🛍️ HELLO FUTURE: Black Friday, Meet the Future

Speaker 1 (00:07):
All right. If you're like me, you get all of
your holiday shopping done on Black Friday. And nowadays Black
Friday is getting a glimpse into the future. Hello, Future,
it's me Kevin. This is a dispatch from the Digital Frontier.
The planet is Earth, the year is twenty twenty five.
My name is Kevin Sirilli, and it's time for Black
Friday to meet the future. It used to be tense
lines and chaos at five am, after everybody's still got
their turkey hangover from Thanksgiving. I remember my mom would say,
get in the car. We're going to the King of
Prussia Mall outside of Philly, and we're gonna get all
of these deals. Well, my guest today knows a thing
or two about Black Friday marketing and how it's changing
the game as we enter what I believe is the
start of the Second Industrial Revolution. Her name is Charmeila C. Chatterjee.
She is a PhD. She is an MIT Senior Lecturer
of Marketing at MIT Slow In School. Professor Charmila Chatterjee,
thanks for showing up to say hello to the future.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Looking
forward to our conversation today, So.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Black Friday, it seems like there's Black Friday, Cyber Monday.
Artificial intelligence seems to know my wishless better than I do.
How has all of this AI changed the game for
holiday marketing?

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I think that AI has really helped with one finding
out much more about our personalization aspects, what we like,
what we don't like. This data is being consolidated much better,
and so there is attempt anyway to personalize better. However,
I would say that one should not think that AI
is the panacea for everything. We still crave human interaction.
We still love to go shopping, and that the scene
in gen Z who really show, Yes, we all love
seamless online offline edugation. That's our aspiration, that's what you want. However,
even though you're all talking about AI, I think that
the big news is that the future of shopping will
still very much involve the human.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, So I love this because I remember, you know,
I still did a lot of my holiday shopping at
I went to a shopping mall, I went to a
series of stores. Because there's something about the ritual of
it and the experience of it, of being able to
go to actually interact with a human to get a
human to say, Hey, your mom or dad might like this,
or your significant other might like that, or your niece
or nephew would like this. I do think there's something
inherently human about that. Plus I love free samples. I'm
not gonna lie to you. So how is that human
experience changing the consumer or influencing the consumer, because it
does feel like stores are becoming more like Instagram activations
than just warehouses.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
Yeah, I think that stores are finally starting to realize
that they cannot give up on the human interaction. Piece.
One really telling statistic that we have is customer experience
has actually reached the lowest point across many industries in
North America. And that is sort of data collected by
Forrester on customer experience. We will say, you know, in
this day and age of technology, with chatbots and so
many things, and we can start online and then complete
our shopping, our purchase offline and vice versa, customer experience
has reached an all time low.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Why do you think that is? Because, I mean, some
of these stores, my lord, horrible experience.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
You know, Customer experience is what happened. I think that
when online came in brick and mortar got this big shock.
They were not prepared, and rather than focusing on customer experience,
they basically went all out price discounting. If customers wanted
price discounts, they would not have to come to the store.
They could just sit on their computers at the and
you know, just sit there and price shop and price
comparison all they wanted. If they were going to the store,
they wanted something different. But stores went held hung against
them with price discounts. What happened it basically took over
resources what they needed to invest for a better customer experience.
What did they do. They laid off store personnel, They
did not spend on merchandising adequately. The ambiance took a hit.
We went to the stores and we had a really
bad experience. And so what happened was it was a
vicious psycho. They stopped investing in those things that made
us happy.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
I totally, anecdotally speaking, agree with a lot of the
traditional experiences of going to a shopping mall, for example,
has just completely diminished. But who's getting it right? Who
were some of the outliers who are building the stores
of the future. The brick and mortar stores of the
future who were getting it right. Because you had alluded
to gen Z. I think I was reading it was
either MIT's Business publication or Harvard Business School about there's
some cosmetic brands that really activated this need for gen
Z women in particular to want to go and get
an experience in the store, and it was a communal gathering.
And then in many ways I would argue gaming might
even be the anecdote to gen Z with how gamers
are also looking at this, but who's getting it right
and what can other industries learn from them?

Speaker 2 (06:00):
So I think what you just talked about, you know,
this feeling of community, belonging someone. Imagine a full day
when you are working. When you're working, you're on your computer,
and then you are socializing, you're on your phone, and
then all the interaction is dominated by technology. So there
is this need for belonging and interaction and being part
of a community, so absolutely right that some brands have
started realizing this. A Sephora is a great example where
now they have really rebuilt their loyalty programs and they
have revamped with basically having you know, bringing people together
to give them an experience of trying on different cosmetics
to focus on a theme and get together. So not
only are you getting that touch and feel, that tactical experience,
but you're doing it with a set of others who
are involved in the same experience. So that brings in
a sense of community. You know, what's really important is relationships.
We do not when we fight on discounts and price,
that does not reed loyal What is loyalty is you
feel close to someone do something and you start identifying
with the brand, and so that's a relationship. Relationships cannot
be outsourced to technology.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
And I think as we look back through history, you know,
I always say, yes, we're at the start of the
Second Industrial Revolution and technology just as the innovation of
it all is just going to make our lives so
much better, so much more streamlined. But history does often
repeat itself. And I'm thinking of fast food chains and
McDonald's in particular, that had the understanding of building swing sets,
building playgrounds in their McDonald's activation. Because I remember getting
to go to McDonald's after preschool because I wanted to
go down the slide. We would go to get McDonald's
and we get to play on the playground and it
became an experience. Flash forward to the Apple stores of
twenty years ago. I remember going to the Apple Store
and feeling like I was having to meet the future moment,
feeling like I had to go to the Apple Store
because I had to get my hands on this new
innovation that Americans had created, this new innovation that was
changing the world, this new glimpse into the future that
echoed all the way from Silicon Valley when Steve Jobs
pulled out of his pocket one more thing and changed
the world all the way to Delaware County, Pennsylvania, where
a teenager version of myself got to see it in
real time. And so now you're talking about makeup and cosmetics.
But I'm wondering as we look into the future at
some of these game changing innovators, whether it's humanoid robotics,
or whether it's other forms of innovation that are echoing
and starting to echo into middle class and other parts
of our society, what are the brick and mortar stores
of the future going to be?

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, so I absolutely you know, so I don't think
this and either or we need the human but technology
it's a fantastic enabler. And so some of the things
that are happening now is you could potentially, you know,
go and and you know, have sort of in a
store if you don't want, you know, go through this
going to the change when trying on the different dresses,
maybe you can have augmented reality where you are able
to basically see how the dress would look on you
without having to go to a change room. That would
be amazing because many times, you know, you go to
a store and say, yeah, would you love to buy something,
but I am not in the mood to go and
try on five different But what if it was made
more convenient? Yeah, And so those are some of the
things that can be done. The furniture stores are starting
to you know, that's a different shopping category, but you
can now go and see how a piece of furniture
would look in a specific room. So that's sort of
blending in and marrying technology with sort of the touch
and feel and that social interactive component.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Well, you know, I love that. It reminds me of
one of my favorite holiday films, which is Miracle on
thirty fourth Street. I absolutely love that movie because the
Santa Claus Chris Kringle in that film actually sends some
of the department store customers to other stores, and it
breeds loyalty to that particular department store. But it's the
experience of holiday shopping for a child to be able
to get their photo taken with Santa or in other industries.
And I'm curious for your thoughts on this. In the
health and wellness space, my gym has become a store
of its own. Suddenly I'm going for this health and
wellness experience, but I'm also getting advice on vitamins. I'm
also getting advice on athletic wear and can purchase that.
Do you think that that certain experiences will become almost
communities of commerce? Is the health and wellness space just
one example of that?

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah? I think you know. What that does is not
only an experience, It is really bringing together our need
to do in our really really fast spaced life. We
also need convenience. So what better than bringing this experience
that combines the health and wellness need that whole service
being provided a one stop shop. So not only are
you getting an exercise and you know, the physical part
of things, but you're also getting our white talents and
so on, you know, the supple and so it actually
brings together also convenience, but addressing a whole the need
of health and wellness in sort of a consolidated convenient
package with the other you know, just brings to mind.
Another example, there is this shop called Altar. They are not,
you know, in this fancy, high end mass. They are
doing brilliantly and what do they have. You go to
that store and there they are not you know, they
don't have this demarcation with the snobbish brands and the
everyday brands. They have a very broad assortment. But then
you go to the back room. You can get your haircut,
your hair done, you can go and get your eyebrows downe.
So this they are not only catering sort of the
beauty makeup, but they're catering to this whole taking you know,
your appearance. That's what they are catering to. And you
are getting all your needs done in one place, and
that also reads loyal So that are this in person
community like interactions that are happening. You're talking to our
head dresser, you're talking to you your mautation, and of
course you're buying your cosmetics at the same time. So
I completely agree with you that these are the holistic
experiences in different domains of your life that will become
reality more and more.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
I think that that's such a meet the future moment
that I had from listening to you speaking, especially as
we look back historically, but that meet the future moment
of holistic experiences in different domains of your life. Because
at the end of the day, even with the advent
of groceries being able to be delivered door side, it's
in our cultural zeitgeist. Everybody knows you still got to
go to the grocery store to get the good stuff
for the vegetables and the produce. Nobody wants someone else
picking out and touching their food, and so culturally we
still have these different areas of our life where nothing
can replace that brick and mortar experience. But could you
elevate the grocery restore experience where you know, maybe you're
going to a cooking class or you're engaging with VR
or AR and just elevated so it's not just like
a giant food dump. Charmola Chatterjye. We have to leave
it there for now, but please come back on. She
is the go to guru of all things in the
future for shopping and the shopping experience, Senior Lecturer of
Marketing for MIT Sloan. Thank you so much, really appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Thank you so much. It was my real pleasure.