Ep. 13 - Trust vs. Sales: The New Retail Rule with Amanda Danish-Wineland

What if smarter shopping isn’t about zero friction, but the right friction? We sit down with Amanda Danish-Wineland, SVP of Strategic Planning at Mars United, to unpack how AI and shopper psychology can actually make commerce feel more human. From Super Bowl ads that nailed the brief to the hidden driver of decision-making; risk. We trace the path from choice overload to real confidence, and why co-creating with agents beats handing over the keys.

We start with the timeless why behind purchases; discovery, security, identity, and reveal how the changing how across channels rewires expectations. Amanda breaks down the power of micro frictions: small, intentional checkpoints that signal care, reduce regret, and keep control with the shopper. We explore where automation helps (repeat decisions, clear constraints) and where it hurts (assumptions, opaque pushes), then dive into trust: transparent trade-offs, clear sources, and a conversational advisor tone that explains the “why” behind each recommendation.

For brands and retailers, this is a call to move beyond rank-chasing. Performance still matters, but trust compounds. We map a shopper-first approach: define who you truly serve, articulate the job your product does, and engineer backward so agents can recommend for the person, not the push. We also draw a sharp line between strategy and planning, evidence framing versus creative leverage, and show how AI is a force multiplier: cleaning data, accelerating synthesis, and even arguing with our assumptions so humans can push into sharper insights and braver ideas.

If you care about agentic commerce, retail media, or just making buying easier without losing agency, this conversation is a field guide. Hit play, then tell us: where do you want advice, and where do you want full control? Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a quick review to help more curious listeners find the show.

Transcript

Welcome And Danish’s Backstory

SPEAKER_01 0:08

All right, what's up, Party People? BV here, and welcome to another edition of Retail Media Vibes a doing business and Betonville podcast. I'm excited today to have my guest, Amanda Weineland from Mars United Agency. And so uh Amanda and I have been friends for quite a long time, actually. And I was scrolling through LinkedIn and I was inspired by an article that Amanda wrote that I thought was really timely. And it's a great blend of humanity and psychology, along with AI and a lot of other things uh mixed in, like shopping and consumer behavior. And it was like, wow, this really summarized a lot of things that I had been thinking about and having the opportunity to know Amanda and have her come on the on the podcast. So I want to you know welcome Amanda.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

How are you? I'm great, great, happy to be here. Yeah, well, it's great to great to have you. Great to great to have you on the show. And you know, I've known you for around 13-ish years, right? And so, and when I met you, you were known as Danish because you were Amanda Danish at the time. Yes. Right. So um, so in my mind, you're Danish. Always. I understand some people still call you Danish, even though you are Amanda Wineland. Um, and that is uh your your uh name on the article, right? And so is it okay if I call you Danish?

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Please do.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

All right, yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

In the professional world, I will always say Danish.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

It's kind of like your brand, right? So Danish is like your brand, like BV is my brand, Danish is your brand. So I I totally get it. So as I was talking about, we're we uh I saw an article that you wrote was harmonizing AI and shopper psychology to create meaningful comp uh meaningful commerce. So absolutely the longest title I've I I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

Absolutely. Yeah, it's really designed to grab you and suck you in.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah, yeah. So we're gonna jump into that article. So I absolutely can't wait to dive into it. But I I want to, you know, at least start off with letting everyone know the the magic of of Danish and you know how you came to the role that you have today and a little bit about your backstory.

SPEAKER_03 2:15

In a way, I sort of fell into the role that I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, I love your story because I know this was not how you started your career.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

This is not what I thought I would do. I didn't know this existed at all. I started off thinking I was going to be a family and marital counselor. Okay. So I got my undergrad in psychology. Um, like many college students, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna take a little bit of time before I go and get my doctorate. So I took a little bit of a time off from school where I went and I was a neuropsychometrist for a what?

SPEAKER_01 2:49

A clinical neuropsychometrist. I don't even know what that means. You just said foreign word.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

It sounds so fancy, doesn't it? It just means I did neuropsychology testing.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Okay, right? So like I would put electrodes on myself, and every time I got a question wrong, you would zap me. Okay, good. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_03 3:07

Or other things. But I did that for a little while. Then I went and I was a case manager and counselor for a drug treatment court program.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Oh, wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 3:19

Yep. So I worked with uh felon drug addicts and alcoholics. Just turned out I am not cut out for that world. Really? I'm a little too empathetic, took it on, took it home with me. So I quit my job. You could do that back then, and quit my job and went and I was a temp. And I was placed at an ad agency called Thompson Murray.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Oh, Thomson Murray. That one sounds familiar. Tell me more about Thompson Murray.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Thompson Murray uh was Andy Murray's first agency.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Okay. And sounds like he's done a few things.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

He's done a couple things in his space. Okay. All right, good. Yeah. And I was a um, I was an executive assistant there.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

So you went from psychology, essentially, and into an ex well, I guess an executive assistant is almost like playing psychologist.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

You know, it took a lot of mental fortitude.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

I do. It did.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

It did. Um, I was also a terrible executive assistant, I'll tell you that. Um, but being there, I got introduced to a gentleman, uh, Dr. Chris Gray.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

It was a company called The Bicologist now. But uh I went up to him and he said that he was the uh like the vice president of Shopper Psychology or something. And I, being me, laughed out loud. And I said, that's not a job.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

That is not a job.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

I'm sure that went over well.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

He laughed too.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

And then it turns out that we both had the psychology background. We both worked um in some of the same spaces. And so I started just hounding him to learn and understand what was going on. Um, and eventually he hired me into that department. And um, we became Saatchi at SatyX and worked my way up from temp assistant to, I think when I left Saatchi X, I was a VP and then when Shopper Strategy.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yeah. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

And I went and joined uh Twin Oaks and the Mars agency.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Uh, where I'm SVP of strategic planning now.

Super Bowl Ads Through A Strategist’s Lens

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, it's quite cool. Yeah. Well, I mean, a great story though, right? Because I think we all have our pathways to get to where we are. And, you know, sometimes those stories are are inspiring because, you know, we all kind of meander sometimes through there's very few people have that straight line career path. And, you know, it takes us a little while to get where we really want to be, and to be honest, where we probably should be, right? And so, and that was, you know, when I came into Satchi X, like in 2012, uh rolling into 2013, you know, I was being exposed to shopper marketing for the first time. And, you know, learning about, you know, shopper psychology, shopper motivation, all those things were so was so fascinating to me. It's not an area that I'm you know adept at in any way, but I always thought like there's been always this fascination for me about looking at how someone does something. And I think it goes back for me. I used to work at Nokia, and when I was at Nokia, I used to watch people, how they use their phones, right? And I obviously I've seen an evolution of that, and it's always been something that's been been interesting to me. But even, you know, coming over to Sachi and thinking of talking about shopper, you know, shopper uh behavior, shopper psychology, motivations, all that was really interesting to me to get to see that side of it because I think those are areas that people don't really think about, right? I think they just because people just react. Like if I want to go buy something, I just go buy something. We don't analyze why we want what we want typically and what we don't plan out the processes that we're gonna take before we make a decision, technically, right? We we react. And so there is, but there are motivations and psychology around that that causes us to have those different steps. So, you know, I I was fascinated and learned a lot about that. And I've always had that in the back of my mind, even though it hasn't always been the you know the forefront of of my career and the and the jobs that I've done. So uh it's it's it's great to hear hear about your your journey there. So, you know, just a couple little icebreakers and we'll start to uh unp unpack the article a bit. But you know, if you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would be they could be an alternate universe type of role for you?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

So people who know me know that I actually pick up a different crafting hobby every year or two.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Um, so I would be like professional craft learner.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Let's say that's that's right, that's an amazing job.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

I do everything from jewelry making to cross stitch to cards and stickers to you know calligraphy and uh you know calligraphy. Paperwork here and there.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Cool. So you'd want to figure out something that you could just do that full time.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

I just want to make cool stuff on the through.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

It's almost like almost art, right? Artists, you know, crap, you know, creativity and all that. It's it's really I don't think anybody's said that so far. So that's good. Um, so we just had the biggest sporting event in the world, right? I I guess maybe World Cup competes with that in some way or shape or form, but we just had the Super Bowl or the big game. The big game, yeah. Yes, I may have to cut that Super Bowl part out. But we just had the big game. So there were some commercials, right? And so I'm sure you look at the commercials with a different lens than probably the the common person people are looking at for entertainment engagement. You're probably looking at it, you know, probably from a different, as I said, a different lens. What were some of the most memorable commercials for you?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

So you say I look at it through different lenses. Absolutely true because I actually have three that you know, people have been asking this question, right? So the first one for sheer entertainment value was Duncan.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Okay, yes. That that was actually my number one as well.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Because of my age, I all these 90s stars in the same place, throwing out the the phrases that I remember from all the shows, had to love it. Then there was when it caught me in the feels, like I got a little a little emotional with Lady Gaga and uh Rocket Mortgage with the um please won't you be my neighbor.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

The Mr. Rogers of Yeah, yeah, being a better neighbor to people. It it was very timely.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 9:41

And then there was one that based on my job as a strategist, I thought it nailed the brief.

SPEAKER_02 9:49

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Like I could see what the brief was. And that was the um Novartis commercial, relax your tight end.

SPEAKER_02 9:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:58

They knew their audience, they knew the barrier, right? They attacked it in a way that felt relatable. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah. I loved it. I actually I'm glad you brought that up because that's actually a game I like to play. And so being in the space that I've been in for as long as I have, like I don't pay to not get ads, right? So I always make sure that I like to I like to see ads, I like to see what's happening. But I do often consider ads and look at them and say, okay, what did uh what was the brief? What what was am I the target shopper for this or the target audience for this? And you know, what are they trying? So I always play that game. So you know it's interesting to see that you you do you did that as as well. I think one for me, just for pure engagement standpoint, which was a little with a little bit of surprise at the end, was the karaoke coinbase ad where you know uh what it did the Backstreet Boys uh karaoke because it got people like people were singing, right? People were engaging, nobody knew what it was, right? And obviously it's and it's not a lot of tech that they put into their ad, like you know, it was just it's a very simple ad, and then it's Coinbase at the end, and everybody's like, ooh, Coinbase, but it it was it got people engaged, right? And engagement is so important, especially in in in advertising today, that I think that it it whether it delivered on what they were expecting to deliver on, that's up to them. But I do think from a memorable uh component and getting people to engage, I thought that one was really good as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Yeah, I think that's um that's one of the other things that I'm always trying to figure out is what is their actual KPI for a big game commercial.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Oh, right, right.

Setting Up The AI And Shopper Psychology Article

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Because uh how many times have you seen one of those commercials later on talked about how great it was, but no one can remember what the brand was.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

You got to figure out what your goal is.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Well, all right, let's let's get into that article you wrote. Um I let you know, let's just set up the article. I know, excuse me, I know our our audience hasn't listened or have probably many of them have not read of it, read it, some have, but really help me understand like the motivation and the thought behind the article that you wrote and and or around that.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

Yeah, I mean, you uh you've known me for a long time. I am not a prolific writer. Okay, right? I just don't I don't do that often.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

I mean, you've written me some emails.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

That was that was for cause. Um but uh it was it was just on my mind because there are so many people in my space, in the strategy and planning space, that are actually very against all of the AI use and are very hesitant about it. And it's the first time that a tech innovation has threatened the thought work space, and there are all these opinions about it and all these feelings about it. And I started thinking about agentic commerce as you do on a weekend.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And I think about it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

So it's true, but I started thinking about it and I was like, what an amazing opportunity for strategy and for us as marketers to be able to speak to human beings at a level that we've never been able to before. But at the same time, there is there's a lot of um risk within it that it could go wrong really easily. It could either be the most fantastic thing for shoppers ever, or it could fail miserably.

Why We Shop: Motives That Don’t Change

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right. Yeah. So I I I agree with, and there's so many dynamics that are occurring in this space right now. Um, you know, AI is disrupting everything. You know, the the brands that we we engage with are always asking about AI shopping and and all of the parts of that that, you know, and they're trying to get ahead of it, right? They're trying to figure out how do I win. And I think the playbook is obviously still being written, and so it's hard to you know predict exactly how it's gonna go. But there is a lot of conversation about in the space. And I think there's probably maybe even too much focus in that area, just because, again, the playbook hasn't been written. And so there's there's still some things that need to be cited, decided. But you know, when you think about shopping behavior, right, and you have this disruption to shopping behavior, I think there's some things about shopping behavior that I think the audience would love to hear about. What what how do we how do we how should we think about shopping behavior in this new world of of these this multiple channel shopping opportunities, this omnichannel shopping opportunities that we have uh uh before us, right? So it's that we have a whole lot of that now that we can we can shop in a lot of different ways, and AI is just one of those. So, what are some principles around that?

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Yeah, so there are a couple of things within that. The um the one thing that I'll say from the very beginning is that the why of us shopping hasn't changed much. Yeah, all about those emotional needs, whether we're looking for discovery or novelty or security or to display our values, it's the how that has changed. Yes. Right. So it's how do we express that? How do we begin to um achieve those goals that we have and satisfy those emotional needs? Uh and what we have to think about is people go to different channels for different purposes. They go to different retailers for different purposes. So think about buying a sweatshirt. If I go to Walmart versus Target versus anthropology, I have a different experience in mind. I have a different need I'm trying to fulfill and different criteria that I'm assessing the entire experience. I guess just like if I am shopping in person versus digital versus agentic, any of those different ways, I have different expectations that will cause me to be satisfied or dissatisfied with the experience. And that satisfaction or dissatisfaction is what is what determines whether I'm gonna come back and whether I want to spend more money with it.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah. So, you know, how do you see how shoppers really make those decisions now when we have all of this uh all this technology to make these decisions in a lot of different ways?

SPEAKER_03 16:32

So they're what they're doing is they're building their confidence in different ways.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

And confidence is what you need to make a decision. You have to feel like you've gotten enough information, that you've seen enough options. And that's something that has changed a lot in the past few decades. Because you know, if you think about originally shopping, if you wanted to buy meat, you went to the butcher. You saw the case, they have this, you picked what they had. Um now you have uh different retailers that you can get it from.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:10

You have individual butchers, you have any type of choice, you can get it online, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:15

You have an e-commerce channel.

SPEAKER_03 17:16

You can buy it on, you can have it shipped to you from Alaska. Yeah, right. What that does is it creates this uh wealth of information and considerations, and your cognitive load is just getting filled and filled and filled and filled. And so the confidence is harder to achieve because you keep having one more thing to consider and another thing to consider. And so you you end up not quite sure if you got the best thing. So you're like, well, maybe next time I'll try something else because I don't feel like maybe this was exactly it. So there's a lot of shifting that happens and your decision changes more frequently.

Confidence, Choice Overload, And Risk

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, it's like, you know, you have information overwhelm is something I've I've talked about with a lot of people. And, you know, now it feels like you have even more information. And so, you know, you know, obviously tech is there to hopefully distill that and make that that decision-making process easier, right? And so, you know, I know you and I have talked a little bit about like there are different shopping occasions, different moments and different ways that that people shop there, you know, high engagement versus lower engagement types of uh of shopping. And what what really motivates that behavior? Like why why would someone spend less time shopping for toilet paper than a TV, for example? Or or or or do more research for that matter?

SPEAKER_03 18:47

Yeah, the uh there are a couple different elements to it. The first is simple interest, right? What am I interested in versus not? But the bigger criteria is risk. Okay. So what is the risk of me getting this wrong?

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Right. Interesting. Right?

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Yeah. So you mentioned toilet paper. What's the risk of buying the toilet paper that you uh a few people in the household become irritated? Literally, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

So that's not a huge deal.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

You're gonna get past that. But what is the risk if you purchased the wrong skincare product?

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

You might completely break out and you have to go out looking like that. That's social risk, in addition. Um, so it's it's your appearance. So you're probably gonna do a little bit more research, a little bit more fact-finding if you're looking at skincare. Um, also, if you think about financial risk. So if you're gonna go buy a car, if you are going to um purchase electronics, you're usually putting in a lot more time and effort to make sure that you feel confident about that. And even things that are, you know, my self-perception, things that are important to me, my values. Um, so if I am the type of person who, so if I am a someone who is looked at as high tech, right? Everyone comes to me to ask my opinion for what should I have in my phone or an Android BB. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Big question. Hot topic. Hot take, hot take. And um then I'm gonna put a heck of a lot more uh effort into what I'm purchasing and what decision I'm making.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

So in in your article, you you talk a lot about you know the distinction between helping shoppers and deciding for shoppers, right? So, you know, I almost feel like you know, there are modes that will people will unconsciously go into when they're going through that process or shopping process with uh with an AI. You know, where do you see shoppers where they really want control, right? Because there's this whole idea like the AI will do the shopping for you, right? Without with very little human interaction. And then there's the other part of it where you're using AI to make the decision, which kind of related to the you know, the last thing we were just talking about. So, you know, what where where do shoppers really want that control? How do they how do you think they are perceiving that?

SPEAKER_03 21:30

So I think at its core, shoppers need all the control.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:36

Okay, right. It's just how that comes to life. So um the idea of having an agent do things on your behalf, I need to feel like I've controlled as much as I possibly can up until that moment that they are going to go and do something for me.

SPEAKER_04 21:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

And so people are gonna feel a lot more comfortable. With an agent repeating a decision they've already made. So glorified subscription service.

Control vs. Automation: Co‑Creation With Agents

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah, yeah. We were talking about talking about that because it's it's interesting because in order to get something when it runs out, there has to be still some sort of stimulus, right? So if you have something in your fridge and you're running out of milk, the fridge has to either you have to communicate to the to the agent in order to get that replenished, or there has to be some sort of sensor that detects that, which you know, most people are not going to have a smart fridge that that does that. Um probably less than 1% of the total households would have that. So I mean, what are you doing? Are you doing another dash button on the refrigerator and when the milk goes out, you press the button? Well, that's again, that's subscription, right? So that's I don't know if that's really solving a problem, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yeah, it absolutely is not solving the problem. Um, and which is why you don't see those buttons anymore. Right. Right. Um, the what what was wrong about that concept was the idea of removing every bit of friction possible from a shopping trip. Some friction is good, right? Some friction is necessary.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_03 23:19

I mean, absolutely necessary. I feel very strongly about this.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:23

Um, a little bit of friction. I think I refer to it as you know, micro frictions in my article. There are it signals something, it signals effort, it signals investment, and it signals this idea of um you get me, right? You understand me because you're you're asking me to invest in an area that I care about. So if you know that I as an agent that I am on a discovery shopping trip, and so me as an individual, when I'm on a discovery mission, I'm a researcher, right? I want to know specs. I want to know all the facts about it. I want to know all the things, the data points. Whereas someone else, when they're in discovery mode, might be more about what is the social impact of this, what is the uh corporate responsibility statements behind the company that makes this, or someone else might be really checking on the social aspect of it in terms of what are other people saying?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

What are people like semantics or sentiment? Yeah, sentiment.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

Exactly. So it uh it varies by person, even when you're in a certain mode.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:44

So if I have an agent that knows me and can understand the signals that I'm giving it when I'm asking certain questions, then they're checking on the mission.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Right? What is my actual mission? And then it's about the context of that mission. So am I looking for novelty? Am I looking for confidence? Am I completing a ritual? Right. So finding a gift. Uh, one of my best friends has a birthday coming up. And if I'm looking for a gift for her, I'm in a much different headspace than when I'm trying to replenish my dishwasher detergent.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Um, and I need something different, need a different response. And you get the sense of um the effort that is being put in by the agent as well as the effort being put in by me. And it it's bringing that element of humanity into the transaction. And that builds confidence in me. Right. That makes me feel like you're actually understanding. And like in your milk example, humans love to feel unique. And um, we are one of a kind. I am perfectly unique just like everybody else, right? Um, and with milk replenishment, I don't want my fridge to go and just reorder the exact same milk I had last time. I want the option.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

You want to try new milk?

SPEAKER_03 26:21

I might want to try new milk this time. You don't know me.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

Right?

SPEAKER_01 26:24

Yeah. Or maybe something has changed with your diet. Maybe now you've discovered your lactose intolerant.

unknown 26:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

And so even though I personally might buy the exact same, and I do the exact same fat-free fair life milk every single time I go to the store, I still want the option to change my mind. Don't tell me what to do.

unknown 26:47

Right.

Discovery, Replenishment, And Good Friction

SPEAKER_01 26:48

I always think that there's this. I mean, you brought up something that's really interesting because there it feels like there are products that you buy consistently that you buy the same brand, but then there are other products that you will buy other flavors or other brands. Like, you know, it's like it's kind of a mix of you know, our shopping list. They're like, I'm gonna get the same same type of sliced cheese every single time, but when it comes to shredded cheese, I'm gonna do fiesta, I'm gonna do, you know, a Kobe Jack mix or what, right? So there's there it's interesting, right? And so you've got now you have these agents that are trying to balance the replenishment with the discovery, right? So help me discover a new flavor of shredded cheese as an example, right? And so it is, it is where does that where does that information come from, right? How does that how does the AI make the decision on what to recommend versus not, you know, or or um when it when you are asking it uh what to buy?

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Right. So that's that's what I find so interesting. Yeah, yeah, because the retailers and the brands, that's what they want to know is how do I make sure that my product, my retailer, my site is the one being recommended.

SPEAKER_02 28:09

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

But as a shopper, they want to know that what is being recommended is right for them, right? That it's not a push, it's not a sale.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Right. Yes. And that's when you get into this advertising component that makes it a little bit weird too.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

So from the shopper viewpoint, what I want is um is not automation, but co-creation. I want a conversation. I want to go back and forth a little bit with this agent. So it might say, hey, I know that you um typically buy uh organic produce and meat. How do you feel about that within your beauty products?

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Right.

unknown 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

How do you feel about that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

And I'll be like, you know what? Good question. I really don't care. I have other priorities when it comes to my hair styling products, right? And so it'll say, Great, what are those priorities? And I'll say, you know, yeah, I want something specifically for curly hair. I want something that is um not going to be super expensive. And they'll say, I'm gonna call this out for you. Something you might not have thought of is that a lot of times when something is specific to a hair texture, it costs a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Are you okay with that?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

So it's more like an advisor.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

Exactly. It's advisory because that signals to me that you're doing what's right for me. Um, rather than saying you have curly hair, great. Here are three different shampoos that you should use for curly hair. I'm like, you don't know whether I have textured hair, whether I have coily hair, whether I have wavy hair, whether you didn't ask me any of those things. You just automatically recommended a product. That tells me you're trying to sell those products to me.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting too, because I think everybody's trying to game, call a game the system, right? They to your point earlier of they want to make sure that their product is the one recommended. And so everybody's trying to crack, crack the code, right? So is it, you know, um references from reputable publishers? Is it Reddit feeds? Is it um the ratings and reviews? You know, you go through ratings and reviews a lot of times, like there's some in there that are good, some of them that are not good, but the product could still be good, right? So it's like, how do you, you know, all that stuff being weighted in order to make that recommendation? And I know one thing that you know was a big part of your article was about trust, right? So when you don't really understand where the sources are from and are coming from, how do you have trust? Like how how do you see the sourcing, the identification of the information, all that stuff to to build that trust that I think shoppers need.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

So the trust comes from that co-creation. It comes from the um proving of itself to the end user, to the shopper.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:23

Uh one really interesting thing about humans is that we expect human error and we're totally cool with it. Yeah, we have no problem whatsoever.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Right.

Trust Signals And Transparent Recommendations

SPEAKER_03 31:33

But in some cases, AI is very different because we are told constantly that AI is smarter than us, that it learns faster than us, that it can come up with things we can't. And as humans, especially as Americans, we're like, mm-mm. If you're gonna say that, you better prove it. Right. We are primed to look for mistakes. And when it comes to mistakes in AI, you make one and I'm done with you for the majority of people.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

It's not as smart as it thought it was. See?

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's yeah, I can I can see that. And that's one of the things I think you know, as people use it and their experiences will really determine what the future future of adoption might be. You know, it's it's just funny because yeah, I mean, AI hallucinates. I I I I don't hallucinate, but I make a mistake, right? So you it's it is interesting the terminology that actually um gets gets used. So um, you know, when it comes to like establishing trust with an AI uh for a brand, let's say, like what are some of those things that you think are are at least at this stage in the game, are are is good practice to help the AI understand it better so that they can make you know a trustworthy recommendation to that user?

SPEAKER_03 33:05

I think one of the things that brands and marketers can do is stop focusing on the uh the agent itself, start focusing on the end user. So instead of saying, how can my brand get recommended more frequently, right? Start thinking about who is my brand best suited for.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:27

What is the type of shopper? Is it people who are excited about you know discovering something new? Is it someone who's looking for stability? Is it someone who wants to celebrate? Start looking at those things about your shopper and then engineer backwards.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah. So I think we've gotten into this performance mindset, right? So it's it's not about the art of marketing and and and supporting, you know, the brand and the product. It's it's more like, how do I rank the highest? It's it's about numbers, not about kind of the the things that you're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

Absolutely. And you know, one of the one of the things that we've chatted about before is like what would be different if uh marketers were had to evaluate and measure trust versus you know, sales. Right. And you know, I thought a lot about that. And it's it's about they would start thinking more about the long term. They would start thinking more about what do I have to do to get this person to have a relationship with my brand.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

Um, to trust me not only for this purchase, but when they're ready to make a different purchase, they're gonna come back to me.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

And you can start to create that by having agents that ensure that the the uh characteristics of your brand that meet their needs are gonna match up, that they're going to be pulling that out. Um, and asking those questions that will actually guide someone to say, that's actually exactly what I'm doing. And I never would have thought of that because they're just looking for relief of that cognitive load, right? And increasing the confidence because they can't evaluate every single product that's out there. But if I have an AI agent that can do that for me, they're gonna go out and figure out comparing hundreds of products.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Yeah, they can process things so quickly, right? And and large data sets, right? And so to get there.

SPEAKER_03 35:42

But they're gonna do that based on my criteria.

Shift From Performance To Long‑Term Trust

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Right. Yeah. So there's that level of personalization that is absolutely it has to know know you. And so there has to be that context provided by those interactions between you and the AI in order to learn who you are, or you give it that information when it when you're engaging with it in order to understand that. I I love your I love your thought process there on on the trust versus sales, because I mean you're absolutely right. But the challenge is that's a very heady, very almost long tail kind of vision. But in the meantime, people got to move product, right? And so it's like, but I do think that the the scale has tipped so far towards, again, like I said, performance that which is sales, right? Ultimately is sales, that it's like, you know, I gotta get, I gotta be number one, I gotta be on the front page, I've got to, you know, these keywords, you know, all of these things, and it's so heavy on that side that I think some of those those longer tail strategies are not prioritized in this in the same way because you don't see the immediate result, right? And I think that I think that's you know, the the space that we're in, honestly, right now, you know, and I think that's that's spilling over into this AI-led commerce that we're we're seeing today is it's just about I I just want my product to be there. And it's and what is really interesting too is when now you start to look at it from a a brand level versus a customer team level, right? So depending on where you are and what agency you're how you're engaging with a brand, the priorities are going to be different, right? So, you know, if you're working with the Walmart customer team, they want a Walmart, you know, a Walmart listing to be there when that shopper is looking for something. When if but if you're serving the brand, maybe they don't care what retailer. Maybe there's you know, there's probably some benefits to certain retailers, right? So their strategy is a little bit different. So unifying those strategies between the brand and retailer, because like these AI platforms are not necessarily, while they they're making partnerships with certain retailers, they're not full, they're they're somewhat agnostic, not again, not completely agnostic, but I would say in the future they will be pretty agnostic.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

They should be.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Yeah, right. And it's so it's just this weird space that that we're in um when it comes comes to that. And again, everybody's trying to, well, what's the playbook? What's the playbook? Because they're just we're everybody's been trained on SEO and and ranking and search listings, but the the real long tail is you know, building a brand, building trust, relating with your with your with your customer, um, you know, and and answering their needs, like their shopper is is I think I still think a lot of the fundamentals are still going to apply.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Absolutely. And you know, I've always said I can sell anything to someone once.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Right.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Any anything. You tell them what they want to hear.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

You can or make it a dollar. Right? Yes. That'll sell it to them. Yeah. They will buy it once. The trick is how do you get them to continue to buy it? How do you make sure you're selling it to the right person? Uh, you can't sell your product to just anyone because if you sell it with a false bill of goods, they're not coming back. Right. And they and now they're probably gonna completely pan you on reviews to everyone they know.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

Right.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

So building that trust is a long-term solution. And the the fact is, efficiency and sales are important.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, I am not discrediting that.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

But you have to have a longer-term strategy, right? You can't just be reactive when it comes to new advances in tech. Otherwise, you're gonna get the dash button, which lasted for how long?

SPEAKER_01 39:41

Yeah, right. Yeah, not long.

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Some companies can afford to do that, to just try stuff out and go for it. Right. But Amazon had a long-term plan for testing things out, for seeing what worked and what they were gonna do in the future, right? It wasn't just that one-off. So that's something that people can learn is that you try things, test things out, but make sure that that's not your only strategy. Um, make sure that you're thinking through how could this evolve? What could we do to push it forward in the future?

What Strategy And Planning Really Mean

SPEAKER_01 40:16

Yeah. No, I I I love that. You know, I think it's definitely a a now and a later thing, right? What do we need to do now in order to, you know, continue to sell products and and what what what do we, what's our long-term vision? If long-term vision is just to keep just making sure we rank, I think it's it's it's a short-term view, honestly. And and some brands may be able to do that, right? So ones with house high household penetration and stuff, but you're still going to probably not maximize your opportunity if all you're doing is just looking at the at the now and what do I need to do to do this now? What do I need to do next and build my brand, build my, you know, build familiarity and trust with my products as well. So absolutely. All right. So when it comes to AI, there, you know, there is uh a lot of ways that people can use AI. And like I think, you know, AI is that that amazing, amazing starting point, right? You use any LLM and you ask it a question, it's going to give you a response. Whether it's a good response or not, that's you know, up, you know, up for evaluation. Obviously, there's a lot of work to make sure that it gives you this response that you're you're looking for. But I think there's also this whole idea that AI is, as you indicated earlier, it's like AI is super smart, right? And so it really gets into this idea of like, is AI providing me a strategy? Right? Can I go to AI and it's going to provide me a strategy for a plan for my brand at a retail or or nationally? But you know, before we really dig into that, I I think it's it's it would be uh important to let's just define what strategy is first, right? So how do you define strategy?

SPEAKER_03 42:00

All right. That is such a loaded question. Um the word strategy is used for every right.

SPEAKER_01 42:10

I have a hard time defining it, and I've had strategic roles. So I can it so I I love your point of view.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Exactly. So for me, um, you know, my department at Marshall United Commerce is called strategic planning. There is it's very deliberate why we have both those words in the name of our department because those are kind of two separate capabilities. Being strategic means that you have informed yourself, you have collected the data, you have searched, you have figured out, you know, what is what are all the numbers telling you. You are then able to start to predict what should be. So this is how we should move forward based on historicals, this is what we know has worked in the past, these are the things that we see out there in the world. That's how you're forming your strategy. So it could be quantitative, could be qualitative, but you're gathering all the information. Unfortunately, that's where a lot of people stop and think that they can just move forward from there. Planning is more um in our function, it's more of the British side of our history as a function. It is more of the creative element. Uh, it's where you start to connect dots, it's where you start to ideate on potential things that that all that information could mean. What could that mean for a shopper? What could it mean for a brand or a retailer? Um, and that's where the ingenuity comes in. That's where you start uh just start getting creative.

Can AI Create Strategy Or Just Summarize?

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Right. Yeah. I I what I've learned, and maybe I learned this wrong. So you feel Feel free to correct me. I will. But I always felt like a strategic plan was based upon a great insight. Is insight part of strategy? Is it part of planning? Like, where does the insight that and it's always the hardest thing to get to, I think, in a lot of ways, but where does insight play in that equation?

SPEAKER_03 44:20

Again, it depends on who you're asking. So there are different types of insights, right? Is it a sales insight? Is it a business insight? Is it a shopper insight? Right. In my function, in the commerce space, we are uh we're inspiring creatives to come up with new ideas. So for us, a good insight is going to fall into the planning portion of it. Yeah. Because that's where you are creating new innovative ways of thinking about something, something that unlocks something in the creative brain. At the end of the day, my insights need to inspire. Whereas if you are a category manager, um, a data point might be an insight. Yeah. And an insight might just be something you didn't know that triggers you to think about your management differently.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

But in our space, it has to fall in the that planning bucket because we have to get our creatives inspired.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Got it. Got it. Cool. All right. So we kind of deviated a little bit. Let's let's come back to AI, right? And so we've defined strategy.

unknown 45:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Ish.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Ish. We've talked about inside. But again, there's this whole idea that I can just go to AI and I can ask it a question. It's going to give me a strategy. What are your thoughts on that? I'm opening in a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

You're just letting me on this line. The the biggest thing is that any LLM, any agent you go to is has been trained. Its foundation is on what exists. So it is taking what exists and trying to put it together in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Right.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

That's not necessarily a rich human thought. With a human, we are taking what exists and layering on what might even seem to be randomness. Right. What could this mean in this context? What does that feel like? What could this look like if we're talking about using your imagination, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:25

To a certain extent.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Yes. And, you know, actually uh last night my boss sent out uh an article from the um, I believe it was the University of Montreal that did a study looking at creativity from AI. And what it found is that AI can actually match the creativity of an average human if you program it right. Right. That's a whole other thing. Because you still have to have the creativity to program it properly. Correct, yes. But even with that, it can match the creativity of your average human at a good agency with good creatives and good planners. That's not your average human when it comes to creativity.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

We're building something new. We are thinking about things in ways that no one's thought of before. Um and even if you come out with something that feels immediately true, that it doesn't mean that we haven't thought of it about it in a completely different way. Right. Right. You probably never would have gotten there on your own. But it does feel true because we're basing it on that strategy part of strategic.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

Um, and so what an LLM brings back is gonna feel smart, but it's it's average smart.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

Yeah. Well, it goes back to the trust thing, right? LLM is gonna bring back something that should be good so that you gain trust in it, right? So it's always gonna kind of bring back its best, kind of its best idea.

How Planners Use AI As Force Multipliers

SPEAKER_03 48:05

Well, and even then you have to know, you have to your prompt writing has to be so good and cover so many different things that you are uh you're getting the right answer because when you say what's gonna work best, work best for what?

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah, right. What's your what's your criteria for what's your criteria? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

So you've got to go through all that and then you're leading it down a specific path. And the more specific you get, um, the more consistent the answer is gonna be. So that means if you and I are working for two different brands and we both learn how to prompt something really well, and we put in similar criteria, chances are we're gonna come out with the same answer. So then what happens? Our brands start looking the same. So it it's a it's a constant balance and it's uh it's a scary little spot for marketers to go to to say I'm gonna trust AI over an agency.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Yeah. I mean, you still have to have a certain level of expertise to know when it's giving you something good, when it's giving or versus something that's not good, right? And you know, and then also how to interact with it in a way to to your point to give you the output that you desire, right? And so, you know, and you use ambiguity of best, now you're leaving it to them to figure out what best is, and that may not necessarily be the criteria that you really want it to focus on, right? So it does make it it does make it challenging uh to work with it in that way. Um, you know, in the world that I work in, just you know, get getting it to do bend to your will, if you will, is is hard. It's hard. Like you put in you put in a prompt, you're gonna get a response. But to really get it to do something very specific, it still takes a lot of work, um, a lot of um manipulation, uh, a lot of coding, a lot of things to actually make it do the things that you you want it to do.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

And for the most part, it is designed to please you.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

Right. So you're going to try to try to try to try to go for trust, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

Exactly. You're gonna get the answer you want.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

Right.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

But does that make it right?

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

You need more points of view, more perspectives, things that you hadn't thought about in order to get somewhere just truly ingenious.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

So, how are strategists and planners today using AI? I have to imagine that a lot of them are using AI to help with their day-to-day tasks. How are they using it and what's what are some things, best practices, or what are some good good ways to use it?

Making The Case For Human Ingenuity

SPEAKER_03 50:42

Yeah, so um at Mars, what we've done is we've made sure that our strategy department is well trained, first of all, just in prompts, how to write a good prompt, how to um, how to limit things like hallucinations or um aggregations that are a little tricky when it comes to data. Um, how do we make sure that it's not uh it's it's not giving us something that is actually patently untrue? LLMs can actually hallucinate URLs. So you'll see something that says it's sourced. But if you click on that link, it's not real. It just seemed like a URL that should exist, right? So first we have to make sure that we understand how it works well enough to question it. Um, but then what we can do with it is build agents that are built on our criteria. Um we've been doing a lot with that, where we can start to speed up some of the more manual tasks that we have. So sorting through data, uh cleaning data, looking for um multiple sources to support something, uh, you know, all of those things. We can get an agent to sort through that stuff really quickly and then give us a really good foundation. And then what you can do is you can spend the rest of your time on the deep thinking. And so within the same amount of time that we might have for a project as we did 10 years ago, we can get so much deeper and richer and have better insights and better fodder for our creatives because we've been able to speed up the front part of it and be able to spend the time where our brains are the most valuable.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

Yeah, I mean, that makes that makes a ton of sense. And I think that's, you know, again, that's the promise of AI, right? To take over some of the menial tasks that are laborious and don't add a lot of value so that the human can spend more time and doing the things they do, uh, ideate and create and deep think and all of those, all of those things. So it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_03 53:08

So and we can also use it as a thought partner.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yeah, yeah, sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 53:12

Um, so I have one agent that is designed basically to argue with me.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:17

And to push me on what my thought is. So if I say, this is the insight that I found, it'll be like, meh, is it?

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Right.

SPEAKER_03 53:27

Right. So, you know, have you thought about this and this? There are two other angles you could have gone with this. Which one is really right? Um, so it helps push me and increase my confidence, adding a little friction to my job to increase my confidence in my output.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's I mean, that's a great use case uh for sure. You know, a lot of times I'll actually even take the output of one AI and then put it into another AI and have it actually evaluate it and see what it comes back with and you know, do that several times to get to a to a final output. Um, but you're you're absolutely right, you know, having something that can you can interact with to help you know make your finer points and and and challenge you is absolutely a great, great way to do it. So, you know, if if you're let's just imagine you're in a conversation and you know you're trying to um show the value of what strategy and planning can be for a brand and a brand is skeptical. What would be some things that you would share? Um, because they say, well, I have an AI tool, you know, or or or or um we you know we have a system in place, an agent that that can do this way. What would what would be your case there?

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Internally in my head or coming out of my mouth?

SPEAKER_01 54:40

Well, I think probably well, I I would hope there's, yeah, I think there's obviously things you have to say and things you can't say and things you shouldn't say, but let's start with what's in your head.

SPEAKER_03 54:51

Be better. Right? It's it's about the what we talked about with the the fact that this is built on what is you're gonna get the lowest common denominator, the minimum that viable product. Will it work? Maybe. Yeah, it might work well enough for now, but you should be you should be skeptical. You shouldn't be satisfied with that.

SPEAKER_00 55:14

Right.

Closing Thoughts And Shout‑Outs

SPEAKER_03 55:15

Right. You should be thinking about um what could be added on to this from a human perspective that could make this something huge, something that really works and is an example. And, you know, you're never gonna make a name for yourself as a marketer by going with what AI puts out for you. You're never gonna be written up in the trades for it. You're gonna coast through.

SPEAKER_01 55:43

But you can make your own trade.

SPEAKER_03 55:45

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Talk about yourself and talk about yourself and use AI to do it.

SPEAKER_03 55:49

Exactly. And you know what? More power to me if you could do it.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

Awesome. Well, it's been uh it's been great having you on uh today, Danish. Um, you know, I I absolutely love your thought into you know the whole psychology piece. Obviously, you know, as I said, you know, AI has been so disruptive in so many parts of our industry and obviously yours uh uh as well. And that article that you wrote, just like I said before, hit hit home for me. So um, you know, it's great, great having you, great having you on.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

It's been great to be here. I you know I could just sit and pontificate all.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

We could do, yeah, we could probably do this for for days. So all right, uh party people, it's time to wrap this episode of Retail Media Vibes. Uh huge thanks to Danish for joining me uh today. So thank you so much. Um uh how was that for you? It was great.

SPEAKER_03 56:44

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 56:45

Would you would you come back?

SPEAKER_03 56:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

Yeah, awesome. Um, so do you have anything that you'd like to shout out or plug before we wrap today?

SPEAKER_03 56:53

You know, I uh obviously I'm super passionate about strategic planning. So go see your strategic planners, talk to them, utilize them. We are so much more than data analyzers. We are trend spotters, we are business analysts, we're thinking about things from a thousand different points at all times. We're doc connectors. There's so much that we can do to help in any given situation.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

So yeah, I've I've, you know, with my interactions with, you know, strategy and planning, you know, has always made made me a better, you know, a better marketer. And you know, talking to you and learning more is always it's it's great. So um I totally feel I totally feel you on that because I think there's so much value that can be brought with uh with your with strategy and planning. So yeah. I think so. Yeah, well, yeah, you may be biased, but I I would say I I would definitely say that's that's uh it's a it's a great great thing to have included, you know, and make sure that they're they're engaged. So all right. So if you enjoyed the show, you know, give us a like, comment, uh, you know share it with your friends. If you have any comments uh or thoughts about the show, you can email me at retailmedia vibes at gmail.com. So I want to thank you once again for tuning in. And as always, I will try to do better next time. B V out.