Dated: April 26, 2024

The Dirty Martini Digest volume 10

Welcome to The Dirty Martini Digest, Issue #10. This newsletter is built for our technology friends to keep you informed of the latest industry data and enable you to do your job more effectively. Following what we generally heard as collective successes, NRF Big Show and Shoptalk, we are now entering the ‘User Group’ season. For those of you that don’t produce your own event, we’re sure you’re busy creating campaigns to drive engagement from one of the big events or more organically through content or research. As always, we are here to help. Enjoy this issue of the Dirty Martini Digest…!

The Dirty Details

In this issue’s ‘Dirty Details’, we are going to cover an area that doesn’t get as much coverage as, say, AI or Unified Commerce. However, the area is just as pervasive, if not more so; and that is last-mile delivery. Last mile delivery in many retail use-cases (and all DTC use-cases) is the last impression a customer will have on the experience and for far too long retailers haven’t paid enough attention to that fact. While there have been dozens of studies on how shoppers perceive last mile delivery, there are very few from the retailer and brand perspective. In our latest study, Catalyzing Growth: How Last Mile Delivery Increases Revenue, Loyalty and the Bottom Line (We know, it’s a mouthful), produced in conjunction with Veho, we look at last mile delivery’s impact on customer satisfaction, growth, and profitability. The study highlights that brands that adapt to individual customer preferences, ensure clear communication, and provide schedule flexibility not only meet but exceed expectations, fostering loyalty and setting themselves apart.

Some of the key findings from the Research include:

  • 81% of brands say two-day delivery is important to their shoppers.
  • Offering fast and flexible delivery and returns is directly linked to a +8.9% increase in e-commerce conversion rates and a +10.6% rise in average order value (AOV).
  • Exceptional delivery experiences contribute to a +15.3% improvement in Net Promoter Score (NPS), a key measure of customer loyalty.
  • 92% of brands reported that optimizing last-mile delivery leads to significant operational cost savings.
  • An outstanding last-mile delivery experience contributes to a 51% increase in Customer Lifetime Value.

Dive deeper into our cross-industry research and content

  • Q1 2024 State of Digital in Grocery Scorecard - This report, published on our Grocery Doppio Site, details some of the latest trends in digital adoption in Grocery. The data includes the latest on the hottest trend - media networks; and details on digital sales, basket size, and percentage of sales from third-party platforms. We update this data monthly, so bookmark this page if you have a grocery or convenience target market!
  • Revolutionizing Fulfillment Operations Through Augmented Reality Wearables - The logistics and fulfillment sector faces a significant challenge in keeping pace with the exponential growth of e-commerce, which demands faster, more accurate, and efficient operations. In this report produced in conjunction with Vuzix, we surveyed 128 retailers on how they view augmented reality wearables as a way to add efficiency, reduce errors, and enhance labor.
  • Powering the Future: Innovating Energy Transformation with AI - AI is impacting every industry and in the world of Oil/Gas/Energy, it stands to significantly improve operational efficiency, energy innovation and enhanced intelligence. In our latest playbook, produced in conjunction with SAP, we provide a framework for the benefits that AI will bring to the segment.

Straight from the Shaker

Get practical insights and best practices straight from our industry experts as we shake up and serve up our knowledge to help you improve your go-to-market strategies. We share tips each month to help you stay ahead of the game.

This month, we’ve asked industry experts to give us their opinion on how GenAI is going to impact B2B content marketing. While still early days, it is clear that GenAI tools have made a big impact on the way marketers are working and planning their strategies. See below to better understand how your peers are using GenAI:

1. “In the near term I see Gen AI as a productivity factory. It’s nowhere near ready to just ask it to create content and publish - at least for our purposes. But it’s a great first draft engine. It’s a great tool for bringing new aspects to the content that maybe I hadn’t been aware of or hadn’t considered. The trick to maximizing its effectiveness today (and likely for quite a while) however, is prompt writing.

I think content marketers should be really investing in prompt writing skills and possibly training. With the right prompts, Gen AI can definitely boost content creation productivity. - Dave Bruno - Director of Retail Industry Insights - Aptos

2. “It's like we're about to have a party and AI is the DJ, the bartender, and the bouncer all rolled into one. First, AI will churn out content like a factory line on triple espresso shots. Get ready for a deluge of articles, videos, and even AI-composed music that’ll flood your feeds! Good luck distinguishing between what's created by a human and what’s spit out by a silicon brain.

And then, there's the other side of the coin—using AI to sift through this Mount Everest of digital content. It's like having a super-smart librarian who’s read everything ever written, and you only have to ask, "Hey, what’s the scoop on quantum physics?" and bam! You've got all the perspectives synthesized faster than you can say "Schrodinger's cat." So, are we still reading? Nah, we're just chatting with AI, getting the lowdown from a digital melting pot of every author in the cosmos.

Welcome to the future, where your next best friend and personal scholar might just be a chatbot named Bob!” - Paul Lewis - Managing Director - Rethink Retail

3. “There’s fear and buzz about artificial intelligence (AI) replacing content marketers but, when used properly, AI supercharges a marketer’s skills. Using AI as a co-pilot frees marketers to focus on strategic work that uplevels content: from aligning work to larger business objectives and market trends, to meaningfully engage with their audience.

Some tools worth exploring include OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Jasper, which can all speed up the content development process by eliminating repetitive tasks and increasing productivity and efficiency. For example, AI can maximize what you get out of a single piece of content — AI can turn a blog into a social post, video script, and media pitch all focused on the same topic.

However, AI still lacks the creativity, emotional intelligence, and strategic thinking humans bring to content creation and strategy. It’s risky to use AI content as it’s originally generated. Instead, leverage it for ideation and drafting but carefully edit to add your unique perspective, and use tools like Grammarly to proof content. Premium Grammarly versions also allow companies to input style guide rules for customized proofing.” - Jeanel Carlson - President - OakBloom Marketing

4. “As a content marketer and creator, AI is a huge helping hand. I leverage it in almost every part of my day: taking and synthesizing notes during meetings, rewriting and optimizing my copy, repurposing my content for other formats, and generating/correcting images or even audio. AI allows me to do what I do best: create, connect, and strategize, without having to worry about grammar, misspellings, or rushing my process.” - Genesis Miranda Longo - Head of Industry Marketing - Consumer Goods - Shopify

5. “I think in the onset as Brands are learning these new tools, we will continue to see a number of missteps similar to the one that Levi’s made when they told the world they were using GenAI to generate “diverse models”. Levis made a number of mistakes here with their messaging. However, they also made a mistake with promoting their use of GenAI. For a Brand built on the word “authenticity”, they announced to the world that they were going to use a tool in their branding that most associate with being less personal and less authentic.

Generative AI for content creation as a first draft partner can be powerful at aiding in the creative writing process. However, we will soon be able to see clearly those brands that water themselves down through an over reliance on the technology to generate more content that looks more and more generic and boilerplate. I am a firm believer that Brands should use these tools in a balanced and measured manner keeping in mind that AI operates at a well educated intern level. It may be great at providing research into talking points, but may not have the skills yet to truly reflect the voice of the brand. I believe we may also start seeing some brands use this moment to promote “AI free, all human” as a response to a growing consumer skepticism and frustration around AI replacing true authenticity.” Stacey Shulman - VP, Health, Education and Consumer Industries, Intel

6. "3 buckets of content appear to be forming:

  • 100% AI generated = mass market, fill the feeds type stuff
  • AI generated, Human edited = Seen a lot of this already and it is tagged as such
  • AI Free, All Human (as Stacey noted) = a more curated level of content

The volume of content shrinks as you move from 1 to 3. Authenticity should increase as you move from 1 to 3. However, over time, these will collapse and be much harder to differentiate without being tagged." Chris Timmins - Director of Marketing and Partnerships - Intel

On the House

Sip on our team's latest research, speaking sessions, and industry news, with a quick scan of our recently published and upcoming work and key takeaways.

  • WEBINAR ON-DEMAND! Maximize Customer Engagement: Insights from PacSun, Incisiv, and Manhattan on Transforming the Store Associate Experience: Join us as we discuss pivotal strategies and frameworks that elevate associate engagement, refine operational efficiency, and ultimately enhance the in-store and digital shopping journey.
  • Our AI in Grocery virtual event is back this June on Grocery Doppio. We’ll be covering the major impact the technology is having across the industry, including with Labor, Supply Chain, Pricing, and Personalization. If you’re interested in speaking/sponsoring, let us know!
  • We are in the thick of the Solution Provider Conference season. User groups and customer conferences run heavy April-May. Our first was RELEX Live and we were impressed with the strategy they’ve put in place. Here is the recap.

Art on the Rocks

Experience the intersection of technology and creativity each month as we use artificial intelligence to generate a unique art piece that explores a key industry topic.

Art on the Rocks volume 10

In honor of our Last-Mile Delivery research, the above image blasts its way across the screen.

Second Round

Expand your industry knowledge with our recommended reading, featuring insightful articles and resources that caught our attention this month...

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We're here to help you navigate through your biggest challenges and win in this highly competitive market. Anytime you want to talk, book a meeting.

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