Infinite Shelf - An Omnichannel Podcast by Future Commerce

From discussions on leadership, brand strategy, pop culture moments, and unique takes on how it’s all intertwined, Ingrid and Orchid brought a meaningful and fun season together. In this last episode of the season, Phillip and Brian join Ingrid to share their favorite moments and what made Season 3 so insightful. 

Comrades in the Trenches

• {00:07:55} “Season 3 with Orchid came together in this way where we started talking about how everything is intertwined and everything is intermingled like subcultures and cultures and how commerce creates that, sustains that, kills that, like that whole life cycle. That is truly the core of retail planning, marketing, building a brand, and all of the things that we hope and wish to do through the analysis and the media and all the things that we're trying to learn.” - Ingrid
• {00:11:32} “Hearing your perspective on what not to do in an integration or what to buckle up for in an integration, I was able to bring my own perspective to it too. It's like, what are the four things that can ruin an integration with your brand? It felt very informative without being structured in a, "Okay, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to give you a structure broken down and analyze this for you," which is something I'd never listened to, but instead it was people relating their actual life experience.” - Phillip
• {00:13:26} “You nailed it that fans have more power and more influence than ever before and those that ignore them are missing out on the largest opportunity that there is right now.” - Brian
• {00:24:28} “The whole idea is that the show talks about not just what we've been primarily focused on, which is consumers and brands and how do you grow and evolve and turn fans into customers. And all of that stuff is super relevant and I love talking about it, but that's 50% of what we talk about. The other 50% is how do we on the inside of organizations, how do we become good leaders.” - Ingrid
• {00:32:19} “A brand is not design and it's not a logo and it's not fonts and colors. A brand is something that has endured and stood the test of time, and that means many market cycles and that means longevity. And it's something that has, despite all the odds, somehow found a way to persist. I don't think you can do that without profitability.” - Phillip
• {00:46:36} “I'm the audience for this kind of conversational in the trenches, new insights, reframing things, highlighting things in a way that maybe I hadn't thought of myself. That is what I think I'm the most proud of with Season 3, all of our seasons, but particularly with this season, having weaved that in has been really great.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Ingrid and Orchid sit down to dish out their hot takes on what is happening in the news. Does Threads have what it takes to survive? Did Instant Pot “sh*t the bed” when it came to customer retention and repeat sales? Did Vanmoof invest too much money into a niche market? Tune in to find out.

Battle for Attention

• {00:11:32} “Whether or not Threads is going to be a place where legitimate discourse happens, based on pieces written by career journalists, or if it's just going to be an echo chamber all over again of people who have limited experience but tend to amplify each other, that's still to be seen.” - Orchid
• {00:18:18} “You have to have an interesting relationship with the platform itself so that if users use it for something that is entirely different from what you intended or maybe envisioned for yourself, you have to be okay with that.” - Orchid
• {00:20:27} “When you think about the cult of personality or when you think about innovation, most of the time folks lean into, "Oh, this thing has never existed before and now it exists." And if you look at the entire model in China, it is to copy and improve and optimize. And that is a type of innovation as well, which is to take one idea and apply it into another vertical or another industry, or to launch something that's a better version of X.” - Orchid
• {00:24:58} “I really like the idea of the people who make that neighborhood Twitter what it is, if they're not treated with respect and understood that there's going to be another alternative that will allow them to have the platform that they want that they use.” - Ingrid
• {00:40:58} “Instapot had this ability to be this cult product and lead this whole band of fans that they earned and they just didn't. And that to me is like, sorry, but whoever's like running marketing or community management there, you shit the bed.” - Ingrid
• {00:41:42} “The takeaway is do not ignore your fans. Ignite that flame. Facilitate the conversations. They're going to buy the new version. They're going to buy the air fryer. They're going to buy all the other stuff if you're facilitating the larger conversation.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Is it possible for a brand to actually change consumer perception? Are you thinking about your values before you hit the order button? Do influencers affect your purchasing habits? Erika Dyer, Producer at Future Commerce and Infinite Shelf, joins Ingrid and Orchid to offer a Gen Z perspective on what’s working and…what’s really not. 

A Little Sus

• {00:16:03} “We think about this all the time. Which age group influencer is the individual that we're trying to connect with whatever type of audience it is? We as marketers, maybe our egos get a little bit in the way of just allowing the consumers to make those determinations for themselves.” - Ingrid
• {00:18:29} “There is no perfect answer because the category in which you operate, I think the nascency of your brand as well, all of that will actually shape the type of influencers or people you want to hear from when it comes to whatever that product is or recommending that product.” - Orchid
• {00:21:16} “I think two things can be true at the same time. But I agree. What you're pointing out is that there is this inconsistency between language and actions.” - Orchid
• {00:23:27} “I don't necessarily think anything she's doing is groundbreaking. People just like to see a pretty girl on their feed and they're like, "Everything she touches is so pretty." She's rich. That's a lot of rich girls, and she knows how to act in front of a camera. And I think she's our reality star, but instead of seeing her on a big screen, we're seeing her every single day on our phones.” - Erika
• {00:35:27} “It's really, really difficult, in my view, to change a consumer perception of a brand, and a lot of brands I think have attempted to do it and spent absurd amounts of money and didn't probably get what they were expecting to get out of those investments. But there are some brands that are doing that.” - Ingrid
• {00:39:21} “That's another new marketing thing where it doesn't have to be that people are just buying the actual product, but they're literally marketing it for you. They're showing how aspirational your product is. They're telling that story on your behalf. It's gold.” - Ingrid
• {00:45:18} “I think Succession sort of debunked a lot of what the general public would have assumed a really, really wealthy family would dress like. They're not wearing the Chanel-branded sunglasses with the big CC on them.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Nothing is better than a great leader, but also nothing is worse than a poor leader. It takes humility and kindness to lead well, and a great leader must learn the importance of putting ego and insecurities aside for the greater good. Enter the million-dollar question: Are great leaders born to lead or can they be taught and rise to the occasion?

“Help Me Help You”

• {00:05:15} “How I think about leadership is that you can be a leader no matter your role or your rank or whatever it is. There are leadership qualities and then there are titles that indicate you're a leader of the company.” - Orchid
• {00:07:40} “There are leaders who only do things to further their own ego or further their own career. And then there are leaders who genuinely believe that you can only succeed if you work as a team.” - Orchid
• {00:10:20} “I have had a handful of leaders who were so insecure. I think, in hindsight, that's what it was. The ego thing is the surface level, so it comes across as ego, but really upon further reflection, it's insecurity at the foundation.” - Ingrid
• {00:12:13} “Leadership acknowledges the power that is within the leader who knows how to lead more people toward a better outcome.” - Ingrid
• {00:18:24} “You're not sitting there trying to draw blood from a stone. You are there to mold someone already somewhat capable but who maybe needs guidance and coaching and feedback.” - Ingrid
• {00:20:21} “What I learned was, "Oh, it's actually not about what I need. It's actually about what you need. It's about what you need to be able to do your best to support the team. And it is my job to get you what you need.’" - Orchid
• {00:33:36} “Everybody wants to be the people manager for the Dream Direct report, the person who anticipates your moves, who is so smart, so motivated, does all the things. But the reality is that that's not most people I know. And even those people that I just described, you need to help them with all these things that they're carrying.” - Orchid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

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Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Get ready for an epic showdown as Ingrid and Orchid step into the ring to explore the ultimate cage match between profitability and growth! It's a no-holds-barred battle. Can both profitability and growth survive this ruthless brawl, or will one be forced to tap out? 

Brace yourself for bone-crushing trade-offs and discover the true costs of mismatched contenders. This year, every move is under the spotlight; so tune in for the fight of a lifetime!

One Leg At A Time

• {00:05:36} “Profitability is like a pant leg and then growth is like the other pant leg… In order to have one, you have to pull one leg up and kind of scrunch it and pull it a little bit and then switch to the other leg and pull it up a little bit. You can’t put both legs in and jump up and pull up the pants at the same time.” - Orchid
• {00:08:36} “It was just this very rinse and repeat playbook mixed with a really low acquisition rate that really did set a lot of these companies up for success that maybe in a different environment with different circumstances wouldn't have been accomplishable, but that doesn't mean that now that things aren't wildly easy, that the business model itself doesn't make sense.” - Ingrid
• {00:11:53} “When you make that pivot from a growth to a profitability play, now you're kind of doing a wild swing of the pendulum. How you operate in that environment is also extremely, extremely different.” - Orchid
• {00:14:33} “When you're in great weather, you're going to speed it up. When you're getting to a stormy place and some macro things happen or you need to buckle up for something, you make those adjustments while you're in flight and that is real leadership. And that's the piece that we don't always look at with such a holistic lens. At every level we tend to be really, really time-bound.” - Ingrid
• {00:24:31} “When there's a huge change in media and where people are spending their time and all of that, that's going to change marketing and how we connect to the people and get the eyeballs and the attention and the specific audiences that we want. And so the two places today that I feel are "the safest place" still are actual, really, really, really good creator and influencer marketing. And the channel in which that is the least expensive today is TikTok and potentially even still YouTube.” - Ingrid
• {00:28:17} “If you are not ever in growth mode and you're always in profitability mode, that is limiting. You're never going to be able to expand outside because you're always going to be looking at things that give you a 4X ROAS or a 7X ROAS or even a 2.5X ROAS because you're playing in a really safe, shallow pool and that's okay but know what the consequences of that are.” - Ingrid
• {00:31:33} “There's a reason why marketers have cared about engagement because it signifies that you're doing something right and you just need to do more of it to that same group in different ways.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Let’s be honest, we ALL have “internal hurdles” in our work life. Whether CEO or intern, problem-solving and effective communication can be a challenge. How can we overcome these issues…besides a weekly therapy session? Enter in: The Work Love Languages. We all know “The 5 Love Languages” to better understand your relationship and partner, but have you considered learning your work love language to understand yourself and your coworkers? Listen in as Ingrid and Orchid explore their work love language and “business astrology” results to glean insight into what they prefer in the workplace. Next, ask yourself…what’s my work love language?

Close the Loop

• {00:08:27} “How are we building {our “work love language”} into the way that we work with our teams and inform people above us, below us, and across the aisle? How do we make more of that now that we've identified that we need that?” - Ingrid
• {00:12:35} “Beyond seeing immediately what's in front of you, anticipate what are some other things that are going to happen or try to put yourself in the receiver's shoes and say, "Okay, if I were in their position…’" - Orchid
• {00:14:26} “As you go up, and whether you're the most junior person or the most senior person, I think it is always really beneficial to think about things more holistically. And I think that a quality that that really requires in a human being is empathy.” - Ingrid
• {00:19:03} “Based on my previous experiences and interactions with this person, what kind of decision are they trying to make and what kind of information can I provide them to best inform that decision?” - Orchid
• {00:22:52} “We're at this place where we need to create an environment organizationally, and we are now in the place of leadership that we can do that. And our generation is at that place of leadership that we can do that that I think will stop some of these previous stoic, unemotional, perfectionist, egotistical ways of working that I really do think is at the core of a lot of our hurdles.” - Ingrid
• {00:23:57} “A huge hurdle in the workplace today is about building relationships, is about properly communicating, and showing up prepared.” - Orchid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

It’s Ask Me Anything Day here on the Pod and Orchid and Ingrid drop some great advice in today’s episode. Could Toys R Us have survived if they adapted? Is the Age of the Influencer coming to an end? Tune in to hear your questions answered and check out our Instagram @_infiniteshelf for a post-episode treat!

Get Your Sh*t Together

• {00:02:16} “A significant trend is that retailers know they have to rethink the in-store experience, but they're not quite sure how to do it. A prime example of a fail in this is Toys R Us.” - Orchid
• {00:09:32} “This is the modern iteration of what {a lifestyle brand} is: merging the in-store experience, using the retail, having online, having all of those things.” - Ingrid
• {00:12:29} “The new trend in maximizing your square footage is the services and the experience and the reason to go somewhere physically, which actually means quite the opposite of pack more sh*t in there. It actually means really, really curate things because people are completely overwhelmed with choice anyway.” - Ingrid
• {00:18:03} “I'm convinced that if you're brought into a Target and it's a pleasant experience with a Starbucks that you can get free refills on, you're going to spend more time there and increase that single transaction over going into a crowded Macy's where you can't find anything, you feel overwhelmed and then you just turn around and head out again.” - Orchid
• {00:22:10} “There is a healthy balance of a strong work ethic and knowing that you can succeed at something without putting so much pressure on yourself that you burn yourself out.” - Orchid
• {00:23:27} “There are seasons of your work life in the same way that there are seasons in every other aspect of your life.” - Ingrid
• {00:30:00} “The age of the influencer won’t end, but brands do need to activate more thoughtfully and stop spraying and praying with influencers the way that they once did with buying TV.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

There comes a time when every DTC company hits the pause button and asks, “What’s next?” Cue the Patrick Bateman and Kendall Roy mergers and acquisitions quotes. If acquisition does end up being an option, when you cede power as a founder, will you be happy with what the new parent company decides to do? Will your legacy live on?

Secret Sauce

• {00:11:11} “When we're talking about multinational corporations or larger corporations, usually you got to make sure that you've got a healthy business that you can just put your resources against in order to grow.” - Orchid
• {00:16:28} “There's a reason why acquisitions don't have the most fantastic reputation for succeeding post-acquisition. A lot of that is because too much emphasis is put on the acquirer to solve those problems after the fact. My advice is to have the founder or have the people who are running that DTC business think about what is that secret sauce of the company.” - Ingrid
• {00:17:53} “If you're a founder and you're selling, what you also have to be emotionally ready for is if the parent company starts to make strategic decisions about how to use the brand that you wouldn't necessarily agree with because it's not yours anymore. Post-acquisition is not yours anymore. That's why they paid you the money.” - Orchid
• {00:25:44} “With growth comes mass, more mass opportunities. You have to be more approachable, you have to be more accessible, unless you are a true luxury good.” - Orchid
• {00:32:03} “The people that you hire to help you be acquired, is another huge, important decision. They have to know your business and see the vision and see the purpose and be your champion just as much as the founders.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Have you ever seen an influencer trying to be relatable with their 20 step morning routine and just…immediately unfollowed? Welcome to the club! Join Ingrid and Orchid today as they talk fake relatability, aspirations, and understanding what your brand is fundamentally. Plus, stick around for an exclusive sneak peek into Orchid’s Tiktok for you page results!

Kudos Venn Diagram

• {00:09:56} “I think of all social media platforms as different neighborhoods, and knowing the neighborhood that you're in and knowing how to navigate it and who's there and what to expect is an important way to think about, as a brand, how you want to show up to your consumers.” - Ingrid
• {00:14:05} What if TikTok could have different pillars for you based on your mood for that session, or does it already get you into different moods just by nature of the algorithm? 
• {00:19:01} “I have found that TikToks where someone is actually giving a verbatim or like taking you through the product and how you use it, that's been a huge purchase intent driver for me personally.” - Orchid
• {00:22:18} “The idea of makeup and how we use it, culturally, has shifted as well. Makeup used to be about covering things. You wanted to look flawless because you wanted to cover certain "flaws" that you had. Whereas I do think that there's been a shift in the beauty conversation about a celebration of creativity.” - Orchid
• {00:25:50} “{The} definition of what's cool and what looks good and what feels good and is trendy has expanded infinitely, which is more of a result of the people who are creating input into the new generation and hopefully expanding out more in the diversity of thought and experience.” - Ingrid
• {00:28:22} “Going to market in the modern ecosystem, it's not rules, it's tools. So here are the boundaries, here are the guidelines to a certain extent, but then be you and turn that into your own content. That is the biggest differentiator between people who ran brands 20 years ago and people who will run modern brands.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

With so many recent changes in media, it’s important to remember that media does indeed change, but it doesn’t ever go away. Who is going to rule the new class of media, of brand development, of DTC? What is DTC today and how are we approaching it and what do we keep from the DTC heyday into its new evolution of growth? Listen now and join the discussion!

Tirade Against the Funnel

• {00:05:12} “There's a lot of user behavior that was adopted during COVID that was extremely digitally centric and digitally dominant, where the pendulum is swinging back a little bit. There are so many companies that you see out there that just hired wildly during COVID or scaled up, so I think there's a part of this that is a market contraction.” - Orchid
• {00:13:13} “There's going to be an aging out of how old media is consumed and how we look at journalism and how we look at journalism now. But with our generation and the generation even younger, even more so, it's so incredibly factioned off. It's very niche.” - Ingrid
• {00:17:09} “The fundamental way that marketers have been trained for decades is so broken now because there's just no way that you can get that level of awareness to then start to reduce down to the relevance of messages and audiences in order to make, finally, your way down to the conversion where you actually make money.” - Ingrid
• {00:26:28} “Ingrid: If you're fundamentally changing your go-to-market strategy, you have to document and organize the spaghetti that you're throwing at the wall so that when things stick, you know what, why, and where, and then you can replicate.” - Ingrid
• {00:28:17} “In order to make your media more efficient, you got to have better creative. If you have the right creative, the machine will make it more efficient.” - Orchid
• {00:34:38} “The question is how much novelty does your brand need to chase? Or is it just by nature of being on the platform with an interesting enough piece of creative that doesn't challenge the wackadoo creative or creators head-on but doesn't distract from it either?” - Orchid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

There have been many noticeable changes in the workplace over the past few years. How does your brand authentically align with your values? How do you build that in a way that is authentic and meaningful while still being professionals? How do you use how you show up to work and the norms of that as a way to create less distraction from the meaningful work that's done, but not in a way that is gatekeeping access to everyone? Listen now and join the discussion!

The Art of Simplification

• {00:02:22} “There's a lot of conversation out there about artificial intelligence and what it's going to replace and what it's not. And the reality is that marketing is human-centric. Marketing is empathy. And so I think there are a lot of things about marketing strategy that will never be replaced.” - Orchid
• {00:09:09} “We were able to fail in a very private or limited way in which this generation cannot because everything is public. Think about how many parents created a special hashtag for their kid or created social media accounts for their kid. And so this failure becomes permanent because everything on the Internet lives forever.” - Orchid
• {00:20:16} “There is a lot of nuance that is lost in this really valuable and lived advice that we are giving to the next generation.” - Orchid
• {00:22:54} “If we work together, we can build this beautiful environment where, yes, we have boundaries, but we are also committed to doing the work until it's done because we take pride in our work as well.” - Orchid
• {00:24:30} “As now rising leaders within our organization, we have the power and are gaining more and more power to influence the cultures around us to find that balance between hustle culture and not having work define who you are. “ - Ingrid
• {00:28:18} “The workplace has changed fundamentally the same way that the retail environment has changed fundamentally due to eCommerce coming out, social media coming out, and COVID happening.” - Ingrid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Welcome to Season 3! Infinite Shelf is back and Orchid Bertelsen, Chief Operating Officer at Common Thread Collective, is joining Ingrid as co-host this season, and there is much to discuss this season. What do we do with DTC next? What is that balance between making it feel like you have a dialog with your consumers and you're connected to your consumers, but ultimately, as the brand, being the expert and the one making the curated decisions? How do we go forward from here? Listen now!

Not Your Mom’s Private Label

• {00:08:22} “There is no DTC without social media, and there would never have been. They complement each other. They enable each other to exist.” - Ingrid
• {00:012:06} “The combination of social media and DTC really inherently sparked the change in power dynamics between brand and consumer.” - Orchid
• {00:019:21} “One of the biggest threats to DTC is private label.” - Orchid
• {00:023:10} “In terms of power dynamics in this new world where we don't have this laser focus on DTC, DTC does not equal eCommerce. DTC is a subset of that.” - Orchid
• {00:025:08} “DTC graduated to not just being a sales channel, but being a brand ethos or a marketing strategy. And I'll be the first person to admit how important that is while at the same time, out of the other end of my mouth, I'm going to say not every brand needs to touch your heart.” - Ingrid
• {00:029:42} “The people that are going to have these more successful businesses, omnichannel going forward, are the ones that just are constantly innovating. They're making their in-store experience better. They're making their online presence better. They're improving their products. And I think that's a beautiful thing.” - Ingrid
• {00:031:30} “The tide has receded. What you're seeing now is that the strongest, most holistic thinking brands will win when they view every channel as a lever that they can pull. The smartest business people who balance business and experience will win.” - Orchid

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram
• Want to hear more? Check out past episodes here
• Love your new co-host? Check her out on LinkedIn
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Looking back over the scope of Season 2 of Infinite Shelf, starting with some real problem-solving situations with great guests who shared willingly about their experiences and moving into the second part of the season about how we connect as humans and how that relates to the brand, Philip and Brian from Future Commerce join Ingrid to recap Season 2 and offer a sneak peek into what is ahead in Season 3. Listen now!

Stay Curious

• {00:05:45} “There's a lot of existentialism in the purpose. What is my purpose? Why do I exist? And I think the greatest of leaders and the brands that endure have to go through that.” - Phillip
• {00:012:46} “Some of the best brands are the brands that are run by people who are the consumers of the brand or are solving the problem that they themselves ran into and are now realizing how many more millions of people have that same problem that needed to be solved.” - Ingrid
• {00:024:17} “The world is constantly changing and there are going to be things that are introduced that are going to necessitate me changing along with them. And I always want to be on the side of adapting to those things or trying them out and being open to them.” - Ingrid
• {00:028:11} “Some people are tearing down other people's channels so that they can prop up their own because they don't like change. And that traditional retail mindset has been afraid of digital transformation for the longest time.” - Phillip
• {00:032:53} “I'm going to hire the person who got really into the metaverse, not because they got it right or wrong, but because I now know how their mind adapts to new information and how growth-oriented their mindset is.” - Ingrid
• {00:040:47} Season 3 will be a deep dive into the DTC industry, what’s changing, what the landscape looks like now, and whether or not it matter anymore. You won’t want to miss it!

Associated Links: 

• Follow Infinite Shelf on Instagram!
• Learn more about Ingrid Milman Cordy
• Check out other Future Commerce podcasts

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Why is it that memories of your grandma’s cereal offerings can be such a powerful and nostalgic memory? Ingrid and Kiri talk about the power of memory when it comes to content and commerce and how this element of our human experience can be such a beautiful way for brands to build a legacy that lasts to future generations. 

Beautiful Nostalgia

• There has been a big flight back to legacy brands and national brands that has escalated during times of uncertainty and turmoil, for that sense of comfort and security
• In a world of so many copycat brands that have saturated a market that used to be full of only legacy brands that were familiar and comfortable, no one wants to think too hard about what cereal they are going to buy
• It’s been hard to watch new luxury brands have the same longevity as heritage brands because memory and nostalgia compel consumers to go back to the old luxury brands again and again
• This memory concept is our brain's receptacle of the past, the means of passing our life stories to the next generation for continuity
• Food, for example, is so connected to our memories and remains a part of our lives in many meaningful ways
• If you work for a brand or have some influence with a brand that has a little bit of legacy, I think it can be a really, really powerful thing to tap into
• A lot of small brands that have successfully solved problems in their niche, but relatively few get to that level of scale
• Even if the product is wildly better than the brand there is much power and resilience that a brand allows you to have that is so much more powerful than just being a product

Associated Links:

• Check out our other episodes of Infinite Shelf
• Get ready for Archetypes, our soon to be published 240-page journal! Check it out at ArchetypesJournal.com
• Get your tickets to our Archetypes Event December 1 in Miami, FL
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more of what we are witnessing in the commerce world! 
• Download VISIONS 2022 NOW! 

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

There has never been a time like now where customers expect such a relationship and purpose from brands. How are brands to think about this and handle this well while staying true to who they are? And how many consumers are actually driven to purpose-focused brands?

Like a Downton Abbey Valet

• We each have a reason and a purpose we are striving for, and it’s part of what drives us as humans
• Purpose should be high priority for brands, and that includes their purpose in the world and consumers and also their purpose internally 
• After being in the beauty and fashion industries for so long where building connections and relationships with customers is so vital, Ingrid finds that her experience there adds to her work now in the health and wellness space
• Even though a lot of people understand that unsustainable practices aren’t good for the planet, do they also feel badly enough to make a change in behavior to do something about it?
• Companies like PepsiCo have changed their messaging to relate to the more prevalent conversation of health and wellness in the marketplace and also have added healthier products to their offering
• Having a sense of understanding that what you’re doing matters, that your company matters, that your manager/leaders care about you, and that you are making an impact, is very important in getting the most of our a person in a workplace
• Every level in a company needs to be treated as just as important to the purpose as any other level
• “Everyone wants to matter. Everyone wants to have a job to do and contribute to something.” - Kiri

Associated Links:

• Check out our other episodes of Infinite Shelf
• Get ready for Archetypes, our soon to be published 240-page journal! Check it out at ArchetypesJournal.com
• Get your tickets to our Archetypes Event December 1 in Miami, FL
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more of what we are witnessing in the commerce world! 
• Download VISIONS 2022 NOW! 

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Continuing on our journey through the ten key human experiences that make us who we are and how that relates to content and commerce and brands that we are a part of and that we love to consume, today's episode is all about the human characteristic of curiosity. How can curiosity be understood and better used within the world of content and commerce?

Surprise and Delight

• We are inquisitive creatures, and there is a powerful connection between our curiosity and commerce
• Free gifts with purchase is a brilliant way drive curiosity and it is a seriously underutilized tool these days
• Estée Lauder is credited with this brilliant idea of gift with purchase that would become an element of surprise and delight moving the experience from a transactional mentality to a relationship mentality
• At the end of the day, McDonald’s sells food, but with the Happy Meal toy, they’ve introduced whimsy and fun into the experience
• “Because we've become concerned about margins and concerned about profitability, we've forgotten all of these other levers that we have that inspire connectivity and loyalty and human connection to our brands.” - Ingrid
• People too often get caught up in advocating for always and only pursuing either growth or profitability but it’s actually more of a pendulum
• Amazon & Apple have been free to innovate because they’re playing the long game and have communicated where they are on the growth cycle
• eCommerce professionals are in a very fast-paced environment that requires curiosity and not everything in our industry is a hit
• Having a Test and Learn budget, a known vs unknown framework, in your strategy is helpful in keeping you from getting stuck in what you’ve always done and also holding you back from investing too much in something that may not work out

Associated Links:

• Check out our other episodes of Infinite Shelf
• Get ready for Archetypes, our soon to be published 240-page journal! Check it out at ArchetypesJournal.com
• Get your tickets to our Archetypes Event December 1 in Miami, FL
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more of what we are witnessing in the commerce world! 
• Download VISIONS 2022 NOW! 

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Although the audience may change, storytelling is a human trait that is underestimated and very powerful for brands. BUT, how does a brand stay within the proper boundaries of who they are and who their audience is without overstepping into cringe-ville?

How Much is Too Much?

• The need for creativity and storytelling has exploded in the last few years and has shifted from idealism to realism
• We still need a brand team to work on vision and cohesiveness but we’re adding on every day content creators to put a more accessible spin on stories
• Consumers have gotten a lot more savvy and desire creators who can connect to their circumstances and lifestyle
• What does Gen Alpha want to be when they grow up? Influencers and content creators. This is reminiscent of kids wanting to be actors except content creation as a profession is a lot more accessible.
• In our consumption culture (or late-stage capitalism), the job of being the one to sell things is glorified and influencer culture breeds an unapologetic nature of identifying themselves as a brand or lifestyle
• How much intimacy is too much intimacy? Peloton got into trouble for getting too intimate with their customers and overreaching on how they should interact with their customers
• The human trait of storytelling is underestimated and very powerful across all platforms and within each role in any organization 
• “Who are you and who is your audience is going to really drive what kind of stories to tell and how to tell them.” - Kiri
• “Determine the boundaries for yourself and for your company and for your brands about how much creativity and storytelling and dialog is enough for your brand to remain relevant, feel connected, but not have to overstep that boundary.” - Ingrid

Associated Links:

• Check out our previous episode, Community Building & Belonging
• FC podcast - The Algorithm Made Him Do It: Vibes Over Data
• Peloton ad - A Peloton Ad Sparked Huge Controversy…
• ViralPostGenerator.com
• Broetry

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

We are social beings who need community and long to create meaning through the relationships in our life. How do we interact with brands, consumers, and the products surrounding us to really engage with each other? Listen as Kiri and Ingrid dive into the human need for community and belonging.

“IYKYK”

• We use brands and social signals as a way to make decisions about what we’re going to do with/put in our bodies
• Minecraft is a platform that has generated a community and has become not just a game, but actually an identity and an activity in which families are involved and together in it
• Glossier was brilliant in creating a gated Slack channel for top 100 fans which helped them build community and also have access to valuable market research
• “When you think about these if-you-know-you-know business models, luxury has created that, but the Internet has created that if-you-know-you-know for everyone. It's democratized these niche, little communities.” - Ingrid
• You go to amazon for specific things, not for inspiration, and it serves a specific purpose
• There's some weirdness where we are social beings and we want to be in a social community, we’ve shifted from one person in a clan to Kim K with millions of followers
• “One of the challenges that we have in our digitally-connected community is that it is our community. This is where we go for belonging. But there are not always the best or clearest intentions among all the people in the community.” - Kiri
• There is a way for brands to handle reviews in a really transparent way that still drives more review volume and a feeling of community without being shady
• “There's always going to be a need and a place and a way to differentiate yourself as a brand by understanding the fundamental human need for community and belonging.” - Ingrid

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

This is the second part of a 2-part conversation! If you haven't had a chance to listen to part 1 yet, head over to Infinite Shelf Season 2 Episode 5. 

What is Infinite Shelf? It represents the humans on one side of the shelf that’s being stocked and prepared and the humans on the other side that are buying and participating. Where has Ingrid been over these past few months? Listen in as she shares and introduces her new co-host, Kiri Masters.

Creating Space

• There is a human-centric shelf. There is a long dinner table. Human emotion, connection, curiosity, and our need for human connection are important matters
• We need to start normalizing human things in the workplace and check in with our teams to know them well enough to know how they are doing as far as what support they need
• How do we balance building a culture and getting to know people beyond just transactional task-oriented conversations, especially when we work remotely?
• Kiri’s top three hacks for creating a rich community within her team are simple to implement and yield really meaningful results
• “Whoever hasn't created some form of awareness around when their workflow is best, I would highly suggest making some notes to self around that, just philosophically knowing that you need to create space for that.” - Ingrid
• “It's not so much the balance as it is the blend, and I have permission to not be the best at everything all at once. Because it's just impossible.” - Ingrid
• “There are occasionally these moments in your life where things must get dropped in order to get through them.” - Kiri
• We need people around us who will give us nudges to touch some grass, and we need to nudge others to do the same
• The rest of this season of Infinite Shelf is going to be full of deep dives into the intersection of commerce and what it means to be human, don’t miss it!

What is Infinite Shelf? It represents the humans on one side of the shelf that’s being stocked and prepared and the humans on the other side that are buying and participating. Where has Ingrid been over these past few months and why is she back? Listen in as she shares and introduces her new co-host, Kiri Masters.

Creating Space

• There is a human-centric shelf. There is a long dinner table. Human emotion, connection, curiosity, and our need for human connection are important matters
• We need to start normalizing human things in the workplace and check in with our teams to know them well enough to know how they are doing as far as what support they need
• How do we balance building a culture and getting to know people beyond just transactional task-oriented conversations, especially when we work remotely?

Associated Links:

• The 10 human traits 

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!