Unpacking the Digital Shelf

Excelling at ecommerce and digital marketing takes a certain combination of diverse skills, often difficult to find in one human being. Aaron Zagha, CMO of Newton Baby, thinks of it as a mix of math, magic, and art. Aaron joined Lauren Livak and Peter to walk us through how that mix shows up in the daily battle for consumer delight, well-rested babies, and optimizing for total growth at Newton Baby.

The internet as we know it is in the midst of massive change. The buzzwords abound - blockchain, crypto, Web3 NFTs. It all adds up to a new way that people connect, interact and transact with each other digitally. It will have significant impacts on marketers, but many of those impacts and their timing are yet unknown. It seems like now is the perfect time to begin an extended conversation about what these shift and innovations are, and what they might mean for brands now and in the years and decades to come. Justin King, Chief Evangelist at Salsify and self-professed Web3 nut, dropped by the podcast with Lauren Livak and Peter to get the conversation started.

Beating the competition on any digital channel, but especially Amazon, is not a set it and forget it exercise. From their deep expertise as the Amazon digital marketing agency of record for over 125 brands, the team at Bobsled marketing has developed a POV on what it takes to succeed on Amazon. And the measurement of maturity makes you a caterpillar, spider, chameleon, or Lion. Kiri Masters and Caroline Adams from Bobsled Marketing brought to the podcast their Amazon evolutionary scale from a report entitled The Amazon Maturity Matrix: 6 factors that drive results.

No question, being an ecommerce leader is one of the most challenging jobs in commerce. You need people that are on your side - shepherds, you might say, that get how hard it is and spend a lot of time thinking about how to help. Chris Perry and Oskar Kaszubski, cofounders of FirstMovr, have sat in that seat across brands such as Kelloggs, Reckit, WellPet, Kimberly Clark and Mondelez and now spend their days on education and change management advisory through their firm FirstMovr (there no e in mover). They have released a delightful and extremely useful new digest of free advice, called Sheared - Shedding Your Coat of Corporate Conformity in the Age of eCommerce. Rob Gonzalez and Peter sheepishly asked them to be on to walk us through it, and like lambs to the slaughter, they agreed.

Welcome, everyone, Peter Crosby, executive director of the Digital Shelf Institute here. Welcome to the 7th webinar in our 10-episode Digital Shelf Playbook Series, and the first of 2022. Continual optimization of the product page is the holy grail of driving discovery, conversion, and brand impressions and loyalty in this digital-first age. But in reality, you can’t optimize everything at all times. Choosing where you place your investments and doing it efficiently and with transparency takes a strategy. And that’s where we are focused today in the Digital Shelf Playbook, featuring of course Lauren Livak, Director of the Digital Shelf Institute and driving force behind the playbook, and our special guest, Anu Bliss, General Manager of the eCommerce Practice at The Emerson Group.

Today, Shoppers are creating post-purchase videos on over 35 platforms in 89 languages. Each of those represents an opportunity to amplify an influencer’s voice or learn from them. But how do you discover, amplify, and drive conversion through the right videos on the right product pages and channels? Ajay Bam, CEO & Co-founder of Vyrill, has created a platform that watches & listens to millions of videos online so you don’t have to. Ajay joined Peter and Lauren Livak to tell us how.

It’s 2035. When you get there, what is it you wish you would have done as a leader in commerce for your organization now to prepare to win in that future? John Rossman, Author of the Bestseller “The Amazon Way” and Managing Partner at Rossman Partners, is spending every week spinning out a newsletter offering the practices, metrics, and skills you can use to make sure your 2035 self isn’t mad at you. The newsletter is called The Digital Leader, and John joined Peter to talk about his top-performing topics.

The product information management (PIM) category is at a pivot point with Forrester, IDC, and Ventana Research all releasing analyst reports in 2021. The report leaders have changed several times in the last 10 years as the evaluation criteria for PIM has been rewritten by analyst firms and buyers, reflecting that a new and volatile market has been emerging. In this podcast presentation of a recent webinar, co-hosts Rob Gonzalez and Peter Crosby discuss what has happened over the last decade, and what they predict will happen next.

Leaders of digital and ecommerce are always trying to influence the adoption of new ideas - new products and brands by shoppers, and new ideas for how internal teams must transform to both meet the challenges of a shopper-led buying journey and to maximize growth. David Schonthal, professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School, is co-author of The Human Element: Overcoming the Resistance That Awaits New Ideas. For every marketer that’s been brought up on The Law of Attraction, this book illuminates the other side of influencing behaviors - the Frictions that stand in the way, and the best strategies and processes for identifying and overcoming them. Molly Schonthal (yes, a relation) joins Peter Crosby as co-host.

A podcast topic so important we needed two guests to do it justice! The role of the ecommerce leader extends beyond ecomm strategy and performance to being the educator for the rest of the organization. Education that is critical to driving the business and mindset shifts required to achieve maximum growth and efficiency. And that takes a village. That’s why Lauren Livak and Peter were excited to welcome Antoine Borde, Global Ecommerce for Danone, and Ian Jentgen, Sr. Vice President at online training provider Circus Street.