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The Agile Brand with Greg Kihlström®: Expert Mode Marketing Technology, AI, & CX
#714: Keeping up with e-commerce evolution with Lena Moriarty, eTail and Worldwide Business Research
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Lena Moriarty
The Agile Brand.
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Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to Season seven of the Agile Brand where we discuss the trends and topics marketing leaders need to know. Stay curious, stay agile and join the top enterprise brands and martech platforms as we explore marketing technology, AI, E commerce, and whatever's next for the omnichannel customer experience. Together we'll discover what it takes to create an agile brand built for today and tomorrow and built for customers, employees and continued business growth. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on martech, AI and marketing operations. The Agile Brand podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, an industry leader in full stack technology services, talent services and real world application. For more information, go to teksystems.com to make sure you always get the latest episodes, please hit subscribe on the app you listen to podcasts on and leave us a rating so others can find us as well. And now onto the show. One thing's for certain, the world of.
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Unknown
E commerce never sits still.
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Greg Kilstrom
But what should retailers be paying attention to now? Agility requires not only adapting to changing consumer behaviors, but also anticipating them. It's about proactively shaping the future of.
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Unknown
Retail, not just reacting to it.
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Greg Kilstrom
Today we're going to talk about navigating the ever shifting landscape of E commerce, from micro shopping moments to the evolving role of AI.
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Unknown
As we get ready for ETEL Boston on August 11 through 14 in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Greg Kilstrom
Tell me discuss this topic. I'd like to welcome Lena Moriarty, Head of ETEL Marketing at Worldwide Business Research. Lena, welcome to the show.
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Lena Moriarty
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here. Greg.
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Unknown
Yeah, looking forward to talking with you. Definitely looking forward to ETEL Boston as well. But yeah, before we, before we get there and before we dive into the topics, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role at ETEL and Worldwide Business Research.
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Lena Moriarty
Amazing. So first and foremost, Greg, thank you so much. Again, you're a longtime partner. We love having you at etel. So ETEL is the year round community built to help power your growth 365 days a year with whether it's conferences, webinars, meetups, you name it. And we are there for you to really help foster the growth, learning and strategize. And we have ETEL Boston coming up right around the corner. That's one of our flagship events that's going to be so fun, centered all around really. The customer journey, learning new tactics about AI personalization at scale and so many other topics.
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Unknown
Love it. Love it. Well, yeah, let's dive in here. So first thing with the event coming up, seems like we were just in Palm Springs and now it's already coming on August here. So let's talk a little bit about what to expect at Etail Boston. So what are some of the most pressing challenges that retailers are bringing to the table for this show?
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Lena Moriarty
I know retail moves quick and life comes at you quick in the marketing world. And everyone's focus and everyone's major sense of urgency right now is really centered around the holiday season and everyone is focused on doing well for the holidays. And I mean, you know, when Amazon pulls all paid ads from Google, things are a little bit crazy in the retail world right now.
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Unknown
Right.
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Lena Moriarty
So with that, retailers are really wanting to measure what matters so what their specific customers want and using that technology to then make it work for them. So with that, what are the real use cases of AI? What are the real use cases of solid tech that's working not just for helping with things like copy, but helping with efficiencies and saving time within the day? So people are asking how do we perform personalization at scale? How do we connect our fragmented data points? There's a million and a half channels that we could use. So it's really just all about those pressing challenges right now. I feel like there's a lot of them, unfortunately.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah.
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Greg Kilstrom
And so from a solution or even.
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Unknown
Strategy perspective, you know, can you give us a little sneak peek of, you know, what, what's going to showcased at the event?
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Lena Moriarty
Well, as we know we launched our AI summit which has been an absolute hit and has been a real center of conversation. So a sneak peek into some of the solutions will actually have real life technology demos going on that show everyone personally e tellers personally how AI can help with XYZ challenges that we're facing in our day to day life. So I think that that's such amazing, an amazing hit because we're looking for the use studies to actually break through the noise and, and not just, you know, throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing if it sticks, so to speak. So we have AI demos coming from amazing technology providers like Moonshot, AI Drive Commerce and Shop Vision among a couple. And also I think that we can't go a beat without hearing the words retail media network.
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Unknown
Right.
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Lena Moriarty
Those three special words. You know, we launched also Commerce Media Brands Summit this year which has been a major, major hit. But we'll also be having a big retail media focus. Etail Boston. We have Acadia coming fluent and we also have Direct mail is back with so many channels, you know, I'm talking about the channels. The pendulum is always swinging. So we have some great direct mail technology as well that I'm actually really looking forward to seeing. Letter labs will be there as well, so a couple of other ones which will be great.
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Unknown
Nice, nice. Yeah, I know direct mail is, it's one of those things where, you know, the further we get along with technology, it's like some of the, you know, the quote unquote old school. Even though there's a lot of technology involved in direct mail now, it's, it's, it's, it always surprises me how effective it can be. Right.
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Lena Moriarty
So I completely agree. You know, and the technology that's available nowadays that allows you to scale your direct mail and to make it so personalized at scale is really wonderful to see.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah, well that's great. So let's talk about a few other things and maybe some macro trends and in, in E commerce and retail. So one of the things that we're seeing is certainly there's a lot of, a lot of brands focused on the holiday shopping season and yet the other kind of trend is shifting peak seasons. So you know, holiday shopping is, is really important. But you know, we just came off of Prime Day. It set records for, you know, fall for, for that, that event. There's lots of micro shopping events as well. So, you know, with the rise of, of events like Prime Day and, and others, how are retailers rethinking their strategies for peak seasons beyond traditional holiday shopping seasons completely?
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Lena Moriarty
I love that question because it's. While retailers are really gearing up for having a successful Q4, I think it's also about unpacking those strategies to be used and utilized year round, which has actually been a very interesting shift because we're not putting all of our eggs in the Q4 basket, if you will. We are stretching them out because we have things like Gen Z completely abandoning brand loyalty for consumer consciousness. The shopper that we once knew is no longer the shopper that we currently have. So every holiday season as they come is looking different and different. Every prime day as it comes is looking different and different. So we're thinking long game and we're thinking shifting customer expectations and appealing to the volatility in the market. Because as we're going through these different micro moments, if you will, it is hard to pinpoint an exact strategy that works in this date and time. But it's very helpful and fruitful to learn about a longer term strategy and a more 360 degree strategy where these are the different things that are working for different types of audiences because it's never really a one size fits all solution.
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Greg Kilstrom
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Unknown
You know, I feel like we often hear about some of the big players and their their successes, but what about some of the smaller retailers and you know, how are they capitalizing on some of these, you know, whether it's micro moments or some, you know, the kind of the shift of, of of peak season to carve out their own niche and and compete.
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Lena Moriarty
I will say the smaller retailers are winning with a little authenticity and a lot of tick tock shop if you will. You know I think that I've seen that. But in all seriousness, we do have amazing smaller retailers. Take Pepper or Little Sleepies who will be at Etail. They're not billion dollar brands but they're absolutely nailing community and timing. So forming these micro communities has been such an integral part of the new age marketing movement. And we almost see that taken from some of the bigger players like Duolingo, where they're focusing on the micro communities and we're seeing the smaller retailers take these bigger trends and adapting those trends to work for their brand. So it's really amazing to see it to capitalize on. But I really think authenticity above all.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Well, it also sounds like just, you know, whether it's time of year or even, you know, the way that audiences are reached, it sounds like brands in general are looking at those, you know, what worked in the, in the big way with the, you know, peak holiday season or with one group at one time and trying to apply it just smarter and throughout the entire year. Probably for a lot of reasons.
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Greg Kilstrom
Right.
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Unknown
Because not only is there opportunity, but also just there's increasing competition. Right.
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Lena Moriarty
A hundred percent. And you're needing to supplement that with other marketing spe, like other marketing dollars made in different quarters, honestly.
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Unknown
Yeah.
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Lena Moriarty
So looking to really win. And that's where we'll have, we're having more flash sales, more independent holidays, if you will, and we're going to see more of that. You know, I will hypothesize that we'll see more people honing in on things like Christmas in July and doing different Valentine's specials, maybe some St. Patrick's Day, just, just to make sure that we're supplementing throughout the year.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. And of course it wouldn't be a podcast in 2025 without talking about AI. So let's, you know, it, let's go there. We touched a little bit on it already, but like, let's, let's, let's go in here. So obviously, you know, we're seeing a rapid adoption of AI tools by retailers. You know, I would say any, most software platforms at this point have some kind of AI component, whether it's real or a bullet point in a list somewhere. But what specific applications do you think are generating the most excitement out there and proving to be truly effective?
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Lena Moriarty
Yeah, you know, it's buzzword time, Greg, so I'm going to throw some at you. Have you ever heard of agentic AI? No, but I will say three big ones that keep coming up again and again and again. We have agentic AI, which as you know, has been a hot topic in 2025 and beyond conversational commerce. And actually what I'm seeing a lot of is AI driven content generation. I think with the quote unquote death of SEO as we know it, people are looking to generate content at mass scale, that doesn't seem like the AI slop that a lot of people are putting out. And with that we are needing to get dive deeper, deeper into technology. So we have different sessions at ETEL coming up like AI powered Customer Journeys where Be Heard Labs is going to show how AI is reshaping touchpoints into personalized human experiences and things like Moonshot AI where they're turning an E commerce site into a self optimizing machine basically. So with that really seeing what works and what doesn't and a divide with that.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And so on the, on the flip side then are consumers embracing AI and retail as readily as retailers are deploying it?
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Lena Moriarty
So I believe that that's where a lot of the nuance lies. I think that consumers are looking for the benefits that come from retailers embracing AI, but they are not looking for us to admit that it's AI in a way. So they're really wanting the benefits, the efficiency, the personalization, but they're also focused a lot on the transparency. There's a lot of anti AI chatter that we are seeing currently in the, in the news, but I think that in our kind of niche segment of technology, retail and brands we're seeing a lot of pro AI chatter where we're saying how is it working? So I do think that there is a slight divide and there is going to be a concern where it's AI using it ethically, transparently. You can't scare away the modern day consumer. And I think that we're going to see a lot more on transparency and authenticity in the months to come. I don't think it's years, I think it's months.
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Unknown
Yeah, no, I agree. And you know, I would say on the, on the pro side of that, it's you know, the smaller brand, I mean for better or worse, a few very large companies have set the standard for how E commerce and customer experience and expectations are set. Right. So as a smaller brand like you have to keep up and you have to compete and AI provides ways to do that. Now to your other point, the AI slop and all of that stuff, like you've got to avoid that. But I think there's definitely this race to how do we get to good, not just automate stuff and then have it be, you know, not a lesser experience but you know, how does a smaller retail, or not even a tiny one, but a smaller retail compete with the very large ones? And you know, AI is a critical way to do it.
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Lena Moriarty
Exactly. These smaller teams need help and the way that we operate with smaller teams, is using the tools and technology that we're given. And right now, AI is definitely making things more efficient.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah.
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Greg Kilstrom
And so to go back to your.
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Unknown
Other point about, you know, building trust and transparency, you know, how. How should retailers be looking at this and, you know, while they're again, racing to implement AI and increase efficiency and CX and all that stuff, like, how do they, how do they build that trust without alienating their shoppers?
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Lena Moriarty
Yeah. Not to be a dead horse, but like I said, trust really is everything with today's consumer. So I'm really looking forward to actually going to the session, the ROI on Trust with tentry's David Luba. It's about showing your work and how you're using AI ethically, transparently and with real intent. So, you know, what is the difference between using it in a good way and maybe a not so good way? So I think that how we can build trust is, is with transparency and using it ethically and also speaking up when maybe we feel something might be being used wrong. Because I think that we're in a new territory that no one has necessarily navigated before and we are going to encounter some issues that people haven't encountered before. So we're going to have to just all talk and learn and strategize the best that we can.
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Unknown
Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Well, I'm definitely looking, looking forward to Etail Boston. It's, you know, as as of this show airing, it'll be very soon, but yeah, definitely encourage everybody to, to check it out. And Lena, thanks again for, for all your insights. One last question for you before we wrap, though. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
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Lena Moriarty
I absolutely love that question. Amazing question, Greg. And before I dive into it, I just want to let everyone know that you could use code partner20 for 20% off your ticket. As a dedicated partner with Agile brand, we would love to give all listeners 20% off. And what I do to say Agile is really always be learning and curious. I think that while curiosity might have killed the cat, it made the better worker. No, but that mixed with a little bit of competition and staying up to date with the latest trends is really the perfect recipe for agility to me in today's day and age. So I'm always learning, always growing, and this has really been absolutely amazing. I thank you so much for having me and I love being on the show and I can't wait for Etail Boston.
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Unknown
Yeah, love it. Yeah, Always love talking with you again. I'd like to thank Lena Moriarty, Head of ETEL Marketing at Worldwide Business Research for joining the show. You can learn more about Lena and Worldwide Business Research and ETAIL Boston by following the links in the show notes. And if you haven't already, make sure to register to attend etal Boston August 11 through 14 in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Greg Kilstrom
Thanks again for listening to the Agile Brand brought to you by Tech Systems. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show as well. You can access more episodes of the show@theagile brand.com that's theagile brand.com and contact me if you're interested in consulting or advisory services or are looking for a speaker for your next event, go to www.greggkilstrom.com that's G R E G K I H L S t r o m.com the Agile brand is produced by Missing Link, a Latina owned, strategy driven, creatively fueled production co op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. Until next time, stay curious and stay agile.
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Lena Moriarty
The Agile Brand.
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Greg Kilstrom
Before we continue, I wanted to share a key strategic resource that a majority of the Fortune 500.
- [20:08]
Unknown
Are already aware of.
- [20:10]
Greg Kilstrom
Finding the best technology, business and talent solutions is not easy. With business demands and competitive pressures mounting, you need to be able to design, deploy, and optimize your technology to provide leading customer experiences while driving business growth. Those of you that have been listening to this show for a while know that this podcast is brought to you by Tech Systems, a global provider of technology, business and talent solutions for more than 80% of the Fortune 500, tech systems accelerates business transformation for their customers. Whether you're looking to maximize your technology roi, drive business growth, or elevate customer experiences, Tech Systems enables enterprises to capitalize on change. Learn more@techsystems.com that's teksystems.com now let's get back to the show.