Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 144

Goodmorning everyone! Another edition of my newsletter on everything I find interesting. Mostly on Global Marketing & Retail. Go check out this edition.

📲Mobile App Trends Report 2026

Great mapping and metric, take a look in the report for details

Franna released it’s annual mobile trends report 2026. I was invited to the event but unfortunately I couldn’t go that day.
I think the link below gives direct access, it’s an interactive page. Worth a scroll/browse for digital marketers but especially for us product owners.

Most apps are used. Few are loved. 85 percent of the apps in this study carry a negative recommendation score, even as users open them every day. Habit and default keep them installed. Preference does not.

What separates the products users would actually miss from the rest comes down to four things:

• Whether the product finishes the job the user came for

• Whether it feels good to use

• Whether it works without breaking

• Whether the user trusts it

In this study, 47 percent of apps do not personalize the experience. A returning user notices when the product opens as if for the first time.

This citation I think we have to work with, think about and act upon:

The question is which apps users will still want on their phone in twelve months, and which they will let an assistant replace.

You know already my opinion, I wrote before on that. I think apps can add value by “building around moments” and focusing on outcomes rather then another “feature”. That should be the goal of every product team.

In the report they also write about the “App Pulse Score” , a metric I didn’t know but a very strong and powerful metric in my opinion. Think about how your app would perform on this pulse score, I am sure you can think of improvements.

Install rate measures distribution, habit, and category demand. The App Pulse Score measures the quality of the experience once users are inside. They sort the market into four positions at the median install rate and median App Pulse Score. Each position carries a different defensibility and a different first move.
Decide whether your next move is distribution, experience quality, or product depth.

Do check the report, it has much more valubale insights and metrics.

Details: https://framna.com/mobile-app-trends-report-2026

🇳🇱 Omoda’s approach with AI generated content

Inclusive picture of a handicapped woman or something else😅?

I like Omoda. I had never heard of the brand, until one day at a congress in Portugal years ago, where I was invited, I met the founder. Later in the shopping tomorrow expert group, where I was active, I again got attracted to Omoda for another reason😊. From that role I also visited the office all the way in Zierikzee (far away).
Always seemed like a very nice company to work for, down to earth people. Had a good feeling about it.
The other day they placed this statement below on LinkedIN. Nice because it shows a different way of dealing with AI generated images, and that’s why it’s worth a share check it out. Here’s the statement translated in English:

just do it! even if there’s a chance it sometimes goes wrong. as long as you learn fast…

we regularly get pointed to bloopers in our product content. three legs, feet the wrong way round, a floating table. same today, with the image below of one of our outfits going somewhat viral.

for the past few months we’ve been bringing our entire collection to life by showing all outfits in a more realistic setting, outside the studio. we want to inspire our customers even more. and of course AI helps us with that. but with almost 40,000 looks, that still causes — despite a lot of testing, development work, and human checks — the occasional blooper. like today. and to be honest — i’m happy with it! because it shows that we — despite our scale — dare to try. and that helps us innovate faster and ultimately deliver an even more personalised customer experience. just look at the fantastic results below.

behind me hangs a quote from reid hoffman: “if you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you launched too late…” because in today’s world, innovation is crucial, and if we always chase perfection first, we fall behind. even as you grow bigger, this stays essential just do it.

spot any more bloopers? let us know i’ve had a dedicated email address set up for it today: bloopers@omoda.nl

So they actually have an e-mail adress where you can send in mistakes by AI generated content. Great idea for using the community (Omoda superusers) to improve AI outcomes, essentially reinforcement learning from human feedback, I guess, but done publicly. By doing so also getting visibility and showing innovative leadership in this process. I like it!
I guess they can even use this -when they have collected enough nice examples of AI failures- for PR purposes.

When reading through the comments on this post, I enjoyed reading this comment as well:

"If you have everything under control, you're going too slow." 🚀 🚀

Something to remember.

Via Paco! Thanks Paco!

🇺🇸 Target trailblazes AI integration check this out they are at all large LLM’s now

Target is a trailblazer in AI and again they show it:

Target is the first mass retailer with shopping experiences live across three leading AI platforms Google Search (including AI Mode) and Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT

• AI-driven traffic to Target surged 2,000% in Q1 year-over-year compared to roughly 400% growth for retail sites overall.

• As an early Microsoft Copilot launch partner, Target guests can browse, link their Target Circle loyalty account, and check out including exclusive discounts and 5% savings with the Target Circle Card without leaving the Copilot chat.

• The Target app in ChatGPT goes furthest supporting multi-item baskets, fresh food, and same-day fulfillment options including Drive Up, Order Pickup, and shipping, all within a single session.

• Target Circle members retain their benefits and rewards across all three platforms loyalty is embedded into the agentic checkout experience.

So I think, take this as an example of a possible direction things go. As mentioned earlier in this newsletter: if this trend continues it will impact app (and web) traffic and usage.
So I think something to seriously consider: focus on your own channels like app and web on these things:

• moments. (already wrote about this in many earlier newsletters)

• real outcomes. (already wrote about this in many earlier newsletters)

• loyalty as identity the programme may travel to AI platforms, but home base is your app where you do extra and built the relationship.

• embed humans in the journeys in your own channels, I strongly believe in this as well.

At least that’s how I am currently thinking.

See the details and videos of all three platforms via the link from target below:

https://corporate.target.com/press/fact-sheet/2026/06/conversational-ai

🇳🇱 Kega Unlocked: Bike Totaal on their AI journey

Kega Unlocked Bike Totaal

I was at an event called Kega Unlocked in the Netherlands. It was fun, great location near Utrecht, but still in the country side. Great beers as well😉 and I think they put me on a picture maybe 100 times, no idea why! 😅 So far pictures were not yet shared.
One of the presenters was Bike Totaal, a SME on their AI journey. They shared a look at how they are moving beyond the hype to real-world applications across their 170 franchise stores. I liked it: they just do and try things! A short summary based on the presentation, some takeouts.

• Scaling without headcount: Their primary goal is to grow to 250 stores without a proportional increase in central staff by using AI to offer more services to franchisees (like automated HR or accounting support) and making current operations more scalable.

• The "Pioneer Club": To foster an internal culture of innovation, they formed a "Pioneer Club" where employees from different departments meet monthly to brainstorm and build AI-driven solutions. Also they have an “AI automation scan” for departments, that one I think is also nice, didn’t think of that before.

• Process first, automation second: They emphasize that before any automation occurs, they must map the process and ensure it is still relevant; they believe in questioning the necessity of a task before applying technology to it. Well make sense, right?

• Defining levels of automation: The organisation distinguishes between three levels: simple logic (which handles 90% of cases), logic enhanced with a "dash of AI" (such as review responses), and full-purpose AI agents.

• Rapid product enrichment: To get products online faster than competitors, they use AI to extract specifications and features from supplier images and portals, reducing manual data entry and getting of course SEO and visibility advantage.

• Instant recruitment support: AI agents help franchisees by rewriting base job descriptions for roles like bicycle mechanics and automatically populating the CMS, allowing vacancies to go live immediately. Before this took a longer time it were often lower prio tasks.

• Smart review management: Positive reviews (4 stars and above) receive AI-generated responses that are monitored daily. For negative reviews, the system automatically alerts the store owner and the retail manager if the issue isn't addressed within 48 hours. Now at my current job we also do this but only partly not with the store manager alerts and also less extensive review reply’s. This is a step further and very well possible now, will see if I can get something like that done as well.

• Privacy-centric tech stack: They are experimenting with running local LLMs to strip sensitive personal information (PII) from support tickets before sending the anonymised data to more powerful cloud models for analysis. Also very nice it makes it possible to for example strip customer service tickets from personal details and then analyze it f.e. by claude.

• Low-code integration: They rely on n8n for workflow automation, which allows them to connect different tools like Excel and ticket systems through visual logic "blocks". However they now use Claude to get the n8n workflows.

What I personally also liked was the use case with video’s on PDP’s.
They are prototyping the creation of product videos generated directly from product data feeds. While they may remove the AI-generated "presenter" for a more natural feel (they were not sure yet, I would test it, I liked it even though it was AI generated), the goal is to provide high-quality visual content for hundreds of products at scale. In the sample they showed they took extra care to show a bike including some “dust” for example so it looks really well and they explain all features of the bike.

I think it’s easy to measure success and it adds value for the viewers.
Bike Totaal a great example on how to approach AI for SME’s!

Thanks to Kega for organising this event and very smartly connect it with shopping today’s expertgroup.

🛒 If you are on shopify, you are everywhere

That would be a great tagline! Look how shopify integrated agentic AI for their customers. Really cool they give so much insights in one console, making it very very easy for sellers to optimize.

"Orders, sales, and conversions from ChatGPT, Copilot, AI Mode in Google Search, the Gemini app, and Shop are all in one view, so you know which channels are growing and where to focus."

Not only something that might convince you to move to shopify but also something you should keep in mind if Shopify shops are among your competitors, I think.

Details in the shopify press release

🐊 Crocs is experimenting with Micro drama’s

Remember I wrote about “mini drama’s”? All the way near when I started this newsletter, edition 34:⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

➡️➡️ Now Crocs, is starting to experiment with it in the West appearantly. Crossborderalex spotted the trend early (thanks to Ashley).

It’s all developed, produced and delivered in less then 4 weeks! Love the speed! If you're a brand planning content for 2027, maybe this format is something to consider to pilot with.

Rather than interrupting audiences with ads, brands are experimenting with becoming part of the entertainment experience. In this model, the story attracts attention, the characters build engagement, and commerce happens naturally inside the content.

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