Podcast: 4 Key Themes We Heard at Shoptalk 2022

In this episode of Our Best Behavior, Michele Cerullo-McCorry (Senior Vice President, Client Development) shares the most prominent discussion topics at Shoptalk 2022, where there were over 10,000 attendees in Las Vegas.

Key themes included why a brand’s purpose matters, sustainability such as going beyond just recycling to reusing, how physical retail stores can succeed today, and the growth of the e-commerce landscape. Plus, the Metaverse is here!

Matt Salem (Senior Vice President, Client Development) hosts The Our Best Behavior Podcast.

Read more on the Behaviorally Blog (behaviorally.com/blog/).

Matt Salem

Hi everyone. I’m your host, Matt Salem and you’ve tuned in to another episode of our Our Best Behavior brought to you by Behaviorally. Behaviorally, the global market leader in evaluating shopper marketing helps brands define and diagnose the behaviors that drive shopper growth.

Each month we share industry insights on trending topics designed to help clients make better shopper marketing decisions. Today, we’re joined by Michele McCorry, SVP client development about her recent experience at Shoptalk and innovations in retail impacting shopper behavior. Michele, great to have you join us today.

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Good morning. And thank you so much for having me, Matt.

Matt Salem

Always awesome to be with you. I’m excited to have a conversation about Shoptalk. I want to hear first of all, what was it like to just be hanging out with a bunch of people at a conference again?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Well, it was in Vegas, I do like a little gambling. So right away I was in. But it was really exciting to be around other people. The energy in the room was just like palpable, people were excited to be present to learn. It was like, I don’t know, going back to your first day of school when you used to like the first day of school before you got to the end. It was great.

Matt Salem

Cool. Yeah, I saw some pictures from the event it looked like it was engaging and fun. So, a cool one of you giving a wave from the stage. And I heard that there were some happy hours to be had. So, it sounds like all around productivity, business, plus a little bit of fun at the conference, which is always a good thing. And that’s that’s what it should be really.

So, I’d like to dive into Shoptalk more and understand what were some of the major topics that were discussed. And maybe we can pull back the onion, peel back the onion? Either way, makes sense. Pull or peel back the onion. And, you know, see what we got. And each of the layers there. So, what were some of the kind of broader topics that were discussed at Shoptalk?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

So many what I can say again, it was just the content was fantastic. The the speakers were fantastic. But a couple key themes really came through, not surprisingly, a lot around sustainability, e-commerce. And really the topic around this is a little bit less about, you know, just recycling, it was going beyond that.

So, when you think of e-commerce, right, the Posh Marks, there’s a company called Chairish. It’s, you know, reusing what you have out there. And I think that’s huge, because it’s less putting garbage in the landfill. But finding a second use for it, which I thought was fascinating.

The other angle around sustainability that came up a lot was not just don’t do bad but do good. And what I mean by that is Whole Foods spoke a lot about, you know regenerative regenerative agriculture. So, it’s not just don’t again, don’t do bad, but I’m doing things to make the soil better. I’m trying to improve life moving forward.

Another one Grove Collaborative really about, they have refills for their bottles. They’re a household cleaning company. So again, changing consumer behavior, but doing good, not just less bad, but I thought it was eye opening as well. I mean, I can go on and on about it.

But I think the other thing I’ll come back to is it actually links a lot to brand purpose, which we heard a lot, which is really again, having brands, do, stand for something. Pepsi spoke about Doritos amplify black voices. So again, it’s not just that heard it a lot. Don’t Don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk, like you have to actually stand for something and not just be marketing speak because and I quote, I don’t remember who said this, consumers can smell BS a mile away.

Matt Salem

I like how you link together sustainability and that whole idea of brand purpose. And don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk, because I think that holds very true for sustainability. And I think what we’ve seen in recent years is that sustainability is really embedded into corporate culture. It’s not just something that companies are talking about, it’s something that they’re acting upon and acting upon very wisely. And very specifically, and with purpose.

You also made another mention in there about just the shoppers generally. And it got me thinking about the whole idea of e-commerce versus the store. And the whole idea of conference, people being back around people. Right, so what about the store when we think about the physical store? Is is is that dying?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Very good question. And a lot of people spoke about this, and I think you know, even frankly, as consumers you know, last year we probably thought the store is dead. You know, we’ve all moved to getting our groceries online you know, picking up things at the curb and all that other stuff. The store is not dead. And for many reasons I think the store is back it’s probably back a little bit differently. I think a lot of it is you know, people felt isolation frankly before with COVID So the store is now coming back to have the sense of community.

And that was another theme that kind of came up it’s also coming back to be more about experience people want to get together give them a something a little bit different American Eagle spoke a lot about their the store clerks right they’re now becoming mini influencers and I think they’re giving more role to that and I think it’s allowing it to be more authentic another word that kind of came up a lot.

So, the stores back. I think the the linkage between that brick and mortar and the e-com they spoke a lot about because your brand and another quote I heard throughout was your brand is your superpower. And I think we have to make sure that that experience tracks in the brick and mortar as well as e-commerce.

Matt Salem

That makes a lot of sense. And I love the idea of the store clerks the associates really kind and of having this elevated role as influencers or ambassadors, it makes me think of going into like a Best Buy. Right? If I go into a Best Buy, and I’m looking at the TVs, I want the TV nerd, you know, I want the guy that knows everything about TVs, you know, we’re researchers, we’re all nerds here, we can say that pretty loosely, right? Yeah. I don’t want the guy that’s like, oh, yeah, either way, you can’t go wrong.

Right. So, it would it sounds right to me that the physical store can be the place to get that expertise.

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Right. And it was I and I appreciate it sort of the the CEO or whoever was speaking that was like, hey, listen, you know, I’m a 50 something year old guy, I’m not the target. So, hearing me tell you this is really again inauthentic. So, let’s have it from the ground up, almost like a grassroots. These are the people that believe in it and can sort of stand behind it in a very genuine way.

Matt Salem

Now in thinking about brick and mortar, as well as e-commerce and thinking about maybe with a bit of a more e-commerce flair, just alternative channels or means of shopping, right? So, when you think about brick and mortar, you think about the stores, you always go to your food shopping, your drugstores.

When you think about e-commerce, Amazon must come to mind first for the vast majority. But of course, there’s the mass merch stores online and such. What about other avenues? Was there any talk around other avenues of e-commerce?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Very, very much so right. So, a couple of key ones that came up with that were live streaming, which isn’t new, really in Asia. China led the way with this, but it’s sort of starting to really make a dent here in the US, and I think is going to be a big factor moving forward. A lot of brands talked about kind of different ways to do it. But it almost in a sense, like the ones that are doing it.

Again, I’m gonna come back to this community, right? people were engaged with it, they’re seeing you do this live streaming. And people are asking questions, and they’re jumping in. So, I think it’s a way to also build brand loyalty, right? You’re engaging consumers with this brand, and it’s exciting and new.

So live streaming one, I think to keep an eye out for the other one not surprised to hear this will be the metaverse right? It’s still very new. Lots of people are talking about it PacSun’s doing a lot. People are partnering with Roblox, and different brands spoke about it differently. Right? Some acknowledge that, you know, they were in skincare and certain things maybe a little bit harder to get into the metaverse. The key theme about this is just try it. You know, I heard a throughout like, you don’t know what it’s going to be like it’s here. Again, coming back to community.

I can’t remember who said it. I should have in somewhere in my notes, but it was also people can be authentic in the metaverse and maybe let a little bit out that they might not in reality. And there’s almost two realities, actually that came out of it. So, the metaverse is going to be one to keep an eye on I think everyone acknowledged they don’t know what it’s gonna look like. And that’s exciting. And it’s new, but don’t don’t not do it is really the big key.

Matt Salem

I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on the metaverse because my seven-year-old son can spend $20 on Roblox and about one minute so I, you know, would treat him and then he’s like, oh, I spent all my robux. You did? I just signed in one minute ago. So, I have to teach them valuable little and not give them that 20 bucks for at least another month or two.

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

I’ve been holding off on getting my son into the Roblox, but I did, on as an aside. I came back from the conference that I said to my husband, I said, I think it might be time for Ryan to get into Roblox and he said is that for him or for you? I said kind of for me.

Matt Salem

Kind of for you for sure. For sure. So, as you think about the metaverse, how it ties to community and how it ties to personalization. I mean, in thinking about Roblox and having the fortunate or unfortunate, you’d be the judge, experience of seeing it. One of the key things that this money is being spent on is personalization within the metaverse, right? You can dress up your character, you can buy specific items. So, what about personalization in the shopping experience was that a topic that arose at Shoptalk?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

It did. And it came up in a in just a variety of ways. One you sort of mentioned right in the metaverse, you can kind of be your own avatar, you can personalize things. A lot of them have specific NFT’s again, I can’t remember exactly what that stands for. Right. But this also built people that community and people wanted in on that. personalization also came up in terms of just the product, you know. Revlon spoke about having fragrances that you can layer and other brands circle with water that you can you know, distill in your own fashion.

And then the big one was really data, people know their data is going somewhere what they want, and they’ve kind of accepted that is use that data to personalize my experience. And so, I think that’s going to be a big one as we think about kind of moving forward is how are you going to make this more relevant to me?

Matt Salem

With the younger generation, I would think they want that, and they see value in opting in to being tracked. And I think I’m somewhat in the middle. Whereas my father’s like, I don’t want anybody tracking me, I’m shutting off every tracker. And I’ve always been along the lines of I’ll let them track me because they’ll give me some information I can use. I think this takes it a step further and says don’t just give me something I can use if I want or that might work. Give me something that’s tailored and made for me because you have all of my data.

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Well, that’s exactly right. And I think it’s it’s also like those different cohorts’ people are different by age and you know, different things. This allows that to be customized as well. And I think acknowledging that it’s not a one size fits all sort of situation and how you’re going to succeed with Client A, Client B, you know, Person A, Person B.

So, I think understanding the more helps you do a better job. And I think actually just a circle back the one thing a lot of the brands also spoke about was solving the shoppers’ needs, you know. Again, in terms of this authenticity, it’s not about just selling products, we have to do that their brands they need to exist.

But it’s really like understanding my consumers’ pain points, and how can I fix it? And so, what I develop in my innovation needs to be through the lens of them.

Matt Salem

That is a great segue, because one thing I wanted to understand is at Behaviorally, how are clients being guided through that? How is Behaviorally helping clients understand what the different touchpoints are, where the shopping experience can be impacted? And how to best impact their behavior during those experiences?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

That’s a very good question. And what we’ve been doing really, for the past several years is taking a focus in that omnichannel behavior, right? There are people that are living in both the e-com and the brick and mortar that’s not going away.

In fact, we’re now going to have these other avenues. And so, what we have is a service called OmniPath®. And that goal of that is to understand the path to purchase and to really help people guide decisions in that where can I influence behavior in those different areas, whether it’s in the brick and mortar and the e-commerce in that Roblox metaverse?

Matt Salem 

It’s a very holistic look that needs to take place, it seems you can’t just look into one avenue or the other and you can’t just look into each avenue individually and then try to understand where pieces cross over. you really have to intertwine them throughout a process in order to understand how the two different shopping avenues work together. And granted, e-commerce may become two or three different avenues from there when you speak about the metaverse and live streaming and such.

So, it’s a very interesting time. for you, what was your favorite learning from Shoptalk? What was the favorite part? Aside from the happy hour? Michele let’s not go there. Right away. Okay?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

And the gambling, that’s okay. There was really so much but if I had to take away one thing, it was really understanding that the brick and mortar and the retail isn’t dead, you know, and I felt that myself, like when I could start to go back to a store.

I was kind of excited a little bit, you know, am I still gonna sit on my couch and scroll through Amazon and buy things I don’t need? Probably. But am I also going to nice, you know, enjoy the experience of going to a physical store? So, I think it’s understanding that there’s a variety of channels, and sometimes too much could feel too much. I think for brands and retailers, it’s understanding you have different channels for different purposes and different cohorts. So, to your point, understanding where that all makes sense is vital.

Matt Salem

Parting question for you and being excited about getting back into real physical stores. And assuming that the typical foods shopping trip is not the area of excitement that you’re looking for? What’s your ideal leisurely shop at brick and mortar?

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

This is terrible. I’m gonna sound like such a suburban mother right now. But if I could leave my kid at home with my husband and just take a walk-through Target with a nice cup of coffee, and buy a variety of things I don’t need, I’m a happy girl.

Matt Salem

Love it. Love it. Good old Target.

Michele Cerullo-McCorry

Can’t go wrong.

Matt Salem

Can’t go wrong. Well, thank you very much, Michele. appreciate hearing all the perspective and experiences from Shoptalk. Once again, thanks to our audience for tuning into Our Best Behavior brought to you by Behaviorally. Michele, really appreciate your time and for everyone listening. We’ll catch you next time.

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