BRAVE COMMERCE | Episode Nestlé’s Stefan Kovačević on Building Brands for Both Humans and AI
In this episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter speak with Stefan Kovačević, Global Retail Media and Digital Shelf Lead at Nestlé, about how AI is changing the way consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products. As AI becomes a more active participant in the path to purchase, Stefan explores what this shift means for brands and why marketers need to rethink how they build trust and differentiation.
Stefan introduces the concepts of “human equity” and “machine equity,” arguing that future brand success will depend on winning trust from both people and AI. He discusses the growing role of operational excellence and why emotional connections may become even more valuable as purchasing becomes increasingly automated.
Key takeaways
- The future of brand equity will depend on winning with both consumers and AI-driven recommendation systems.
- Operational excellence is no longer just a supply chain concern; it increasingly influences brand perception and performance.
- As more routine purchases become automated, emotional connections may become a key differentiator for brands.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1: The question becomes, how do you translate emotional value into
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Speaker 1: a signal that now these machines can actually interpret? An
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Speaker 1: uncomfortable question that every brand team should be asking right
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Speaker 1: now is, if an AI removed, imagine your packaging, your
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Speaker 1: shelf placement, and even your advertising budget, would you still
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Speaker 1: be chosen? For a lot of brands, the answer is no.
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Speaker 1: Although AI may automate selections, humans still define what preference is.
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Speaker 1: especially in categories that Nestle plays in, like coffee, pet care, confectionery.
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Speaker 1: Purchases that I think that are deeply emotional and ritualistic.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Free of Commerce. I’m Sarah Hofstadter.
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Speaker 3: And I’m Rachel Tippegraff. And this is a show that
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Speaker 3: talks about what’s relevant in commerce for the world’s biggest brands. Sarah,
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Speaker 3: of all your time speaking to e-commerce and brand sale professionals,
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Speaker 3: how often do you think those people are thinking about
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Speaker 3: fundamental brand building principles?
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Speaker 2: It’s such a good question, Rachel, because it really depends
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Speaker 2: on the talent and how they came up. I look
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Speaker 2: at e-commerce or Omnicommerce people as like a group of
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Speaker 2: social misfits because Sam came from like… Some come from
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Speaker 2: the sales background, some come from a marketing background, some
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Speaker 2: come from an IT background. I mean, even if you
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Speaker 2: look at the roster of guests that we’ve had over
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Speaker 2: the past almost six years, nobody came up through an
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Speaker 2: e-commerce background that’s been working for an extended period of
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Speaker 2: time because it didn’t exist. So people who come from
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Speaker 2: the brand side and then move into commerce, they have
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Speaker 2: that brand building nativity. But if you came in through… IT,
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Speaker 2: then this becomes a much more functional algorithmic process. And
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Speaker 2: so the key for commerce practitioners and leaders is to
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Speaker 2: figure out where your muscle is strong, but more importantly,
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Speaker 2: where your muscles might be weak or never been used
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Speaker 2: and figure out how to fill in blanks.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I think that’s why for so long, these
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Speaker 3: large CPG organizations had these 18 month rotations so you
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Speaker 3: could get exposed to all the different fields and have
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Speaker 3: empathy for the different functions. Absolutely.
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Speaker 2: I remember in the early days with Kraft Heinz, it
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Speaker 2: drove me batty, this whole 18-month cycle. Many of you
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Speaker 2: establish your relationship with somebody, they rotate off. And then
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Speaker 2: even worse, if you’re a brand manager, how can you
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Speaker 2: really invest in the emotional connection to the brand and
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Speaker 2: then figure out what the right solution is? And then
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Speaker 2: 18 months later, you’re off and it’s not enough time.
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Speaker 2: Then you become more of a brand manager. caretaker than
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Speaker 2: a brand steward.
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Speaker 3: It’s interesting. I think if we were to do a
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Speaker 3: pulse check survey on a lot of the people that
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Speaker 3: we’ve had onto the show, and if we asked them,
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Speaker 3: do you think brand building matters in a world of
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Speaker 3: AI driven discovery? I think we’d see a tale of
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Speaker 3: two cities, not like a unanimous perspective.
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Speaker 2: I think you’re right. We see a tale of two cities,
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Speaker 2: but the two cities are One would be, yeah, of course, obviously, duh.
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Speaker 2: But those who don’t will just be like, oh, this
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Speaker 2: is lower funnel. This isn’t brand building. If you’re a
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Speaker 2: beloved brand and you’ve got all the equity in the
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Speaker 2: world and that’s really, really great, then sure, this could
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Speaker 2: be your matching luggage. But very rarely is that the case.
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Speaker 2: And does it continue to be the case? I would
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Speaker 2: argue more commerce people have to understand the criticality of
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Speaker 2: brands because… Brand is what people say about you when
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Speaker 2: you’re not in the room. Isn’t commerce when you’re not
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Speaker 2: in the room? Literally, you’re not even in the store.
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Speaker 3: Well, you don’t have to hear it from us. You’re
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Speaker 3: in for a real treat. You’re going to hear from
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Speaker 3: our friend Stefan at Nestle, who probably has one of
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Speaker 3: the freshest articulations of what it takes to build brand
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Speaker 3: in today’s AI-driven world. So let’s bring Stefan onto the show.
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Speaker 2: We are super excited to have you. I think we’ve
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Speaker 2: been talking about this since last year’s Shop Talk. It
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Speaker 2: could be that long. But so much has changed in
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Speaker 2: the past year. Oh my gosh. And when we were
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Speaker 2: catching up a few weeks ago, you had said something
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Speaker 2: that I just can’t stop thinking about. We’re changing this
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Speaker 2: whole idea about decisioning. A few weeks ago, we had
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Speaker 2: Jim Lozinski talk about the new zero moment of truth.
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Speaker 2: How you get exposed to brands, how people shop. And
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Speaker 2: we’re not just changing how people shop, we’re changing who
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Speaker 2: actually makes the decision for you. Is it you, the
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Speaker 2: actual shopper, or is it AI that is now curating
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Speaker 2: it for you? If AI, in fact, is making more
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Speaker 2: of those decisions of what you get, what you see,
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Speaker 2: then is there any purpose in brand building? So just
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Speaker 2: starting with like an easy layup.
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Speaker 1: I think the biggest misconception is that AI is somehow
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Speaker 1: going to kill branding. it does something a little bit
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Speaker 1: more uncomfortable. And I think it forces us to find
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Speaker 1: out what are our brands actually worth. For years, digital
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Speaker 1: commerce rewarded visibility. If you win the search result, you
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Speaker 1: win the scroll, you somehow won disproportionate demand. But AI
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Speaker 1: is changing that entirely and quite fast. The consumer today
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Speaker 1: may not evaluate 10 options anymore. However, like you just said,
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Speaker 1: their assistant might evaluate thousands of returns, and the recommendation
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Speaker 1: that they get is just a few recommendations. So that’s
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Speaker 1: a fundamentally different environment. There’s one nuance, however, that gets lost.
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Speaker 1: Although AI may automate selections, humans still define what preference is,
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Speaker 1: especially in categories that Nestle plays in, like coffee, pet care, confectionery,
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Speaker 1: purchases that I think that are deeply emotional and ritualistic.
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Speaker 1: It reminds me of a personal story, actually, one that
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Speaker 1: drew me to a career at Nestle. My grandmother, she
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Speaker 1: was born in Serbia in the early 1900s. All of
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Speaker 1: her life, she drank traditional, strong, dark Turkish coffee, the
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Speaker 1: really bitter ones that I don’t even know how they…
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Speaker 1: And when my family immigrated to Canada, my mother brought
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Speaker 1: back a jar of Nescafe on one of our first
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Speaker 1: visits back. And instant coffee wasn’t as developed there yet,
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Speaker 1: so my grandmother was not familiar with it whatsoever. But
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Speaker 1: she became completely attached to it. And I remember she
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Speaker 1: used to say the sweetest part of her going to
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Speaker 1: bed at night was knowing that she’d wake up and
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Speaker 1: make herself a cup of Nescafe. And to me, that’s
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Speaker 1: not utility. That’s emotional architecture. And I think if AI
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Speaker 1: can optimize caffeine delivery, sure. But it’s not going to
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Speaker 1: replace that anticipation, that ritual, or that comfort that my
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Speaker 1: grandma was referring to. And the challenge is that historically,
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Speaker 1: brands communicated those signals through packaging, storytelling, shelf placement, or
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Speaker 1: sampling with sensory cues. AI today intermediates many of those moments.
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Speaker 1: The question becomes, how do you translate emotional value into
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Speaker 1: a signal that now these machines can actually interpret? Winning
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Speaker 1: brands maybe will need two layers of future equity going forward.
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Speaker 1: There’s an element of human equity, and that’s that emotional residence,
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Speaker 1: that identity, the aspiration. And then you’re going to have
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Speaker 1: this new machine equity, which is all going to be
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Speaker 1: around reliability, consistency, fulfillment, confidence. What is that verified satisfaction
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Speaker 1: for a machine? And most companies today are naturally so
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Speaker 1: built for just that first one because we’re just in
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Speaker 1: the process of getting used to the second one. And
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Speaker 1: as AI handles more transactional decisions, those deeply human brands
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Speaker 1: may actually become more valuable. Humans will reserve value. intentional
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Speaker 1: decision-making for categories that are tied to ritual identity and care.
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Speaker 1: So I think weak branding is going to disappear, yes,
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Speaker 1: but that deeply human branding is going to survive and
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Speaker 1: potentially even become stronger.
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Speaker 3: I love the articulation that you just made. I’m trying
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Speaker 3: to put myself right now in the shoes of a
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Speaker 3: budding CPG entrepreneur who wants to bring in that new
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Speaker 3: brand to market that one day Nestle will go and acquire.
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Speaker 3: And so I guess when you think about modern day
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Speaker 3: brand building for the AI generation, how would you tackle
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Speaker 3: that in a world where part of the decision-making is
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Speaker 3: being outsourced to a non-human entity?
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Speaker 1: Well, I think that’s the defining commerce question of probably
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Speaker 1: the next decade, isn’t it? You’re right. I don’t think
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Speaker 1: most brand teams have maybe truly sat with that discomfort
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Speaker 1: of it yet. In a utility-driven category, And I hope
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Speaker 1: I don’t offend anyone in this sense, but bottled water
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Speaker 1: or household staples, litter, those routine replenishment, AI creates enormous
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Speaker 1: compression in that sense. And if an LLM optimizes for
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Speaker 1: value or for availability and consistency, your differentiation is going
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Speaker 1: to weaken fast. So you can have a rich heritage
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Speaker 1: campaign and still become interchangeable if you don’t somehow own,
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Speaker 1: let’s call it a structural operational advantage. And maybe we
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Speaker 1: can define this as, I don’t know, algorithmic commoditization in
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Speaker 1: a sense. And I think a lot of brands are
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Speaker 1: heading there without realizing it because we’re over-optimizing for something
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Speaker 1: we don’t know what we’re optimizing for yet. So this
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Speaker 1: is where I think some of the emotional categories behave
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Speaker 1: completely differently. Think about coffee, the example I just gave
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Speaker 1: with my grandma. It’s quite ritual. Pet care, it’s love
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Speaker 1: and responsibility. And then you have chocolate, you know, it’s
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Speaker 1: reward and celebration. And these categories are loaded with psychological meaning.
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Speaker 1: us as humans, historically, we resist fully outsourcing psychologically meaningful decisions.
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Speaker 1: Are either of you familiar with Daniel Kahneman’s work in
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Speaker 1: Thinking Fast and Slow?
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Speaker 3: Indeed.
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Speaker 1: Okay, fantastic.
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Speaker 2: So let’s not assume our listeners have. So if you
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Speaker 2: want to give a quickie.
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Speaker 1: Sure, sure, sure. So this is a psychologist. He had
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Speaker 1: a book, a fantastic study just around how our brains think.
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Speaker 1: And much of Nestle’s brand building is built this way.
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Speaker 1: And you have these system thinking. System one is fast, emotional, habitual.
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Speaker 1: And system two is this rational, deliberate, kind of more
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Speaker 1: slow way. So AI, I think, is extraordinary at that
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Speaker 1: system two optimization. But the strongest food and beverage brands
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Speaker 1: were probably built on that system one, you know, the comfort,
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Speaker 1: the nostalgia, the identity. And this actually connects to something
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Speaker 1: you were saying that Jim Leszczynski spoke about on your
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Speaker 1: previous episode around the zero moment of truth, right? And
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Speaker 1: how the internet changed the way consumers build confidence before
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Speaker 1: a purchase. And I think what AI does is take
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Speaker 1: that even one step further. And it’s not just about
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Speaker 1: the moment of truth moving online. It’s that the moment
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Speaker 1: of truth is increasingly being experienced by a system acting
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Speaker 1: on the consumer’s behalf. And the AI builds the confidence
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Speaker 1: this time. And the human just receives a recommendation. That’s
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Speaker 1: a profound shift in where brand building actually needs to happen.
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Speaker 1: And we’ve seen this pattern before. I think we spoke
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Speaker 1: about it a little bit earlier where we were saying,
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Speaker 1: you know, when these systems become super efficient, people start
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Speaker 1: to reintroduce humanity. When streaming exploded, what happened? We had
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Speaker 1: vinyl come back. fast fashion like Zara H & M
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Speaker 1: exploded and you have craftsmanship becoming somehow premium again. That
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Speaker 1: same dynamic probably going to start to play out in
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Speaker 1: commerce where some of these utility purchases get increasingly delegated
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Speaker 1: and emotional purchases become more increasingly intentional. An uncomfortable question
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Speaker 1: that every brand team should be asking right now is
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Speaker 1: if an AI removed, imagine your packaging, your shelf placement,
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Speaker 1: and even your advertising budget, would you still be chosen?
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Speaker 1: For a lot of brands, the answer is no. Damn.
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Speaker 3: I feel naked right now.
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Speaker 1: It’s quite normal to be in this space right now, right?
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Speaker 1: For a lot of brands, the answer is no. And
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Speaker 1: I think that’s the gap worth closing because in an
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Speaker 1: AI economy, those utility brands might get optimized, but emotional
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Speaker 1: brands will get even more protected.
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Speaker 2: This kind of goes back to something I wrote down
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Speaker 2: while you were speaking, this whole idea of algorithmic commoditization.
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Speaker 2: The idea of What defines a utility brand versus an
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Speaker 2: emotional brand? And I like the way you kind of
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Speaker 2: broke out the chocolate, the pet food and the coffee.
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Speaker 2: Are utility brands screwed or do they just have to
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Speaker 2: figure out how to win the algorithm? Are utility brands
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Speaker 2: screwed just because of private label and financial realities?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it touches on kind of what everyone’s preparing
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Speaker 1: for today. And it’s, you know, what are the new
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Speaker 1: Jim mentioned the five Cs of marketing. What are the
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Speaker 1: new Cs of AI? And Nestle, we’ve started to think
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Speaker 1: about this around content and context, which is well regarded
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Speaker 1: right now in the industry, and even credibility, obviously. But
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Speaker 1: what is that structured confidence that’s going to shift from
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Speaker 1: convincing a human in an emotional moment to reducing uncertainty
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Speaker 1: for an intelligence system that’s going to make a decision
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Speaker 1: on behalf of a human? Most of us, myself as well, guilty,
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Speaker 1: or the digital shelf conversations that we have today are
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Speaker 1: still centered on that visible layer. And it’s content quality, images,
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Speaker 1: search ranking, reviews, sponsored placements. What we’ve defined our careers
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Speaker 1: in the digital shelf within the last 10 years, which
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Speaker 1: are all important. But AI systems are reading that layer
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Speaker 1: deeper of confidence, right? Can this product reliably satisfy the consumer?
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Speaker 1: Does it arrive on time? Is it going to be
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Speaker 1: consistently in stock? Do people reorder it? So to answer
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Speaker 1: your question, these are the most important parts, certainly for
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Speaker 1: the utility brands, because that’s a certainly different operating model
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Speaker 1: than most brands were built for initially, but now we
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Speaker 1: need to serve. I’d be remiss to not share this example.
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Speaker 1: Two years ago, KitKat was a little bit ahead of
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Speaker 1: its time in my home market in Canada, and they
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Speaker 1: had this amazing campaign called Have AI Break. I’m not
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Speaker 1: sure if you guys saw this come out two years ago,
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Speaker 1: but It was grounded in the Google DeepMind research showing
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Speaker 1: how if you prompt an AI model with simply saying,
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Speaker 1: have a break right before you ask a question, it
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Speaker 1: actually improved the accuracy of the answer. So that’s how
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Speaker 1: one of our brands found a way to make itself
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Speaker 1: legible in an AI system, not just for humans. So
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Speaker 1: a confectionery brand embedding itself into how AI thinks. And
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Speaker 1: that was building machine equity before we even had a
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Speaker 1: vocabulary for it. most brands, even utility brands, you know,
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Speaker 1: maybe we’re not there yet. And the risk is that
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Speaker 1: if your inventory is unstable, your reviews are inconsistent and
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Speaker 1: your substitutions are poor, you know, AI systems may quietly
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Speaker 1: deprioritize you long before a human ever notices. So that’s
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Speaker 1: where I think that core function is still going to
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Speaker 1: be super, super important. But the interesting thing I think
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Speaker 1: is this is where retail media, iChain and brand strategy
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Speaker 1: probably converge in a way that the industry hasn’t really
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Speaker 1: let sink in yet. If you have operational inconsistency, it
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Speaker 1: becomes a branding problem in an AI-mediated world. So your
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Speaker 1: fulfillment rate now becomes part of your brand equity. And
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Speaker 1: the way your product performs on a Tuesday afternoon reorder
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Speaker 1: matters just as much as the campaign that launched it, right?
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Speaker 1: So the question we need to start asking ourselves isn’t,
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Speaker 1: how do we win the search result? It’s probably, are
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Speaker 1: we architected for persuasion or are we architected for confidence?
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Speaker 1: And those are two very different companies and It doesn’t
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Speaker 1: matter which segment or sector you’re in.
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Speaker 3: Stefan, I want to hear your take on emotional brands
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Speaker 3: versus utilitarian brands based on everything that you’re seeing. Do
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Speaker 3: utility brands just outright become private label?
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Speaker 1: It’s a tough one because the simplest way I could
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Speaker 1: put it is if you’re making the algorithm less confident
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Speaker 1: in your brand, you’re eventually making probably a future consumer’s
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Speaker 1: experience worse. So they’re the same thing right now. And
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Speaker 1: the algorithm is somehow the consumer’s proxy. So when a
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Speaker 1: retailer pushes for something that creates operational strain, so let’s
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Speaker 1: think about heavy promotions that we can’t consistently fulfill or
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Speaker 1: pricing mechanics that train the AI to see you as
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Speaker 1: a deal brand or a private label brand more than
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Speaker 1: a trusted staple, the short-term win becomes a long-term signal problem.
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Speaker 1: And that damage today is invisible because there’s no bad
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Speaker 1: review or no loss placement that you can point to
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Speaker 1: to say that. So the algorithm just quietly starts recommending
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Speaker 1: you less and you don’t know why. And that’s probably
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Speaker 1: the conflict that matters more than whether or not, you know,
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Speaker 1: where these private label brands will end up. So it’s
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Speaker 1: not the brand versus the retailer. It’s probably your short-term
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Speaker 1: visibility versus your long-term algorithmic trust. Practically, the way to
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Speaker 1: try to resolve it is maybe by separating the two things.
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Speaker 1: So you let machines own the routine replenishment and protect
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Speaker 1: emotional moments for humans. the repeat Purina order, that we
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Speaker 1: have to optimize for relentlessly, for efficiency, for confidence. However,
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Speaker 1: the moment a new pet parent is choosing a brand
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Speaker 1: for the first time, that needs to be the human experience.
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Speaker 1: And that storytelling, emotion, and trust building, we can’t let
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Speaker 1: the algorithm flatten that. And that’s why we need to
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Speaker 1: save ourselves from driving ourselves to the bottom or over-indexing
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Speaker 1: on private label. And the only way that I think
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Speaker 1: maybe that actually works for in a company is if
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Speaker 1: a brand, commerce, retail, media, supply chain were all genuinely aligned, right?
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Speaker 1: And I think you guys have spoken many times on
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Speaker 1: your show before about the silo tax that companies pay
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Speaker 1: when teams aren’t connected. I honestly think that in an
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Speaker 1: AI world, the tax gets dramatically more expensive because any
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Speaker 1: of these operational failures anywhere in the chain become a
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Speaker 1: brand signal almost immediately.
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Speaker 2: So with that in mind, I think about the conversations
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Speaker 2: you and I had five years ago. I think about
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Speaker 2: the conversations you and I had two years ago. And
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Speaker 2: listening to the conversation we’re having today, I don’t think
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Speaker 2: we would have recognized ourselves two years ago if we
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Speaker 2: were listening to this recording. How do you think your
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Speaker 2: role has changed just in light of so much of
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Speaker 2: the change that has happened and given all of the
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Speaker 2: really just profound thoughts that you’ve been sharing? Like, what
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Speaker 2: have you stopped doing? Because you can’t do more without
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Speaker 2: taking something away. So what have you stopped doing and
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Speaker 2: what have you started doing?
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Speaker 1: It’s actually elevated along a lot of the same challenges
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Speaker 1: or observations that we had over the last five years.
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Speaker 1: So somehow it’s the same problem reshaped differently or said differently.
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Speaker 1: And I’ll use content as an example. When we were
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Speaker 1: talking about content five years ago, we had this strain
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Speaker 1: on how are we going to develop many different variations
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Speaker 1: of content for all of the different retailers that we had.
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Speaker 1: Then we had a strain of how are we going
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Speaker 1: to publish and syndicate all of that content to all
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Speaker 1: of the different retailers that we have. Today, we’re talking
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Speaker 1: about the same thing. We know we need more content.
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Speaker 1: We know we need our content that’s contextual, but we
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Speaker 1: need to find out exactly now what are all those
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Speaker 1: prompts and what are all those questions? What are all
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Speaker 1: the things that our shoppers are truly going to care
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Speaker 1: to make sure that our brands resurface? So Our teams
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Speaker 1: are in the same conversations with the same stakeholders, but
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Speaker 1: now we have, I think, more of a push behind us,
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Speaker 1: more of a demand or the burning platform to say, okay,
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Speaker 1: if we were trying to make copy variations every quarter
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Speaker 1: based on seasonality for some of our products, well, now
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Speaker 1: we know that recency of 60 days is more important
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Speaker 1: for some LLM models. This is driving further conversation of
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Speaker 1: how do we start to shrink that process, ways of working,
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Speaker 1: of delivery. And how do we ensure that we have
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Speaker 1: the right inputs into making it the right content? So
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Speaker 1: it’s quite fascinating because the same conversation are resurfacing from
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Speaker 1: that we’ve had over the last five to 10 years,
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Speaker 1: but in a very different format and a different shape,
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Speaker 1: but with a lot more, I would say endorsement to
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Speaker 1: move forward.
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Speaker 3: Talk about someone to be able to help you with
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Speaker 3: persuasion internally. You got your new colleague, the LLM. Stavon,
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Speaker 3: it’s really been such a pleasure to hear your take
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Speaker 3: on how to build modern day brands in this ecosystem.
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Speaker 3: But we got to ask you our famous last question,
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Speaker 3: which is what’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?
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Speaker 1: I thought about this a lot. The bravest thing I’ve
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Speaker 1: ever done is I ran my first marathon with only
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Speaker 1: 72 hour notice. So this is either a story about
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Speaker 1: bravery or terrible decision-making. So I’ll let you two decide.
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Speaker 1: Last year, I was training for my second half marathon
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Speaker 1: and the keyword there is half. And I was heading
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Speaker 1: to Buenos Aires for a digital shelf workshop with our
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Speaker 1: team in Argentina. And on the final prep call, somebody
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Speaker 1: mentioned to me, you know, be aware the city is
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Speaker 1: going to shut down this Sunday for the marathon. And
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Speaker 1: I made a joke somewhere along the lines of, oh,
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Speaker 1: you know, I do my long runs on Sunday. Maybe
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Speaker 1: I’ll join it for a few kilometers. And there was
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Speaker 1: a pause on the call, and one of my Argentine
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Speaker 1: colleagues said, completely deadpan, if you’re serious, I know someone
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Speaker 1: at the marathon organization, and I can get you a bib.
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Speaker 1: And instead of laughing it off like a normal person,
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Speaker 1: I said yes. So fast forward to an 18-hour flight.
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Speaker 1: I had on the plane, I’m not sure if you’re
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Speaker 1: familiar with Haruki Murakami. There’s a book, a memoir he
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Speaker 1: wrote that’s called What I Talk About When I Talk
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Speaker 1: About Running. And his memoir is about marathons and writing.
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Speaker 1: And the through line through it all is that finishing
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Speaker 1: isn’t physical preparation. It’s about mental commitment and that willingness
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Speaker 1: to endure. And I read the whole thing and thought,
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Speaker 1: all right, my body’s not ready for this, but maybe
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Speaker 1: I can make my mind to be. I landed Saturday morning,
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Speaker 1: jet lagged. I got a text from my calling saying,
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Speaker 1: I got your bib, but you need to get a
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Speaker 1: medical clearance for the race. That’s mandatory. I used ChatGPT
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Speaker 1: to find a clinic open on a Saturday morning in
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Speaker 1: Buenos Aires to get medical clearance to race. Picked up
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Speaker 1: my bib and loaded up on some choripan and empanadas
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Speaker 1: for carb loading and went to sleep hoping for the best. Sunday,
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Speaker 1: I woke up and I did it. I ran my
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Speaker 1: first full marathon through the streets of Buenos Aires and
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Speaker 1: it was extraordinary. The city, the energy, the people. It’s
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Speaker 1: the most alive I think I’ve ever felt. However, the
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Speaker 1: most brave thing I would say is the Monday morning,
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Speaker 1: still barely walking I had to stand in front of
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Speaker 1: 50 of my colleagues and run a full day digital
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Speaker 1: shop workshop. So that was definitely great.
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Speaker 3: What was your time?
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Speaker 1: Just under five hours. I mean, I had to do
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Speaker 1: a little bit of running and walking to mix it
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Speaker 1: in there, but well worth the experience.
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Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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Speaker 3: And no injuries?
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Speaker 1: No injuries. No, no, no. It was low expectations. So
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Speaker 1: then you kind of just go and have fun, but
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Speaker 1: it fueled the fire for some future marathons for sure.
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Speaker 3: Well, If you have the mental fortitude to run a
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Speaker 3: marathon with no preparation, AI’s got nothing on you.
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Speaker 1: We’ll see. We’ll see.
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Speaker 3: Stefan, thank you for all your insights. We’ll probably call
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Speaker 3: you back six months from now and see where the
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Speaker 3: world has landed.
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Speaker 1: I’m sure it’ll all look different. Thank you.
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Speaker 3: If you like what you heard, you can go check
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Speaker 3: out a few other episodes we’ve done with Nestle executives.
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Speaker 3: Definitely go check out our friend Neil for his global perspective.
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Speaker 3: Please check out a recent episode we did with Jim,
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Speaker 3: a professor at Northwestern who talks about that zero moment
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Speaker 3: of truth. If you like what you heard, write a review.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
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Speaker 4: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman
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Speaker 4: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast
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Speaker 4: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me
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Speaker 4: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As
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Speaker 4: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and
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Speaker 4: inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,
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Speaker 4: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience
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Speaker 4: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that
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Speaker 4: will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is
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Speaker 4: available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out
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Speaker 4: every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.