The CDO’s Guide To 2025 E-Commerce Trends | Ask An Expert

Welcome to another exciting and elucidating episode of the Omnitalk Ask an Expert series.

I'm your host, Chris Walton.

And I'm Ann Mazinga.

And this is one of our.

This is not one of.

It is our final Ask an Expert Front Porch series with firework as a lead up to NRF where firework will be at booth number three nine four.

That's 3951 in a special lounge designed with front porches of all varieties where you can meet with fellow retailers and brands in our retail community to continue these conversations.

IRL that's in real life.

For those not of the parlance.

Today we're going to invite the purpose of IRL that defeats the purpose.

You sound cooler.

I know.

I and me trying to sound cool just never lands so I just couldn't even do it.

I know, I know you know, but.

Hey, glad you glad you get.

Glad you gave me some much deserved grief there.

I resemble that remark today.

We're going to invite two more people to today's show.

So please join me in welcoming former COTI Chief Digital officer Jean Denis Mariani and fireworks head of beauty Christie Van Etter.

John Denis and Christy, welcome to omnitalk.

Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you, Chris.

We're excited to have you both for this final Front Porch series.

Jean Denis, this is your first time on the show.

Christy's been on with us before.

What are you excited to talk about?

Your former chief digital officer at coti.

What are you most excited to tell people about today?

If there was one thing we had.

To ask you, probably content.

How content is important to engage with people.

I mean, it's definitely for the brands.

The best way to stand out from the crowd on an average.

I know that I read that recently that people are scrolling 300ft of content on a daily basis.

So as a brand, how do you stand out from the crowd?

And it's true, probably a immersive and relevant content.

Well, we are so excited.

I was so thrilled when we found out that we got to have you on.

Christie, welcome back again.

It's great to have you and we're excited to get your perspective as well on what Jean Denis just said, product content being so important.

I just got off a phone call with A major Fortune 50 company who shall rename re name be nameless and they have this prop.

They're like, we don't know what content.

We don't know where to start.

We don't know how to create it.

Do we get ugc?

Do we get branded content.

So he's exactly right, Jean Denis.

He normally is that it.

Content is the number one problem, but this is where Firework really comes in to help solve that and bridge that gap.

Amazing.

Well, before we get into this conversation, just a quick reminder to those of you who are joining us live on LinkedIn right now.

Christy and Jeanne Denis and the team at Firework are here to take any of your questions throughout this session.

You can place them in the chat window to your right as we continue.

At any point in time, we'll do our best to get to those.

So, Jandini, I'd love to start off before we get into the conversation just by giving our audience a little bit of your background because it is vast.

So go ahead.

We'll kick it off with that.

Thank you.

I've been working almost 25 years in digital and in diverse industry from travel to gaming to utilities to luxury, and with a strong focus for the last 10 years in beauty.

And I've had the privilege of working as a chief digital and e commerce officer for L'Oreal LVMH and more recently, Coty.

Amazing.

Christie, let's give everyone just a quick overview on your background as well as head of beauty and a little background on Firework for those who may be meeting the company for the first time.

Absolutely.

I have been in beauty for about 15 years and in beauty kind of tech for the past 10 years.

In fact, in my former company, I got to work with Jean Denis when he was at Coty.

So excited to have him here today.

But before Firework really came along and a lot of e commerce brands were relying on traditional video players that were really heavy on the page.

So if you think about the infrastructure of YouTube or Vimeo.

Right.

They all have very heavy load times.

Right.

So Firework really came in to change this narrative and we wanted it so that everybody, whether you're a Walmart or you're an up and coming cosmetic brand, to engage your customers with ultra low latency.

And that means the video infrastructure that we have at Firework will load in less than 400 milliseconds.

So that's our goal.

We really want to bring to that to the everyday customer shopping experience.

Experience in the digital store.

Fantastic.

All right, so let's get to today's interview.

So Jaundi, I want to start with you.

So, so you mentioned, you mentioned you, you're excited to talk about content.

So my question for you to start out is what are the key trends that you think digital retailing and brand executives should have on their radar screen as they approach the upcoming year.

Again at the core of it is about content.

But I will give you some some insight on that.

According to me, I think there is three main trends.

The first one is about hyper personalization.

I mean people are expecting more tailored experience and they know that brands are collecting more and more data about transaction behavior so they expect to get ultra personalization in terms of experience.

So definitely I would say that personalization and AI driven experience is something that is going to be hot.

The second thing is probably about influence marketing.

There is a shift in influence marketing strategy and let's say that now brands are looking more and more into what we call micro and nano influencers.

So people like you and me, probably the let's say the brand advocates with a small followings community but extremely engaged.

So brands are looking to authentic post.

That's why also user generating content in something very hot also.

And the third probably trend, the most important one for me is about video commerce and shoppable video because we know that now video is totally overpricing picture in terms of experience and that the Gen Z and millennials now they are looking to this, let's say immersive, immersive experience.

So, so and, and definitely with the video format the video content is, it's more engaging.

So Denis, let me ask you a follow up question on there.

So yeah, I mean video for sure.

I mean we're seeing that in our business even like video is taking off relative to podcasting even for us now.

And so that's just how people are consuming their content and it's consuming it in a very short form as well.

And then you mentioned personalization and influencers too.

The one word you said in the first one was AI.

I'm curious like what aspects of AI do you expect retailers and brands to invest in or how do you expect it to improve the business in 2025 Pro?

I would say probably on two ways.

The first one is through customer services and AI chatbot and thanks to any analysis of all your historical data, behaviors, et cetera.

And the second one is product recommendation.

So it's to be able, thanks to AI, to be extremely precise when it comes to product recommendation to meet your expectation in terms of product and services.

Will it impact content generation in any way?

What are your thoughts there?

Yes, obviously.

I mean also when it comes to AI driven experience, we know that now everybody is working on how AI could support efficiently all this content creation.

And definitely we could imagine that personalization and content strategy is going to be completely mixed and that we're going to provide with very personalized content to, let's say, ultra segmented audiences.

Well, Jean Denis, one other question that I have too is, you know, you talked about this rise of the micro influencer or the nano influencer.

And that's something that Sarah Potempa, the CEO of beachwaver said on our last session was like they're going out to college campuses and they're sourcing, you know, people to speak on behalf of their brand in that way.

How do you see that trend continuing from and kind of what are the things that companies need to have in place in order to have success when they're reaching out to, you know, someone who's, who's doing video commerce for the first time.

The thing is how brands are going to engage with this, let's say, new prescription audience.

So we know that now it's something that is fully integrated in marketing strategy to use this UGC and from our best customers, from nano influencers, etc.

Because it's about authenticity and people are looking for authenticity now.

So the next thing is going to be probably, why not include this nano influencer into our sales strategy, giving them the microphone to, let's say, organize live streaming and on our product.

So that's why also we say about video content, you know, shoppable content, live streaming is gonna, is gonna boom for sure.

But definitely we could, we took, we could take advantage of this authentic brand ambassadors and nano influencer to become the best brand advocate and to promote our product and services.

Why not through live streaming session organized by the brand itself?

Well, and Christy, that brings up a question for you then too, because I'm curious, like what does that mean from a infrastructure on the brand side too?

And how are you like, I'm sure that's now an important thing for Firework to talk about with potential clients.

But like, how do you approach answering that question as brands like John Denis talking about are trying to figure out how to find those smaller people and really equip them with the technology to do that at a quality level that's.

There through the Firework platform.

You can actually we have an Instagram and a TikTok importer that you can find through hashtags, you can find UGC content and then with a click of a button, you can actually reach out to that person and get their consent to utilize the video.

And then also with regards to live streaming, we like to refer to it as digital showroom because we think even if it's done live it's great to live 24 7, you know, within your site.

And a lot of our brands that don't have content will maybe film like an hour live stream, and then they'll cut that up into short shoppable videos.

Right.

So you can take 30 products, talk about them with a micro or nano influencer within an hour, and then edit those into short shoppable videos.

And that's something you can do within the platform of Firework.

So those are.

Those are great ideas for brands that really just don't have the content or they don't know where to get started.

You don't need fancy equipment.

You literally can have a ring light and an iPhone and you can film a digital showroom.

Christie, I want to get your thoughts on the question that we asked Jean Denis to start, too.

So, like, you just mentioned at the outset that you were speaking to a top 54 top 50 fortune retailer here recently.

What.

What are you hearing them say?

Are the trends that they're.

That from your perspective, what are.

What are the trends that they're looking at going into 2025?

Is it the same that John Denis mentioned?

Or is there any color you'd add there?

I think they're still a little scared of ugc.

Yeah, they're scared of it.

Okay.

They're scared of it because they're like.

Yeah, I would see that.

Yeah.

Like, I don't know how to.

Like, I lose control.

And what we say is just at least find the UGC content out there because your customers are giving you the best content there is.

Right.

If you look at these videos, literally you can go down rabbit holes, right, of TikTok and Instagram, but wouldn't you rather have those videos on your own site?

Right.

And allow these Gen Z kids that want to watch, you know, 20 and 25 videos at a time, let them watch all from the same brand, versus being on Instagram and TikTok, where they're then get, you know, the algorithm knows they have an intent to purchase a specific product, and then they start getting fed your competitors.

Right.

So go ahead and utilize it within your own site.

And I do agree with Shantini.

You know, authenticity is key.

We hear that a lot from brands.

They don't really know where to get started.

But I think if you start to search out that UGC content, you'll find that.

Oh, my goodness.

That the lighting in their bathrooms are amazing and they are your best.

They're your customers, they're purchasing your products.

Why wouldn't you want to utilize it So I do find that we have to talk to some of these bigger name companies about like UGC is okay.

Like people want to see UGC content, but they're just, a lot of them have been, you know, in the space for a long time and they're just, they're a little, they're a little afraid of it.

And that's okay.

I think it's okay.

And Christy, what, so, so are they, what are, what are they actually afraid of?

I'm curious, I've never talked about this.

So like, are they afraid of like the lighting not being right?

Are they afraid the content's going to be presented in the wrong way?

All of the above, all of the.

Above, all of the above.

They're just afraid that like somebody in the brand is going to say why do we have that one particular person?

Right.

Whereas if you just have a plethora of people, all colors, all shapes, all sizes, all ages.

Right.

Like I'm in my 50s, I want to see UGC content of women in their 50s and 60s.

You know, I'm not going to buy a skincare brand from somebody who's 25 that doesn't have the problems that I have.

Right.

So I, I think it's just getting them to tip their toes in it a little bit.

But I do.

This is a conversation I have quite.

Often and Jean Denis, I saw you raise you shaking your head vociferously as I asked her that question.

So I know you want to jump in here but like what, what's, what's your take?

What, what have you seen work or how do you combat that?

It's, it's a difficult question because, because you know that the brands are really, let's say stressed about their ability to control, you know, the brand experience, the brand perception, etc.

Etc.

And now they discover that it was the case with, let's say with Facebook, with Instagram, we like almost top down communication, etc.

But now they discover that, that the Gen Z and spend their life on TikTok and TikTok became the most important touch point within the consumer journey for aspirational inspiration and even then purchasing consideration.

But then they are lost because consumers are speaking between them, you know, about the brand.

So they don't need the brand to decide and they consume UGC content and live streaming of influencers, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think that is going to change because many, many brands are afraid about, let's say this brand equity protection and that UGC content sometimes is not at the level of quality.

They expect, they provide content.

So it's a question of, let's say, standard, you know, where you put the content importance.

But then they will have to, because the good thing is with shoppable video, with live streaming, et cetera, is that you get the opportunity to centralize all these actions and inspiration drivers into one single point of contact.

So you could imagine that instead of letting your consumer going to YouTube, going to Instagram, to TikTok, to retail, etc.

You could imagine that finally you get the opportunity to centralize all this kind of stuff and to inspire your consumer on a unique point of contact.

Why not on your website, through live streaming, through shoppable video, etc.

You put your product and services into context.

And so people looking for that, in fact, so then they have no reason to move out from the website and to get their inspiration outside your, let's say, branded platform.

So it's a unique way for brands to, let's say, capture the feeding attention of their consumer, trying to get inspired outside the brand and give them the ability to get all the information they are looking for and decide to purchase quickly.

And it's about building community, right?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, kind of, you know, in getting them emotionally connected.

You know, a Harvard Business Review did a study that emotionally connected consumers will deliver a 52% higher lifetime value to your brand.

And I don't think people talk about lifetime value.

Right.

Think about Gen Z.

Right.

As their purchasing power grows and begins to dominate, video will be the medium where the transaction will occur.

Right.

So you have to start now.

I mean, the train has left the station later.

Well, Christy, it's almost too late.

It's almost too late.

Yes.

Well, Christy and John.

Denise.

Yeah.

And John.

Denis.

I'm curious.

You know, we're talking about this one thing that I think of when I hear about, like talking about UGC as a means of kind of engaging with your consumer, of creating this community.

And that content's already out there.

It already exists.

So you could.

You're pulling it in.

Somebody's already doing that without you having to pay them yet or incentivize them or send product yet.

Like, how do you then plan?

As I'm putting my 2025 plans together, working for a brand or retailer, like, how do I start to think about how to allocate resources and budgets toward these kinds of trends that Jean Denis mentioned?

Christie, I'd love to get your perspective first because I'm sure you're working with a lot of retailers and brands on this like how do you advise that they kind of put that into their budget when they're, they've got content already.

Now it's just a matter of how do I figure out how to manage it and get it out there in the right ways.

Yeah, I'm working with a brand right now, a pretty big beauty brand.

They're going to do it through, you know, they have a budget for free gratis products that they would normally give to influencers or agencies.

Right.

So they're going to keep a core of gratis so that when they find a UGC video and they get the consent for 30 day usage, they're sending that Nano influencer a free product.

All right, so those are kind of already allocated.

You might just, they just are kind of grabbing it away from like what they would normally give to desk sides or agencies and now they're kind of shifting those gratis products so it's not really costing them more money.

They already had kind of allocations of gratis for 2025 and 2026.

It's just who it's going to that's different.

So John Denis, how does that work then from, I'm thinking from the brand side like that definitely changes then where budgets are being allocated.

Maybe coming from a marketing budget in a different way or like even how you as a former chief digital officer might work in conjunction with your chief marketing officer.

Like what does that look like and what does that relationship, you know, look.

What will that look like in the future as we head into 2025 as those teams are really working together in different ways to one, create a platform to showcase this content and then two, to showcase the content and determine what the right content is to create that community that Chrissy's talking about.

I think it's, I would say that it's always the same story about breaking the silos within companies.

And to do that, let's say the, the key success factor is to be extremely consumer centric.

So by being consumer centric you break the silos between the, let's say the audience you're going to target your customer knowledge, the kind of content you're going to put in their interaction.

Because each audience normally they have like dedicated content that meet their expectation with the right media mix depending on their consumer journey.

So it's to be, is to give this ability to, let's say a sales director or marketing director, a digital director, etc.

To all work together being consumer centric and breaking the silos.

And then the second step is to spend the required time to do all this social listening to better understand how consumers are talking about the brand, the strengths, the weaknesses, then to adjust the message in the interaction.

And when it comes to content creation, to fully embrace video content, video again is totally overpassing picture.

People are looking for rich content, immersive interaction.

So meaning that now you have to create more and more video content and to identify also your nano influencer brand advocates on network and social networks and engage with them to integrate them into the content strategy.

So John Denis, I'm curious what tactics you would use because this is, this is an investment that you know is coming from like a CIO or a chief digital officer like you were.

How do you position this as like no marketing team or you know, personalization or loyalty team.

Like this is something that we're, this is a technology that we should all invest in that will be important as trends like video commerce, you know, come into the fore a little bit more.

Like what, what do you suggest that people listening do to kind of make that that happen or to impress upon them the importance of these kinds of tech investments.

So I know that sometimes when you disrupt too much, the, you know, the way you operate, et cetera, it's going to be difficult to move forward.

So the best way to move forward, to be honest, is to start with a pilot.

You start with one country, one touch point, one audience, you know, one use case.

It could be for example, using video for video consultation with retail, you know, to through online and through your platform to get a video consultation to get some advices and recommendation on the product.

Instead of going in retail, it could be just to add on a specific product a shoppable video.

And then from a very, let's say being very pragmatic, you just demonstrate that it works thanks to the right indicator of performance and showing by the results are there thanks to engagement, sales impact, et cetera.

Then you're able to scale.

So you're not, I mean it's not a priority to go big very quickly.

The thing is probably fewer but bigger.

Launch this pilot, make optimize it and then scale once you're going to demonstrate that it works.

And it works very well.

Got it.

Okay, so I want to put your chief digital officer, put your chief digital officer background to the test here.

Jean Denis.

So I'm curious too, like when you talk about the development of the tech tac stack, excuse me, tech tack tech stack to support an online store that is, you know, is heavily invested in video componentry and video commerce, what what are the critical things that you know, come into play to make that happen?

So like, especially as so many brands and retailers are dealing with legacy systems as well, what are some of the success steps that you would recommend those watching take to make sure their tech stack is up to stack, so to speak?

I think that probably the, the core topic is about agility.

So finding partners that will give you the required agility you sometimes don't have internally, you know, so, so that's why instead of trying to reinvent by yourself capabilities or going with big partners, etc.

And create more complexity, I've always looked to, let's say very agile partner that will provide me with this agility.

You know, just through, let's say very almost simple plug and play and outsourcing these capabilities going fast, sometimes even on the, on the content creation because you know, sometimes you have the willingness to move forward, but internally you don't have the bandwidth, you don't have the skills to make it happen, you don't have the budget to create content, etc.

And it takes time.

So if you would like to demonstrate very quickly that it works, organize a pilot, outsource, let's say almost everything, but by controlling, you know, through a frame.

But then it's freedom within the frame with the partner, but you define the frame and then you go on this pilot.

And so that's why I had the privilege to work already with Firework at Kochi and I really appreciate that, this agility to demonstrate that it works.

And they took the lead on many, many topics of the pilot.

Got it.

So it goes back to how you answered Anne's question, which is start small, bite off what you got, you find the right partner that enables you to go fast, to learn quickly.

And that's basically what you're saying.

Christy, is there any color?

Oh, go ahead.

Yeah.

And especially to get the buy in because you could imagine that if you go and speak with a marketing director or communication director and say, oh guys, video is overpassing picture, so let's move forward and shift to video.

Obviously I'm not sure that it's going to be very smooth as a discussion, you know, so.

Meaning that when I say start with the pilot, you have to engage, convince people, you know, influence people being pragmatic and consumer centric.

So probably the most complex thing is to ask people to be really, really consumer centric.

So instead of thinking about what could be the customer expectation in schedule, just ask them, ask the consumer, you know, what are your consumer expectations?

You're looking for more rich content.

Video content.

Okay.

You consume now only video content.

So we're going to equip ourselves to meet your expectations.

That's the point.

You know, and sometimes from the cultural standpoint, it's complex to make it happen.

And you're losing time because you try to convince consumers that they have to continue to consume picture, you know, but we know that it's not the story, you know.

Yeah.

And follow the data through lots of small experiments.

That's the other thing, too.

Especially in video commerce.

I have to think, Christy, you're shaking your head yes.

Oh, my gosh.

It's all about the data.

It's all about the data.

The data does not lie.

And he's absolutely right.

I mean, I, you know, we work with companies of all size at Firework, which is.

That's what's really great about us.

But I typically work with the Cody's, the l'oreals, the unilevers of the world.

And he's right.

They always start with a PoC.

Right.

Let's test it on even one PDP page and let's do AB testing.

Let's split the audience 50, 50, and let's see the interaction with the Firework video player versus those who don't have it.

And you can very quickly see the engagement time triple.

The conversions go up 30 to 40%.

The AOV goes up.

Because if somebody goes, let's say Ann just needs to go replenish her shampoo and then she starts watching videos of, oh, you need this Shine product.

She's like, oh, my gosh, I need this product.

This is.

Sounds right.

Sounds like something Ann would do, right?

I need this to my cart.

I need my hair to be shiny.

I'm on camera, right?

So all of a sudden you start to see the aov.

So when you start to show these internal key stakeholders that maybe weren't so sure about video commerce, you start to show them conversions going up, AOV going up, engagement time doubling and tripling.

They start to go, why do we just have this on a PDP page?

This should be on a category page.

This should be on the homepage for product discovery.

Top of funnel, bottom of funnel, right?

Then they start realizing.

So that's exactly what happens.

We start to work with brands and they test it in one location, and then they end up putting it everywhere.

Well, you know, I want to talk to you both about the measurement of this.

I want to dive deeper like we talked about, doing a proof of concepts.

But I think one of the most important things that We' learned through this Front Porch series with Firework is really understanding the new ways of measuring success.

Christie, one thing I want to ask you about that I've been thinking about since you said it at the beginning of this discussion, was this like the engagement or the feeling or emotional connection that people have I that imagine like the rest of the stuff.

I think we can get to AOV going up, like, you know, increased engagement time on site, like that makes sense to me.

But how do you quantify or how do you explain something like that when you're justifying an investment?

How do you recommend that people do that?

Well, you can tie, you can tie the actual conversion through our purchasing pixel to what people actually consumed before they put the item in their cart.

So you can tie down like if somebody has a carousel of, let's say 10 videos, we can see that they watched like two videos in full screen mode.

We can tie down to the actual videos and we can attribute the revenue to what they actually interacted with.

So what that content was like, I mean, you can start to gather that specific level of information of like, well, when she shared this, you know, vulnerable moment that she had and this product came in, like those are the stories that are hitting with our audience.

That's when they added it to their cart.

Interesting.

So you can really get granular with the data.

We're kind of data geeks over here.

But it's really cool when you can really start to tie those conversions or the average order value to specific things they actually watched within a video or a digital showroom.

That's really interesting because the question I want to ask you in this, in this section too was like, you know, in our business particularly like there's almost no such thing as not enough content, right?

Like, you can always benefit from more and more content, but yet retailers and brands, they're resource constrained.

And so you're playing that battle of how much content do I put on the site?

Then you get page load times and all those factors come into play too.

So how, like, as you're using this data and analyze things, I guess John Denis, my question for you is like, how do you, how do you balance how much content to actually make in this manner?

So I think it's, it's, it's not a question of balance probably, it's a question of how brands and companies will organize themselves to be in a position to deliver the required content.

So, you know, there is, there is three main topics when it comes to content strategy.

Content management is about content readiness.

So the ability, you know, of the brand to, to provide the content at the right timing, to be, you know, to play it, to distribute it.

The second one is about relevancy for sure, to be extremely relevant regarding the audience you can address with relevant content.

And the third one is about volume.

And all companies know that to perform, to stand out from the crowd, they need the three of these.

And volume is very important.

It's not about creating like say 10 piece of content.

It's creating, you know, hundred thousand pieces of content and assets.

So, and so that's, that's why now companies are pushing, trying to organize, organize themselves about content creation with this kind of different model.

You know, having an internal studio with, why not an internal live streaming studio having, working also to work with, with external partners specializing content for digital in video content, etc.

So you have to shift and to organize ourselves to provide more content.

I mean all the touch point, all the interaction we have with our consumer, whatever the touch point is on the consumer journey, it's about content at the core of it, it's about the content, a piece of content.

So, so is this something which is extremely important and we've increased drastically the volume of required content in that.

So I want to, so I want to keep going on this.

So Chrissy, let me go back to you.

So your example, based on what Jean Denis has said, you said like maybe 2 out of the 10 videos had the click on the page, right?

That's what you, some, you said something to that degree.

So, then, so then what do you recommend the retailer, brand do?

Do they keep the other eight up?

Do they, do they reposition it?

Like how should they think about that as executives are new to evaluating the performance of their video assets on their website.

So that's where we really come in.

We meet with our clients and we really.

Every brand has a client leader who's really looking at the data.

So it really isn't cookie cutter.

It's like a recipe, a little of this, little that.

Right.

You have to kind of look at each video.

We had one client that had this video that was doing really well on social, but when she put it on her website, it didn't, it wasn't the one that was performing the most.

And the girl wasn't smiling at the beginning and she noticed that the videos were.

The person was smiling at the beginning had more sales attributed to those videos.

Right.

So it's really just, it's a lot of testing and learning, moving placements, you can easily drop and drag.

You don't have to recode once, once we're, once we are like onto your site.

You don't have to recode or anything.

You can change, you can take a video out, you can add a new video and also just aligning it with your marketing calendar.

Calendar.

What product launches do you have coming up?

What.

So right as you're shooting, you know, pack shots, make sure that your social content and your video content also aligns with your marketing calendar.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Are you increasing your assets towards what you want to be promoting at this time of the year?

Imagine too, there's so much content out there.

Right too.

You have to imagine this to exception too as part of this weekly process, right?

Like absolutely.

But we're in trenches with you.

So that's what's really fun.

You're not on your, you're not on an island by yourself.

How do you think about this?

I think one thing that is hard for say an electronics retailer for example to think about is like this makes sense in the beauty space and we've talked about it in the beauty space because it is such an emotional category.

But Shandini, as you think about some of the trends that we've been talking about today, like what, what is consistent about where retailers and brands who not in the beauty space, like what is consistent about what you've learned that you would impart on them as they're kind of putting together their strategy for the right resources and measurement to be successful with video commerce?

What advice would you have for them?

So I think just for sure, when it comes to beauty, it's about inspirational content, is lifestyle content.

So it, it's the ability to put product and services into real life so into context, you know.

So obviously it's something that is more engaging when it comes to other industry, e.g.

electronics, etc.

It could definitely help because it's about education and relevant support to make the right choice.

And so I've been very impressed about some use cases shared with me by the firework team.

But definitely when you have like so many choices, you know, on the platform, it gives you the ability instead of losing your time going to, you know, each product, each brand, etc.

Making comparison, etc.

Again to make your choice quicker.

So it's probably definitely a good way to move forward is to put focus on this content video strategy to help the consumer to make a choice within the big, big, you know, let's say big options of choosing the right product.

Let me, yeah, I was just gonna say let me give a non beauty Example.

Yeah.

Somebody that.

Not my client, because it's outside of beauty.

But do you know green pan?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we just started working with them a few months ago and you have to take a quiz, like, you know, what kind of pans are you looking for?

And you go through the quiz and as you're answering the questions, it serves up another video.

So we launched like two months ago and I was like, go try the green pan thing.

I ended up buying two new pans.

I didn't even know I needed them, but I was so excited about like what they were showing and how it worked and how you could.

You didn't have to use soap and water to clean it.

You didn't need any oil in your pan when you were making your salmon.

Right.

There was like this whole cooking thing.

That's why I'm fascinated with the Food Network.

Right.

Like my husband's like.

Right.

And another Food Network show.

But I got so excited watching the green pan videos.

Ended up buying the products.

Right.

So.

So that's what's great about this.

It's really vertical agnostic.

I mean, wouldn't you love for somebody to show you the refrigerator that you're thinking about buying?

But you can't.

You don't live near a Home Depot or a Lowe's.

Wouldn't you love a digital showroom where somebody could like open up the refrigerator and show you how this ice machine works and how you can change the.

You know, it's just, it works in any industry.

That's what's so exciting about video commerce.

Yeah.

And I wonder, like Jon Denis, you got me thinking of something.

And Chrissy, with that green pan example too, like, as we see retailers start to invest more in like language based search and these kinds of things.

I mean, these other trends that we're seeing as people are shopping, like John Denis, how do you think about that and the role that video commerce plays alongside something like that to really get to do what you're saying, which is get people the answers they're looking for and the confidence in their purchase more quickly.

I think it's a huge link between video content and personalization.

So they will use data to be sure that at the end the product recommendation they're going to do is going to be extremely relevant for the consumer.

So it's about building consumer knowledge at the level where we were not able to today thanks to data and AI and as a result to be extremely relevant in the product recommendation and experience.

And Christie, how, how are people measuring that?

Like, I'm I'm wondering if you have, like, is that a new metric that we're putting into place where it's like, okay, now that, you know, they've gotten so far down this video path and now we're serving up the video that confirms the question that they were answering that we've had this back and forth with, like, is there new ways or are there new ways that retailers need to be thinking about?

Like, okay, how do we decide?

Or how do we determine, like, like, whether or not this is successful?

We're going to continue to push maybe the AI Chatbot on this part and then video commerce on that part.

Like, how do you think about that?

Or make recommendations for your clients at Firework.

Yeah.

And you.

A lot of the times through our personalization, the customer is able to give a little what they liked about it.

Right.

They can.

Oh, my God, this is amazing.

Right?

So it's getting, again, it's getting that content, getting the feedback from the customers themselves.

And again, ultimately, at the end of the day, we are here in E commerce to sell products.

Right.

So if the sales are coming through and it's working, then it's just, it just gives those internal key stakeholders the ability to keep saying, yes, let's be all in.

Let's play in our next three years of video commerce.

Right.

Let's really blow it up.

So it just gets really, really exciting.

Yeah.

I mean, my takeaway from the question you asked Anne and listening to both of our guests today that I didn't know coming into this is really like, it goes back to what Sean Denise said about personalization.

It's like, you know, this, this, this concept is applicable to any category because that's the beauty of digital commerce, that it gets down into the niches of who we are as individuals.

And so any of us can, by way of these new tools, have our own personalized kind of QVC shopping experience or our own personalized, you know, natural language model search experience that serves up video content in this way.

And, and that's really, really powerful if you kind of think about or put yourself in that perspective as the consumer, but more importantly as the retailer, the brand trying to serve up content in that space.

I want to give a quick thank you again to Jean Denis and to Christie for being with us today to cover some of these trends that we all should be watching out for in 2025.

Jean Denis, if people want to follow you, they want to ask you questions about other trends that are coming up for the year ahead and just about your experience.

Rolling out video commerce at Cody and other beauty brands.

What's the best way for them to get in contact with you?

They can do that anytime they want.

Probably the most convenient way is through linking.

Okay, perfect.

And, Christie, you're going to be at NRF at Booth 3951, right by the Starbucks.

You've got prime real estate at nrf.

But if people want to connect with you while they're there at NRF or beforehand, what's the best way for them to get in contact with you?

Yep.

Link, same.

LinkedIn is the best way.

Just connect.

Send me a LinkedIn request and we can set up a chat.

Amazing.

Well, that wraps us up today.

Thanks so much to Jean Denis Mariani and Christie Van Nader of Firework for sitting down with us today.

And as always, on behalf of all of us here at omnietalk, be careful out there.