Your pasta is about to cost 107% more
Welcome to Wednesday, futurists.
We have the latest data from October’s Word Of Mouth Index, and it looks like things are picking up steam. Auto may still be the loudest in the room, but Apparel edged into the second spot as closets turned over for fall.
Buzz surrounding Consumer Electronics cooled a bit from its usual gravity, which tracks with shoppers window-shopping until holiday promos hit. (More timely holiday spending data and predictions below. 👇)
Office popped above 10%, which is ironically better than the back-to-school season’s peak. But Health and Beauty is still not performing its best. Hopefully, brands get a WOM glow-up going into BFCM.
I recently chatted with Fairing’s Matt Bahr about how WOM is a predictor of other strong business indicators, such as repeat purchases, subscription conversions, and more. If you can drive WOM, you can drive growth. Become a Future Commerce Plus member to learn how you can use this data to pull performance marketing and referral levers during the holiday season and beyond.
— Phillip
Will Consumers Sleigh the Holiday? “Recent economic data has been mixed, yet consumer spending remains solid.” That was the key takeaway from NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay, as the organization reported its October Retail Monitor Results and final holiday predictions.
The Monitor, which is developed with CNBC, is based on anonymized credit and debit purchase data compiled by Affinity Solutions. While consumers have indicated in surveys that they feel the economic pinch, they continued to shop through October, resulting in a 0.6% month-over-month increase and a 4.89% increase over the same period last year. As a result, the NRF predicts that sales in November and December will rise between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2024, translating to total seasonal sales of up to $1.02 trillion. Despite low consumer sentiment, this is a record level of spending.
❄️ Future Commerce has kept a close watch on holiday spending trends and predictions. Get our perspectives on how the psychology of holiday shopping has changed and how you can respond before the Black Friday surge.
Crafty Christmas. After abrupt leadership changes announced during its Q3 2025 earnings call, Etsy has launched its holiday campaign, a major initiative that doubles down on the power of more curated, personalized gifting. While many retailers focus on helping consumers get the most bang for their buck, Etsy emphasizes its role as a platform for individual expression and thoughtful consumerism. Three ads are presented as interconnected stories, with each spot featuring a unique gifting moment.
Our Take: The approach aligns with Deloitte data indicating that 67% of consumers get stressed when buying gifts for “someone who has everything.” As a result, 67% of Gen Zers and 55% of millennials are more likely to embrace DIY gifting. Etsy is a platform that bridges the gap, connecting gift-givers with artisans and creators who can make gifting moments special, without the manual labor for consumers.
iPhones Get the Banana Hammock Treatment. Apple has teamed up with fashion brand Issey Miyake on iPhone Pocket, a singular 3D-knitted holder designed to house your smartphone and other pocketable items. Modeled after “a piece of cloth,” this, well, piece of cloth, is available in a short- and long-strap design, which retail for $149.95 and $229.95, respectively. The iPhone Pocket will also be available in different colorways, from black to purple, and lemon, online and at select Apple Store locations.
Our Take: We can appreciate the simplicity of modern design. We can even appreciate Issey Miyake’s connection to the Apple brand. (Steve Jobs was a major fan of the brand’s black turtleneck.) But we can’t help but connect the iPhone Pocket’s design with another type of pocket…
The iPhone Pocket hits stores this Friday, so we’ll keep a close eye on overall market response. Is this simply a litmus test for folks who will buy and praise anything Apple does?
Arrivederci, Fettuccini! US tariff rates on your favorite Italian pasta could reach as high as 107% starting in 2026, and it’s causing brands like La Molisana to question whether they’ll continue to grace the shelves of American grocers. Other well-known brands that import their pasta to the US include Barilla, Garofalo, and Rummo. The Commerce Department alleges that these pasta companies are “dumping” products in the country at “less than normal value,” and it’s creating an unequal playing field for American brands.
FYI: We’ve explored how the Secretary of Commerce can shape the future of commerce, culture, and technology. It’s not a consolation prize; it’s a powerful societal force. You can dig into our perspectives here.
Shielding the Stench of Grand Central. Bath & Body Works, the haven for seasonal three-wick candles, is bringing its holiday scents to malls across America, as well as a few unlikely places—namely, train stations and movie theaters. The heart of the campaign is a fleet of 46 interactive pop-up kiosks in high-traffic malls and 30 pilot stores with window displays promoting interactive “try-and-smell stations.”
Meanwhile, moviegoers in select theaters across NYC, LA, and Chicago will experience “scentigrations” of Fresh Balsam while watching a brand commercial. However, it’s the brand’s scent takeover of Grand Central Station in NYC and Clark and Lake in Chicago that is the most creatively aggressive, surrounding commuters with the smell of fresh Balsam during their commutes. Talk about sensory immersion.
KFC Goes into the Upside Down. The final season of Stranger Things is kicking off Nov. 27, and that means its collabosphere is kicking into gear. A standout is KFC’s new ad spot for the UK and Ireland, where the quick-serve restaurant is renamed Hawkins Fried Chicken and features its new Stranger Things Burger, which includes a Zinger Fillet, sweet-and-spicy secret sauce, slaw, and a red bun. A special edition of Stranger Wings, tossed with the secret sauce, will also be for sale.
Our Take: When brands connect authentically to the aesthetic and story of a media brand, especially one as known and beloved as Stranger Things, it can create cultural credibility and capital. But when adjacencies don’t exist, and it seems like brands are simply slapping a logo on their packaging, the results can be disastrous. We explored the intricacy of successful media collabs in a recent Senses installment and our Things We’re Overthinking LinkedIn newsletter.
TikTok Creators Killed the Radio Star. TikTok and iHeartMedia are working together to develop the TikTok Podcast Network, a new way to bring the platform’s top creators into the podcasting ecosystem. The network will include a slate of 25 new and curated TikTok creator podcasts, distributed by iHeartPodcasts and available on the iHeartRadio app. The companies are also launching TikTok Radio, which lets listeners tune in to their favorite TikTok creators. And of course, this partnership means that creators will be further embedded into the broader iHeartRadio ecosystem, which includes in-person events.
Our Take: This partnership is giving “everything old is new again,” but it shows how deeply short-form content is integrated into our media diets and why the way we consume, share, and participate in media moments is changing. We find a personality we love on TikTok, consume their clips, remix them, reshare them, and return to their content again and again through our algorithmically perfected feeds. It also illustrates just how strong parasocial relationships have become between creators and their fanbase.
The power of this partnership lies in the execution, which, in this case, largely hinges on the quality of the talent. iHeartRadio has a lot to gain: CEO Bob Pittman noted that podcasting is “probably the hottest category of media right now,” with its division revenue rising 22.5% in Q3.
Amazon Gets Unboxed. Friend of Future Commerce Kiri Masters is at Amazon’s Unboxed event in Nashville and has some major updates on its ad suite. Agents are (surprise) a big part of the story, with teams now having access to generative AI capabilities for display, audio, and video creative, as well as a dedicated agent for campaign orchestration.
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