Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 56
Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 56
Inspiration from across the world for retail enthusiasts, e-commerce professionals, marketing lovers and technology fans. Welcome back! I summarized some great links again, I stumbled upon this week.
🔥Wow: NotebookLM from Google generated a podcast on this newsletter
Google has it’s labs section, a platform where Google experiments with new technologies and features. Now I just tried “NotebookLM”. I simply uploaded this newsletter in PDF format. I selected that I want a conversation on this newsletter with 2 persons. A podcast on it. And 5-10 minutes later I have a complete podcast on this newsletter! Amazing! I think it can be quite useful, for example to easily make an explanation podcast on an event you organise or in education, upload a document you want to learn and you get a complete story on it.
Details: https://labs.google/
🔮The future of E-commerce: 40 tips from Greg Eisenberg (part 1)
Greg Eisenberg wrote a list of 40 trends or predictions for E-commerce in the near future. I think it is a great list, so I share it here (first part this week, next week part 2). A very useful list to start your creative mind in terms of features and strategy.
Thanks: https://www.gregisenberg.com/
🏛️On Marketplaces: Beyond AI, here’s why brands need humanity in their ecommerce strategy
I found this article on Forbes with Jorrit Steinz from ChannelEngine the well known marketplace management tool from the Netherlands. I agree with Jorrit, building trust is essential and creativity makes a difference, and yes, AI can streamline things, But don’t forget the human touch—it’s what truly sets your brand apart.
Some citations from the interview:
Jorrit advises businesses “to keep on being creative, to truly add value, because that’s what’s reflected in reviews.” Amazon’s generative AI in user reviews only works if individuals feel connected to an exceptional product.
To increase sales, brands may be tempted to underprice products. Jorrit recommends setting a fair, not cheap, price and delivering “a quality product, not just a brand, but a unique proposition.”
Yes, Amazon can be super successful if you do it well. There's also 600 million products to compete against. If you go into another marketplace, maybe there's 10 million products. It's easier to win there.” Companies selling online need to be intentional about describing their products. Most of the time “a lot of search terms are not even associated with a brand.
Building quality products, a seamless user experience, and creating genuine connection points creates the foundation for success. Only then can ecommerce sellers, as Jorrit puts it, “be a big fish in many ponds.”
🔍Explore Brands Feature: be aware and improve your online reputation
The “Explore Brands” features is rolling out in more and more countries. Be sure you are aware of it as it will impact your (organic) sales, especially when your brand reputation has “challenges”. This “Explore Brands” feature is another reason to actively work on your online brand reputation.
And now we are at it, I have warned or indicated already a while ago category pages are taken over by Google -even on branded searches-. We see this now more and more:
So it’s important to give extra attention to your PDP’s (product detail pages).
🤖Letz. Ai : take a picture of a polo shirt and letz.ai puts it on (you)
Letz.AI is Amazing, it’s so amazing that you can just make lousy pictures of a polo shirt (as I did, you even see my shoes on the picture)
And then with a creative prompt on Letz.Ai you get this as a result: Isn’t that Amazing, imagine how this can be used in advertisments, product pages or just to see yourself in clothes you are thinking of buying. Just grab the product page pictures, create your own AI avatar, write a prompt an you see how the shirt would look at you.
This is the prompt I used:
In a dramatic 35mm film photograph with Kodak Portra 400 tones, an Caucasian model wearing @clothes<here you tag the AI model you created> stands majestically on a charcoal mountain under a dusky sky. The intricate patterns of the garment contrast against the dark, textured backdrop, with a subtle film grain effect adding depth and character to the scene. The model's poised and confident stance is illuminated by a soft, ambient light that highlights the richness of the fabric and the striking landscape. The entire composition evokes a sense of timeless elegance intertwined with rugged natural beauty.
Details: www.letz.ai
🌏How Generative AI is changing Asia Pacific
Many in the West don’t believe it, but if you have been to Asia Pacific, you know the people there are more tech savy, try new things faster and the area has much higher innovation rate. Besides that governments acutally help to innovate, for example Singapore.
The Asia-Pacific region is at the forefront of the generative AI revolution, yet its impact varies across different countries. China, India, and Southeast Asia have emerged as the epicenters of this wave, driving the innovation engine behind genAI adoption.
Government Initiatives Fueling AI Growth:
China’s AI Development Plan: Launched as part of the country’s broader national AI strategy, China’s AI plan emphasizes the role of generative AI in driving economic growth and technological innovation.
India’s National AI Strategy: India’s AI roadmap focuses on leveraging AI to drive economic development while ensuring the technology benefits a wide range of industries.
Singapore’s AI National Strategy: Singapore’s AI policy aims to position the city-state as a global AI hub, particularly in areas like financial services, healthcare, and marketing.
Now compare these inititives with the other article linked below (that I almost fully support and agree with, just this sentence I do not agree with“America innovates, China replicates, Europe regulates”. As China nowadays also innovates and a lot. Besides that in AI there, is also India playing a huge role and the Middle East is also (partly) ahead of Europe.
This time the world is turning its back on Europe. Meta is not releasing its multimodal Llama 3 AI model for video, audio and images in the EU, and has suspended its AI assistant, saying restrictions on the training of large language models makes it unworkable.
Apple Intelligence has suspended the European rollout of its generative AI tools, saying the EU’s Digital Markets Act compromises privacy by forcing them to let third parties into their systems.
Where did it all go wrong? Exorbitant energy costs are part of the story, as are the shallow pool of venture capital and the failure to create a genuine EU capital market (that was in London). But the rot goes back further and has much to do with the coddling of vested interests.
The sovereign states of East Asia are prospering nicely without locking themselves together in a tight union. One might legitimately ponder whether Europe would be healthier today if it had let nations be nations, and had never launched the European project along Monnet lines in the first place. The EU itself is the elemental problem.
Check out the Medium Article: https://medium.com/@achivx/how-generative-ai-is-changing-the-marketing-game-in-the-asia-pacific-region-6210de71e6d3
Archive.is link: http://archive.today/JJ5Xt
EU tech in decline: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/eu-elites-despair-over-europe-125343533.html
🇺🇸 Stripe founder John Collison explains his product principle of “talking up to the user”
Be aware of consumer type thinking in B2B
Explain to a very busy business owner why stripe will solve kind of specific need.
Stripe believes in treating business owners with respect, not using flashy or manipulative marketing. Instead of pushing catchy slogans, we focus on understanding real user needs and clearly explaining how our product can help, keeping the connection personal and genuine.
Great video, I agree with it. The problem with many organisations is that they might listen to the customer but they do not follow up on it due to various (bureacratic) reasons. That seems to be different at Stripe.
Thank you for reading,