Alexa is falling

So, let’s all repeat again. “Usership is different from sales” and “you should always have a clear path for monetization and profitability”.

Alexa is generating $10Bs losses

Twitter reframing

I bet the reframing of Twitter's business model is being closely looked on in the social media and digital advertising industries.

Until now, there was this print "if you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold". And this is true (sorry for the naked truth everyone) for user-generated content-based businesses.

Now... one could say that Twitter's is trying to "put the product to pay for the broadcast of the product it produces" which is a challenging spin. Looking forward to how this will unfold.

Swoosh

A good brand has history and stories, and good stories have multiple layers. I came across this one over the week and can't stop thinking how rich and full of lessons this is.

In 1971, the Nike brand was born (transforming from the previous Blue Ribbon Sports). So, they decided they needed a logo, and Phil Knight (who was teaching accounting at a university) hired a design student (Davidson) to create one - "she needed the money". She developed several creatives, and Phil Knight reportedly chose the one "he hated the least", believing "it will grow on me" (this logo is nowadays called "The Swoosh"). For the work, the student was paid 35 usd (slightly more than 200 usd, nowadays), "I billed and was paid for the work".

The story doesn't end there, though. At the time of Nike's IPO, Nike decided to gift Davidson (the student) a golden swoosh ring with a diamond... and 500 shares of Nike's stock. Reportedly, Davidson never sold these shares, that, after several stock splits, they represent nowadays 32000 shares, with a market value of around 3M usd (she has retired a few years ago and does volunteering work).

The number of layers in this story is amazing. The decisions and implications. There are several lessons in it - you just have to pick the ones you need, I would say.

Chouillard

How surprising is this? Actually, not that much - Chouillard had already hinted a couple of times of his desire to do something along this way.

But it reminds us that heartfelt purpose doesn't start with "consumers". It is not drawn in a meeting room, comparing alternatives and reading "consumer quotes". Purpose is a founder's heart. It translates its dreams and aspirations when starting and running a company. And then, people might connect to it - and when it happens, you have more than a company, you have a common heart.

Patagonia founder gives away the company

Boring

You know what is the most important (and probably boring) feature a product needs to have to be purchased? Availability.

Yep, that is the number one! A product to be bought needs to be available. It doesn't seem rocket science. It won't be a viral feature that everyone will be talking about at a technology summit (unless Reckon.ai is there, of course).

But still, we see products missing in supermarket shelves everyday - the figure is 8%, daily and globally, and that means a 563Bs usd loss for retailers. And we also see nice stores, in premium locations, paying top-rents, but that are not open 24/7.

So, though boring, non-viral, non-tiktok like, non-brandable, it is availability that is the first driver of sales. So, no, it is not only a Supply Chain problem - it is beyond that, it's a business one. And no, it probably isn't fully covered - everyone can step up on this.

Waste is not trash

Waste is not trash. It is a resource. We are just constrained by our lack of imagination.

Data one level down

You know marketers. We are curious by nature...

So, yesterday it was a day to take a good look at all the data coming out of Reckon.ai-powered smartstores ("our microstores" as we call them). But beyond all the aggregated data, I couldn't help but look at some basic-level one. And suddenly, it all comes alive:

- people buying a salad meal + fruit + kombucha tea for lunch (you healthy ones!);

- while you could also see the netflixers (?) going for lasagna and coca-cola for a movie watching session late at night (advantages of 24/7 stores);

- and on the Pingo Doce store in Nova School of Business and Economics that runs our AI-system, there was this day in July when people bought a lot of Red Bull - was it just before an exam, I wonder?

When you have the tools to look at data at different levels (raw, treated and cleaned, or aggregated), you can't resist looking - but that's how to end up building hypothesis and insights that help you move forward. 

At the supermarket aisle

In the supermarket aisle today. Persons looking at Axe bodyspray. Person A grabbed a can and bought it. Person B moved away and bought nothing.

If you are Axe Brand Manager (like I was a lifetime ago), you will have a ton of information about Person A - the consumer, the buyer, the one that gives money in exchange for your product. On Person B, you have nothing - even though you know it’s B that will generate the most penetration and growth, and you keep talking about B when debating about market share and marketing plans.

Most marketing information systems are designed around Person A. They’re engineered to give you the max of information on it. But if you want to break the box and move forward, you need to find clever ways to get information about B - and that means to engineer your data systems differently, to ask questions you don’t ask and to persist when people tell you “we don’t know” and “we can’t get that information”. #marketing #growth #data

On sustainability

 A couple of great thoughts on sustainability and innovation. Thank you, Andreea Sapunaru .

Old learnings

A quick word of advice. Something I learned with the very first people I worked with, in Unilever (Vasco and both Nunos). Be careful with your claims. You can only say you "are the first", if you effectively "are the first". You can only say you "are the biggest", if you "are the biggest". It's a matter of respect for customers and people. But it's also a matter of trust - if you are caught red-handed in something as simple, what are you also being "untrue" about? The seed of doubt is then planted on people's head.

On "The Tech Transformation Imperative in Retail"

“The Tech Transformation Imperative in Retail” is a recently published article by McKinsey & Company that I truly recommend ( https://lnkd.in/epFAawXn ). In it, McKinsey argues market evolution ^ pandemic has put significant pressure on the retailers’ bottom line (losing between 3 to 6%/year) and that only a robust tech foundation can reverse the trend (the key figure here is that Digital Leaders outperform Digital Laggards by 3.3x in terms of Total Revenue to Shareholders).

The article then describes a much needed cultural transformation on the way tech is looked and worked at and identifies six key levers for digital acceleration in Retail. 

For me, these levers resonate strongly, as they are mostly aligned with the disruption Reckon.ai wants to bring to Retail:
- OmniChannel integration
- Datafication
- Tech Modernization
- Product-Led
- Highly Automated
- Talent Driven 

I believe AI-Powered Smartstores that are nimble, affordable and completely adapted to people’s daily life are an important part of the digitization and acceleration of physical retail (as are smartareas that transform Supply Chain processes) - and can be engines of the tech transformation championed by McKinsey in this article.

Disruptive Innovation in Retail

Disruptive innovation is (many times) regarded as inferior to established solutions. That is because, instead of looking at the key market features (that everyone keeps check and sustainably innovates on) it plays on specific consumer and customer needs, that are often overlooked - but are just as critical.

With time, and as the disruption keeps on evolving, the perceived quality also rises, and that is when you have a sudden market shift.

On retail, people are usually focused into thinking on assortment range, perceived price and promo. Location seems to be locked to over 100 sqm buildings - which means people will typically need to make a detour of their commuting / daily life just to go shopping. Deliveries are typically expensive in a cost conscious world (especially under inflation).

But, what if you could put a low capex, smaller (5 to 30 sqm) fully automated store, that functions at a fraction of the typical operational cost and that through AI automation builds Supply Chain efficiency while delivering a fast and frictionless Shopper Journey? A store that could easily and swiftly interact with shoppers on their already established commuting and buildings? That's the realm that Reckon.ai operates at - and the disruption we are trying to build in the retail market.

And the main media app that Americas use is...

... Youtube! 81% of them use it according to PEW research, considerably more than the 69% that use Facebook, the 40% Instagram and 31% of Pinterest. Youtube is an amazing media channel, the most impressive global supplier of content.

Are people the secret sauce for a technology brand?

 Building a brand is primarily to think about people.

The people that use your products, the people that buy your products and the people that develop and build your products. If you have read the previous sentence carefully, you noticed one more thing - the word "products" is ubiquitous there, and that's because the product is a building stone for a technology brand.

The company I work in (Reckon.ai) has a great product that is completely focused on delivering fast and frictionless autonomous shopping experiences to people. From the get-go, we developed a product focused on increasing availability (easy to setup at different locations, open 24/7) and eliminating queues (nobody really likes them).

We understood that the best way to achieve this was to harness the sheer power of AI (speed, scale, routine) and the behavior-centric approach of design thinking - so to combine technology with human nature.

Our brand proposition ("Enabling AI-Powered Shopping Experiences") then became more than a simple brand proposition - it became an internal motto on how we (the people that develop products) commit to building a better life for you (the person that will use a microstore powered by our software). It states the belief that if one is people-centric then one can use technology to improve daily lives in a human way.

Original article on Linkedin

Brilliant advertising

You know what brilliant advertising is? This is a good example!

Creating is loving

One of the best experiences you can have in life is to work with someone who genuinely loves what s/he does. People that hate being idle, that are always looking for solutions, that will positively discuss and question what you say because it will lead to a better outcome. People that love to create something that they will love. And, thus, that other people love too.