that officially means we're at the end of the inflation cycle

[00:18:01] Brian: Yep.

[00:18:01] Phillip: As of today. I mean, it doesn't feel good still out here, but there's a there's a lot of interesting there's a lot of interesting conversation out here in these halls.

[00:18:16] Brian: Vibe session. Vibe session maybe this year.

[00:18:18] Phillip: Retailer vibe sessions, I think are over.

[00:18:20] Brian: Yeah. You think it's over?

[00:18:21] Phillip: Seems that seems correct. That...unless you're in hospitality and travel, that seems to be setting in. I've heard...I've heard a few people here in the travel hospitality sector say that that seems to be an area of concern.

[00:18:38] Brian: Let's talk about that for a second, because I actually think that's a it gets to something that you and I were talking about briefly, Phillip, which is it kind of feels like people don't wanna go out as much this year. We had this huge swing back to people wanting to be out and about gathering, partying after the COVID and it kind of feels like, dare I say, and I haven't said this on a public way yet, but like, I think we might have a little bit of like COVID era nostalgia this year. Um, I know that's kind of prediction y, but like, think people now are feeling the burden of the way the world became after or during COVID, which was digital first, always on meeting after meeting, book them up on a digital way. And, but at the same time, they didn't have to go do anything else. They could be inside. It was very con like like controlled. They didn't to wear pants.

[00:19:41] Phillip: Yeah. We get it. Yeah. So but now they wanna they want the opposite of that.

[00:19:45] Brian: They want they want they're getting their they're living in both worlds now and they have pressure the pressure of both worlds.

[00:19:51] Phillip: Well, maybe...

[00:19:51] Alicia: It's a recalibration. Like, maybe people are just figuring out where they wanna spend their time and how they wanna spend their time.

[00:19:56] Brian: That's right. That's right. And they might want freedom from pants again and freedom from the office.

[00:20:01] Alicia: I don't like card pants.

[00:20:02] Phillip: Do you? You just want freedom from pants, Brian?

[00:20:05] Brian: I always wore pants. That's the thing. No. No. No. I never had...

[00:20:09] Phillip: Brian wants to go out. I know that for a fact. Brian always wants to go out. I don't wanna go out.

[00:20:14] Brian: You're done.

[00:20:14] Phillip: I'm done going out. I'm happy to stay in.

[00:20:16] Brian: Alicia's done.

[00:20:17] Alicia: Yeah. Yes. Well, once the jammies go on, there's no going back.

[00:20:20] Phillip: Oh, yeah. That's, uh...I used to be the go-out guy.

[00:20:23] Brian: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:24] Phillip: Yeah. Dude, when I was young, dude I'd go out.

[00:20:28] Alicia: Maybe that's it. Maybe went too hard.

[00:20:30] Phillip: I'm just old. Like, I firmly...I firmly believe too that there's the this might be a good after dark rant, but Yeah. There's a lot of, you know, if everything goes in cycles, right? Maybe we're getting back to some prudence in society and maybe people wanna save again. Maybe consumer credits just topped out and people are like, hey, maybe I shouldn't be spending all this. But they––

[00:21:03] Brian: But the economic data doesn't feel like that's what's happening.

[00:21:07] Phillip: No. But you know, maybe that stuff's trailing indicators. Right?

[00:21:10] Brian: Could be.

[00:21:10] Phillip: So we need leading indicators that say people are saving more again and that's that stuff might just not be on the horizon.

[00:21:17] Brian: I don't know. I think people are gambling more is what I think is true.

[00:21:20] Alicia: At home.

[00:21:22] Brian: Yeah. They're sitting at home and gambling.

[00:21:24] Phillip: Now they're sitting at home and sports betting.

[00:21:26] Brian: Sports betting from their house.

[00:21:27] Phillip: That could be true.

[00:21:28] Brian: Yeah.

[00:21:28] Alicia: Or...and if they are going out, maybe they're just going to vinyl clubs and, like, more vibey places.

[00:21:34] Phillip: True.

[00:21:34] Alicia: Yeah. Which is a nice tie-in to, I think, the London Brief.

[00:21:37] Phillip: We Yeah.

[00:21:37] Alicia: Explored that pretty in-depth because traditional nightclub revenue was going down.

[00:21:41] Phillip: That's right.

[00:21:42] Alicia: But, like, how are those spaces characterized that are more, you know

[00:21:47] Brian: Such a good point.

[00:21:48] Alicia: Laid back, more of, like, community centered. I mean, we saw plenty of stores in New York City that are technically third spaces.

[00:21:56] Brian: Right.

[00:21:57] Alicia: They have retail products. So from a revenue perspective, they're probably designated as such. Yeah. But when you go into the Buck Mason

[00:22:06] Brian: He was just showing me pictures.

[00:22:07] Alicia: On Canal Street, now you go in and you see people just, like, hanging out on, like, a modular sofa together and then reading coffee table books. I'm like, where am I? And then I keep walking, and it's, like, bar installations, record players, like walls of books and vinyls.

[00:22:22] Phillip: On Canal, same way.

[00:22:24] Alicia: Yeah. Exactly. So, like, those are becoming the hang out

[00:22:28] Phillip: I can't think of anything moreCommerce and culture coexisting. It's that. Yeah. You have a DJ in store and like it's like co working like people are just sitting on the like sofa or at like a table and they're just like on their laptop and they're just like vibing. It's an interesting expression

[00:22:45] Brian: Of, like tabletop playing a tabletop board game.

[00:22:47] Phillip: Yeah. I could be into that.

[00:22:49] Brian: I would play a tabletop game.

[00:22:50] Alicia: Yeah. Actually, board games did come up in one of the sessions here.

[00:22:56] Phillip: Ooh Say more. Let's talk more about the session content.

[00:22:59] Alicia: Yeah. I would love that. So going back to Microsoft quickly, that was the session that kind of started the cultural discussion surrounding AI because it was with David Lauren, who's the head of chief branding and innovation officer for Ralph Lauren. And what I really liked about that, bringing him in, is that it wasn't just a technology like conversation of, like, AIs so great. Obviously, they talked about Ask Ralph, which is super cool. But the essence of the conversation was how do you take a brand that is as beloved and known for being a merchant and design led company and use technology in a way to just add to it and not try to make not try to over modernize it. And I liked that it always rooted back to the heritage and the culture of the brand. And, again, it wasn't ever present, but, like, those little blips that, like, we hear, like, cultural reference and, like, reference to vision

[00:24:04] Phillip: Yep.

[00:24:05] Alicia: That that got me excited because I was like, okay. These aren't people that just wanna be early adopters. These aren't the ones that just want the headline in, like, the press release or the news coverage. They were thinking intentionally about we have stake in the game as a established brand. So how do we turn something so beloved for generations into something relevant for today?

[00:24:28] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:24:28] Alicia: The only thing I wish they talked about was Ralph Lauren Christmas because that that is a great example of technology adding to the legacy, not trying to change it or replace it. Man,

[00:24:44] Phillip: I could really go down the rabbit hole in that one. I also heard I heard Microsoft also speak on a in a different session around

[00:24:53] Brian: Is Microsoft in like every session?

[00:24:54] Phillip: Yeah. Basically. Mean, they're they have a lot of presence around here and also in a bunch of like ancillary events.

[00:25:02] Brian: But Yeah.

[00:25:03] Phillip: Just on the the ask Ralph. Mhmm. That's the that's the product. Right?

[00:25:08] Brian: It's like Ask Jeeves?

[00:25:10] Phillip: Yeah. Basically. But just like the orientation to that and solving customer problems, it's in in the traditional technology sense, if you ask a technologist to build a feature on a website,

[00:25:28] Brian: Their,

[00:25:29] Phillip: You know, their their orientation to the problem is gonna be a pant size selector. What's your pant size? Right? And what AI gives the ability to do is the same way that a human would solve that to a person coming in the store. If they walked into a Ralph Lauren boutique, they wouldn't say what's your pants size. They would say, what's the occasion you're shopping for? And that's how humans

[00:25:53] Alicia: Solve the problem.

[00:25:54] Phillip: Right? That's the problem you're solving. It has nothing to do with your pants size. It's the I don't have a pair of chinos. Mhmm. I don't have like, I don't have anything that fits right now. Maybe I've like put on a little weight. Maybe I've lost some weight. Maybe you're celebrating some goal. Like, I'm going skiing. I don't know. Like, you have all these things that are the driving and motivating factors that are pulling you into the store experience. Yeah. But that's not how technologists solve problems and it comes back to my original my original like mental model of how AI would reshape the workforce two years ago when were having salons around AI, Brian, it was there would be an inversion of who had the skill set to serve the consumer if we could level the playing field with access to technology and building technology, so vibe coding tools, etc. Two years ago, I was just saying it's people with humanities degrees or people that had psychology degrees, if they could meet the consumer rather than the technologist being the you know, the middleman layer who had to, it's like, we can't do that, right? It's it has to be this UI or it has to be the right.

[00:27:10] Brian: And I think that that narrative is kind of coming around actually, the storyteller narrative, right? Saw that, it was the WSJ article about chief storytelling officers and this idea that the narrative driver, the author, the creative will be kind of in charge of connecting with people because clogged code exists. So you don't need to be a true engineer and this is the narrative, like, don't need to be an engineer in order to connect with customers anymore or to use technology to connect with customers. It can be anybody. And so then it comes down to who's got the best story. But storytelling is insufficient as I once wrote. I think that the problem is when people say storytelling in this context at this show or technology company says storytelling, they mean something vastly different. Yeah. Mean something. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the biggest problem is like, think we're caught up in in people get locked on to terms and what they mean and how to define them and, like, silo them and, like, put them into a box that they can control. And I feel like that's not what being a creative led business means. And so what to your point, Phillip, the I hope that the psychologists and the creatives can start to take a more active role and maybe we have some content coming out about that in the not so distant future.

[00:28:49] Phillip: That's true. More sessions. What else what else do we have?

[00:28:53] Alicia: Well, were both in the WGSN. Yeah. And I think this ties to where people are spending their time, where people are spending their money. I loved that there was an emphasis back to more analog and more intimate spaces. So she talked about the return of, like, mahjong

[00:29:17] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:29:18] Alicia: And, like, board games. So, like, very simplified, very streamlined, and very, very rooted in, like, one to one connection. And, like, mahjong is a great example because it's tied to culture.

[00:29:29] Phillip: That's right.

[00:29:30] Alicia: So, like, how are we getting back to our roots, I guess, is is the enlightening piece of it. But I think a lot of her trends, it was framed around, like, two two years from now. I think a lot of the trends discussed are happening now.

[00:29:46] Phillip: Interesting that we last year used board games as like the motif for our member briefs.

[00:29:52] Brian: Mhmm. Oh, yeah. But

[00:29:54] Alicia: Oh my gosh. It is last year technically.

[00:29:56] Phillip: I don't like that.

[00:29:57] Brian: It's weird. Anyway. Phillip, what about your session? I thought it was phenomenal. Let's talk about it.

[00:30:04] Phillip: You did such a good job. Yeah. Why don't you why don't you set it up? Because I don't I hate to talk about myself.

[00:30:08] Alicia: He's like,

[00:30:08] Brian: That thing is like I feel weird. This guy named Dane Thomas.

[00:30:11] Phillip: Oh, shut up. Okay. Thank you.

[00:30:15] Brian: Doug DeMeyton. I'm sorry.

[00:30:16] Phillip: We could have said that at the end.

[00:30:18] Brian: I know. I know. It was an incredible session. Dane Matthews from Taco Bell. Absolutely a phenomenal thinker and speaker. I've I heard fewer buzzwords out of his mouth than I heard pretty much anyone else.

[00:30:35] Phillip: We'll play buzzword bingo at the end here.

[00:30:37] Brian: Yeah, we should. Okay. And he talked about the things that Taco Bell is doing for their their experience for their fans as he called them and I saw him say not customer multiple times. Yep. Fans and guests. And the ability to build your own taco and then put it out into the world and share it with people. And if you the most shared tacos will eventually make the menu at every Taco Bell, which is such a multiplayer brand aspect and something we have covered before, but they have an incredible loyalty program. They have incredible product innovation. They have incredible focus on the customer. He talked about how spontaneously they've built a culture where they found out it was someone's birthday and they were using a birthday reward. And a team of Taco Bell employees came and sang happy birthday to the customer at the drive through window and how they're gonna roll that out at all their Taco Bells, which is so beautiful.

[00:31:40] Alicia: That's an example of technology leading to human joy.

[00:31:43] Brian: That was his whole point.

[00:31:44] Alicia: Yeah. Which I think is cannot be understated.

[00:31:47] Brian: He was like, the point isn't a technology. The point is building a memorable experience that connects people to people. Yeah. And I just loved it. It was great.

[00:31:55] Phillip: I love that too. I have so many other thoughts about that though. Yeah. Like, that's social gold.

[00:32:04] Alicia: It is. Absolutely.

[00:32:06] Phillip: I just think to myself, I'm like, it's so like, Man, did Cold Stone just drop? Seriously? I'm just thinking to myself, like, I wasn't gonna say it on stage, but like, man, Cold Stone would kill in the TikTok era, and I don't know why they just stopped doing that. That was like a whole thing.

[00:32:31] Brian: Well, I think that they they were so cool, like, actually.

[00:32:36] Phillip: Pun intended. Terrible. Yeah. Back

[00:32:39] Brian: When they first came out, and then I think that there's People still love Gladstone. Do they? Yeah.

[00:32:43] Alicia: Yeah. Mine is still

[00:32:45] Brian: It's it's

[00:32:45] Phillip: It's always a line. I still But they don't sing anymore like they used to.

[00:32:49] Brian: That's too bad. They don't do it. I would tip them if they sing.

[00:32:52] Phillip: Well, you they're supposed to sing when you tip I know. But it doesn't happen the way it But it's not doesn't doesn't work the way it's supposed to, and I think I don't know, and this could just be I'm jaded. I just think it's because it is the same thing we just talked about in my session with Dane is that the culture of the organization is not a cohesive culture.

[00:33:13] Brian: Right. Mhmm.

[00:33:13] Phillip: And I think it's really, really difficult to keep consistent culture and consistent values across an organization like that and when you allow people to just proceed without enforcing the culture, it all falls apart. You can't allow people to not do it. You can't you can never do it. You can it has to be part of it consistently.

[00:33:35] Brian: And to your to your point on stage, like you brought up their competitor Chick fil A

[00:33:39] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:33:39] Brian: It took them seven years

[00:33:41] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:33:41] Brian: To roll out two words. Yeah. That was a great point. Yeah.

[00:33:45] Phillip: Yeah. That was it took two years to roll out a mobile app at at Chick fil and it took seven years for them to roll out my pleasure. Just think about that.

[00:33:54] Alicia: I wonder like

[00:33:56] Brian: People are harder to change the technology. Yeah. A 100%.

[00:33:58] Alicia: Yeah. Well and, like, I think one piece of it is, like hammering the point home to people, getting them on board. But I wonder how much of it is tied to, like, people just genuinely loving the brand. And, like, they love it, and they wanna create that love and share that love with other customers more.

[00:34:19] Brian: Yeah.

[00:34:20] Alicia: You know what I mean?

[00:34:21] Brian: Like the Taco Bell.

[00:34:23] Alicia: Like, I felt his love for the brand on that stage. Yeah. In his vocabulary, how he framed things, how he was, like, actually digesting your questions and sitting with them.

[00:34:33] Brian: Time. Yeah. Like, on your panel, but also just in life.

[00:34:37] Alicia: Yeah. Mean, I listen It

[00:34:38] Phillip: Was just the two of us and I love that format more than anything else.

[00:34:41] Brian: Oh, Fireside. Yeah. It's the way to go.

[00:34:44] Phillip: Also, just getting to know him over the last month and very couple months that we've been like prepping for this. He's a he's a totally different leader. Yeah. I've met a lot of folks over the years and he's he's a real one.

[00:35:01] Brian: And you wanna go work for Taco Bell? Kind of.

[00:35:04] Alicia: I'm gonna use fan style. I'm

[00:35:06] Phillip: You need to use fan style. So, yeah, just to like put a big feather in this cap. Yeah.

[00:35:12] Alicia: Some cheese on this Nacho Builder.

[00:35:14] Phillip: There you go. The that's the better yeah. This fan creation tool which I made sure to mention that we would say it's like multiplayer engagements, the participatory culture that we always talk about, which we wrote a book about. Right? That was the multiplayer whole brand. So multiplayerbrand.com, you can get your book. But we've talked about this for four years Yeah. And it's so empowering to see companies building the thing that we've been talking about one by one by one by one. Totally. Mhmm. Right? So I mentioned LEGO. LEGO was one of the first Great example. Right? And so now you see a company like Taco Bell doing it, and it's not just about that they're it's not like they're fracking their customers for ideas, they're rewarding their customers in turn the customer gets something back. So Dane created his special recipe. It's called mine's hotter than yours.

[00:36:17] Brian: Yeah. Which I love.

[00:36:17] Phillip: And it has like all this hot sauce. It's like every different hot sauce.

[00:36:21] Alicia: Sounds like my dream.

[00:36:22] Phillip: And I have a burrito called the protein bomb, and it's like every pro it's like literally it's it's not honestly, I need to tweak it a little bit. It's it's too much protein. It's No. It's gotta be like 70 grams

[00:36:33] Brian: Of protein. You're like It's bringing you're like, we just need one taco a day. That's all you need.

[00:36:38] Phillip: Kind of. It hits all the macros. Yeah. It's but it's like it's kinda gross because it's like it's got the

[00:36:43] Alicia: We the flavors are all over the place.

[00:36:46] Brian: It's it's too many flavors. Possible in there as well?

[00:36:49] Phillip: No. No. No. But it's got it's got the black beans, refried beans.

[00:36:54] Brian: Yeah.

[00:36:54] Alicia: Oh my gosh. It's too much. It's The texture. Yeah. So everything.

[00:36:57] Brian: Texture is

[00:36:57] Phillip: Not good. No. I'm there. The slow roasted chicken. It's got the regular chicken.

[00:37:01] Brian: Bring it.

[00:37:01] Phillip: Yeah. It's got the

[00:37:02] Brian: Chicken on Yeah.

[00:37:03] Phillip: It's got steak. It's got everything.

[00:37:05] Brian: It's got beef on steak. It's got chicken on chicken. They can't even

[00:37:07] Phillip: Close the thing, dude. You have to do it in the in the in the new

[00:37:13] Brian: Wrap. Joke right now and I'm done.

[00:37:14] Phillip: Yeah. You gotta it's a real hat on a hat sort of a burrito. Alright. Anyway, it's it's a it's really awesome that they've done this and I really like the direction that we're starting to see in fan engagement too.

[00:37:31] Brian: Well

[00:37:31] Phillip: I'm saying fan now. It's really It

[00:37:33] Brian: Was my favorite session of the show. It was my probably my favorite moment of the show Mhmm. Actually.

[00:37:38] Phillip: that's really great.

[00:37:40] Brian: And that's not just because you were

[00:37:42] Phillip: Hey. I appreciate that. This has been a great show. Also, just to close the loop, you were alluding to the fact that I accidentally called him by my friend's name before he walked

[00:37:51] Brian: Out on the stage.

[00:37:52] Phillip: I called him Dane Thomas. Shout out Dane. I was

[00:37:55] Alicia: Gonna say if you're out there. Yeah.

[00:37:56] Brian: Dane Matthews is also a really cool name.

[00:37:59] Phillip: Dane Matthews?

[00:38:00] Brian: Yeah.

[00:38:00] Phillip: That's really close to Dave Matthews.

[00:38:02] Brian: I know. That's why it leads that's like I

[00:38:03] Alicia: Was like, is it gonna slip?

[00:38:04] Brian: It feels like a like a more regal Dave Matthews. Yeah. Dane Matthews. Yeah.

[00:38:09] Alicia: Sir Dane Matthews.

[00:38:10] Phillip: Should have asked. Yes. Has anyone ever asked him the question, what would you say? I don't know.

[00:38:14] Brian: I don't know.

[00:38:15] Phillip: Okay. Alright. Alright. That about does it. It's been a great 2026 Yeah. NRF. Whoo. This is like

[00:38:25] Brian: Back again. Yeah. Back at it again with the white vans.

[00:38:29] Phillip: We're heading to eTail. So if you wanna check out our events circuit, FutureCommerce.com/events. We'll be–

[00:38:36] Brian: Big announcement coming out at eTail.

[00:38:38] Phillip: Yeah. eTail, we've got our Shoptalk coming up. We've got a whole spate of events if you wanna see what salon dinners we have coming up for the future. Our whole calendar of events for the year is at FutureCommerce.com/events. You wanna...

[00:38:51] Brian: Future of Future Commerce.

[00:38:53] Phillip: If you wanna check out our research FutureCommerce.com/holidayaireport. And we'll link up all of the other resources in the description here on your favorite podcast and YouTube experience below. Thank you for listening to this episode of Future Commerce. Find more episodes of this podcast at FutureCommerce.com. Thanks for listening.

‍