March 18, 2026 • 33 mins
What if the most powerful growth strategy isn’t another ad, but a simple “thank you”? Nift Founder and CEO, Elery Pfeffer, joins Michael Kassan to unpack why gratitude may be the most overlooked engine in modern commerce, how AI can create meaningful discovery instead of digital noise, and why the brands that recognize customers as people (not just wallets) will win the future.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio, and I think
that by giving gifts, brands can move a little bit
more to be in your corner and a little less
than being in transaction. And every human being knows how
to reciprocate. You're in my corner and this today, I'm
in your corner tomorrow, and in hopes building a real
(00:22):
relationship and a real appreciation by the consumer to the
brand who's giving them a gift. And in tough times
it matters more than in good times.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm Michael Casson, and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(01:03):
up a lesson or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good. If you're in media
and marketing, you're inundated with every buzzword under the sun
about attention, first party data, retail media, incrementality, attribution, you
(01:23):
name it, and some days it seems as though we've
built an entire industry on asking people for more, more time,
more clicks, more spend. But my guest today built a
company on something much simpler and much harder to distort.
Thank you. Ellari Feffer is the founder and CEO of NIFT,
one of the fastest growing companies using data and AI
(01:44):
to turn routine transactions into moments of genuine appreciation. Matching
people with gifts from brands they may not have discovered
on their own, instead of another banner or pop up
a checkout, after a payment or after a review, they
facilitate a high performance connection delivered at the moments that
matter most. Under Ellari's leadership, NIFT has grown at a
(02:06):
breakneck pace, plugged into major commerce platforms, and expanded internationally,
all while rethinking what growth and loyalty can look like
when it's built on reciprocity. We're going to dig in
what looks like in practice, in the data, in the partnerships,
and in the consumer sentiment that underscores it all. Ellery,
I want to thank you for joining me today on
(02:27):
good Company.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to start with an origin story. Before NIFT
was a company what was the real world moment that
sparked it? What was that klonel You know, my good
friend Jeffrey Katzenberg always says when he meets a singer,
he looks at them and the first question he asks
is who was the artist and what was the song?
And his question is really what inspired you? So I'm
(02:51):
asking you the same question. Was there a moment that
you said?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Whoa?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
This is where I got to go.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It started with me. Actually, I have multiple things that
I'd like to have be better in my life. And
as I go around, I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Going to interrupt you, Ellary. Our viewers are listeners, rather
can't see you. But one of the things that I
want to be is as tall as you.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I am six foot nine. How tall are you, Michael?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, I'm a foot shorter than you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I've done extensive versus research on this, and your listeners
would be happy to know that the ideal height for
a man is five foot two for longevity.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, So, basically I had a need. I was going
around my neighborhood. I was kept on discovering these local businesses.
I keep on discovering products I've never heard about. So
I have a need to find out about new products
that makes my life better. And at the same time,
like chips in the night, brands keep advertising at me
(03:59):
and yelling at me to try to get my attention
to create some awareness of some product. And it seems
to me like I'm not getting my problem solved and
the brand isn't getting their problem solved. So how can
we make sure that me and the brands that I'm
interested in actually meet? And if you dig deeper into it,
(04:23):
I think the first newspaper ads was in seventeen oh
eight and it was for a lost anvil. And if
you look at it, so wait, ellery, is this where
mad Men really started? That is where mad Man really started?
And if you think about it ever since, then nothing
really changed. You attract people's attention with content and then
(04:46):
sell that attention to advertisers. And as you think about
how people do it today, they just do it a
lot more in a lot more sophisticated way. But they
still are trying to use technology to grab my attention.
And then if actually sell it to advertisers and none,
that is not solving my problem or the advertisers problem.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
What I think you stumbled on you stumbled on a
circumstance or created a circumstance where the simple two words
thank you became strategically critical and you saw an undervalued
utilization of those two words in a funny way. I
think as part of the inspiration.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It is so, now, how do we create a completely
different mechanism rooted in technology where everybody wins. When I
went around my life and I've looked at products, I
found out I got a lot of them as gifts.
Somebody spent the time to think about what I want
and said, hey, Hilary, have you tried this product. Here's
(05:47):
a gift to try it. And I became a loyal
customer of those brands, some of them I've never heard about.
And at the same time, you know supermarket proprietors have
discovered this long ago to give you samples of the
food as you walk around.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, it's funny. The glasses that I'm wearing, guess where
I got them? And I've got I'm in a twelve
step program to get off of buying glasses because I
have way too many glasses. The worst thing for me
is when my prescription changes, I have to go refinance
a property because I have so many glasses to change.
But I got these glasses, which I get compliments on
(06:24):
every day. I got them as a gift.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There you go, and.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It was a brand I never heard of, and now
I own three pairs of them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That's the point. And so if you look at how
consumers really discover products, getting gifts is a big part
of it because somebody spent the time thought about what
you're going to like and found something for you. And
so the question is, how do we use technology instead
of trying to get people more addicted and more engaged
to content, how do we use technology to buy people gifts?
(06:52):
And that's the way to get them to try new products.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And again, I'm using words that have meanings in different contexts,
but reciprocity, effectively is what you've built as a strategy.
It is you know, these are simple words that mean
a lot to a lot of different people, But you
made it a strategy, not a I guess you turned
it into a verb not a noun.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
The question that I asked myself always is where's the
win win? Where is one plus one equals five? The
more I looked into the advertising business, you interrupt consumers,
where's the win for the consumers, and reciprocity means that
the win for the consumers actually unlocks a win for
the break business. You give more and you get even more.
(07:41):
And so we built a system that allows our partners
to give gifts to their customers and get in return
a lot of love and allows brands to basically be
discovered by people who've never heard about one before, and
everybody wins. It's not some sinist or interruptive or incentive
(08:03):
misaligned mechanism.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
We're in a moment of kind of economic uncertainty. I
think the statistic is somewhere around you know, eight out
of ten folks in our neighborhoods are feeling and bracing
for instability. How does generosity reciprocation in a generous fashion
i e. Gifting how does that become even more powerful?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I mean obviously great, I got it as a gift.
I didn't have to pay for it, and if my
wallet is tight, that saves me money. But what does
this mean for commerce companies? You know, everybody's in commerce
in some fashion.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I think that if you classify all your relationship in
your life, you know who is in your corner and
who's in it for the transaction, and I think that
by giving gifts, brands can move a little bit more
to be in your corner and a little less than
being in transaction. And every human being knows how to reciprocate.
(09:06):
You're in my corner and this today, I'm in your
corner tomorrow. And it helps building a real relationship and
a real appreciation by the consumer to the brand who's
giving them a gift. And in tough times it matters
more than in good times. We did a partnership with
Harris Bowl recently, and this is what consumers wanted. They
(09:31):
wanted to be recognized as humans by the brands and
not just wallets, especially in tough times.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
One of the unique things in the NIFT platform is
you used AI to kind of match people with brands.
What is personalization or good personalization? Let me modify that,
what does good personalization look like in twenty twenty six?
But both a technical and a human just stand point.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I'd like to double click on the term AI, and
I want to ask you a question. You've been around, Michael,
You've seen it all, You've seen multiple revolutions. When somebody
says AI to you, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
My wiseass answer would be an assignment.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
An assignment.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know, I'm I'm in the strategy consultant. Action item, yeah,
action item.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
But to do to do, to do? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
But you know, it's kind of like in the turn
of the century. I don't mean the eighteen hundreds. I'm
not that old. I remember early cocktail conversation with people
about websites. Sounds so you know colonial right now. But
you know, you'd be at a cocktail party and go, oh,
do you have a website? I need a website. Oh
(10:45):
my god. You'd see senior executives standing around. Everybody needs one.
I think that's what AI means to most people today.
I don't know what it means, but it means I
think somebody who can do work for me, And whether
that's replacing my job or if I'm at the senior level,
replacing the job of others, that's what it means to
most people. I'm sorry to say, that's what I believe.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So people now take something that's undefined and put their
fears on it. That's what's happening. And so if you
take a look at AI and strip it from all
the buzzwords and all the hype, what is intelligence. Intelligence
is an ability to make decisions.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You're right, But I heard a definition last year that
I have used all year, and I heard it from
Jensen Wang, not privately, but on a stage, and he said,
the difference between knowledge and intelligence. Knowledge is the act
or the knowing stuff. Intelligence is solving problems.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yep, that's how he said it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
But similar to what you're saying, intelligence allows you to
solve problems. Knowledge is the base you need to solve
the problem. But the difference between knowledge and intelligence I
thought was a good distinction.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And then let's take it a step further. Solving problems
leads to me making decisions, and decisions lead to outcomes.
Absolutely so for me, when anybody says I use AI,
I asked the question, what are the decisions that are
being made and what are the outcomes? And so I'll
talk about what it is for us. But in general,
(12:19):
I think that your listeners might be interested to know,
especially those who are pretty scared that if you look
at decisions being made by AI today, they're not very good.
I'm not saying that they're they're going to be forever bad,
but they're not very good. And if you're tracking any
(12:39):
of the news. Open Claw is a aegentic system that
you can put on your computer and you can let
them make decisions, and it leads people's emails and send
you know, the leads people family photos, and invents all
sorts of things and you can just google what's going
on with it. And this is the real state of
(13:00):
how AI makes decisions today. There's pockets of success, but
it's not coming for your job just yet. And I'm
talking about it from a position of being practicing what
is now called AI for the last twenty years, and
I have patents on it going all the way back
to two thousand and nine and NIFT we deal with
(13:22):
transformer technology and with neural networks and with attention and
with all the cutting edge technology that people are using today.
This is not some point of it's not new to
you to me, And so we can all kind of
take a step back and take a big breath and
see what is really happening in the real world instead
(13:43):
of in our echo chamber of fears.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Good company will be right back after the break.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So so let's talk about the real world. Could you
give us a little of the thinking or the story,
if you will, around a particular and you pick it.
Recent partnership that would really define kind of where NIFT
is headed.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I will, but before I just want to wrap up
the AI story for NIFT. So for NIFT, AI means
just one thing. How can we find the perfect gift
for Michael Cassen? How can we take all the information?
How you have my now you have my tention. How
do we find the perfect gift for Michael Casson? How
do we take all the information available to us and
(14:42):
find the perfect gift and make a decision about which
two gifts to show you, of which you pick one?
And our AI makes that decision. And that's that is
what we call AI. And I could talk. So I'm
blue in the face about our or technology, but I
(15:02):
think that at the end of the day, what people
care about is outcomes, and what the outcome for our
technology is is we can find for every person the
gift for them.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I make it easy for most people because I buy
one particular brand a lot. I will tell you this
particular store was very happy when I had a milestone
birthday last year. They had their best month ever. So
in my case, it's easy. Yeah, I don't want to Yeah,
you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, I couldjole you to do a plug for them,
but you'll have to tell me what it is. Off
got you finish a workout, you check your stats, and
instead of an ad, you receive nice work today, Michael.
And as a thank you, you get two gifts that
were picked specifically for you to choose from. And that's
(15:55):
that's the gist of our experience. We ask you a
couple questions ahead of time. We'll give you two gifts
to a workout gear, the music, the healthy meals to
two out of eight thousand brands?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Can I commission Niff to help my wife? She's going
to get mad at me for telling this story. But
with a group of her really good friends, when it's
somebody's birthday, she will ofttimes buy them two gifts. I said,
why'd you buy two? She says, I couldn't decide which one,
so I want them to decide. It's very funny, So
maybe we can get Runnie.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Maybe we get yeah, funny and expensive, you know, some help?
Yeah exactly. I am all forgiving more gifts than less,
so I'm not going to convince her to just buy one.
That's right, I'll give you another example, your mid right
Share You're already looking at what's going on and you
see thank you for writing with us, and you pick
a couple categories and you see two gifts as a
(16:48):
thank you for writing with this right share app. And
that's how our gifting experience works, and it can fit
in any moment you can say thank you. It's completely
on the channel. We have partners who found it it's
better to give a gift in giving a person a
piece of paper. Not everything has to be digital. You
can hand out an associate can hand out a gift
(17:13):
to a customer on the spot. Hey Michael, you know
you've been here a long time in the store, You've
looked at a lot of things. You made a couple
of great choices. We thank you for your business. Here's
a thirty dollars gift from us, right And so you
can say thank you in so many ways. You could
say thank you in your life and through a nift,
(17:35):
you can say thank you for anything and anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, look, Ellary, I would apply it in business as well.
You know, employees, I've always believed it's appropriate to give
the ad a boy to give the pat on the
back to acknowledge that special extra. It matters. That's a
gift in some way. Thank you. You know. I had
a friend tell me the other day it was a
(18:00):
tough year in his company. He traveled literally across the
pond fifty weeks out of fifty two, and at the
end of the year, he said, the one thing I
didn't hear from leadership was thank you. It's really interesting.
He said, forget the money. I didn't get to thank you,
and that really landed with me. I said, never forget
(18:21):
to say thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Never forget to say thank you. I want to tell
you a story. I was standing in line at the
grocery store a couple of days ago. I'm in Boston.
There was a big snowstorm, but the tellers worked really
hard against the almost infinite line of customers just before
the storm came, and as I was standing in line,
I just said to the cashier, I said, hey, I
(18:46):
just want to say thank you. You guys are really
hustling to get this line across. He's a cashier. He
could not care less. I mean he should care, but
some of them could.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I care less about how fast the line moves. He's
going to get paid as But he went above and beyond.
And the person I was with told me this is
the first thank you he probably heard all day. And
that's just sad. Well, and that's just sad. And I
think that we should the minute you feel it even
a little bit, just say thank you. They thank you
(19:19):
to a service provider, say thank you to a friend, certainly,
say to thank you to employee and a customer.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Absolutely, you've given me a great segue into your own
leadership style. It's not for the faint of heart. NIFT
has grown literally, I think over one thousand percent in
a three year period.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It did.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And whilst hypergrowth sounds glamorous, was there a moment that
you went, WHOA, is this happening too fast?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Is this you know?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Did you second guess yourself or did you just go
with it?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Running a startup, you can't really time being at the
right place at the right time with the right product,
And when you find that window, the worst thing you
could do is go slow.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
My form or partner who's retired now, taught me something
very very smart a long time ago. What she told
me was speed kills if you don't have it, She's.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Exactly, I'm not in your uh to your audience. Yes,
I'm in violent agreement with.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
That, and we tell that to our partners all the time.
You know, the two best answers in the world are
yes or no. Just give them them exactly. You know,
purgatory is not a fun place to be and therefore
I just need to know one way or another. Speaking
of that and the growth you're expanding now out of
the starting point of Boston into the UK and apac
(20:38):
is the concept of appreciation culturally the same everywhere or
you know, is there Do you have to and I
have to be careful because I always thought this was
just a term, and it's actually a protected term. Think
globally and act locally. Do you have to do that?
I'm sure you do. But have you found differences culturally?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
No, we have none across the world. Thank you still
thank you still works c exactly in every language is
a word thank you. I mean, growing up, I always
heard the Inuits have fifty words for snow. So some
areas of the world have more emphasis on some things.
But thank you. As global, it's one person, one person
(21:22):
to another, and we are you know, we're US, Canada, UK, Australia.
We are now expanding very rapidly throughout Europe and Apec
over the next twenty four months, and everywhere we go
and whoever we talk to, we hear the same thing.
How come nobody did this before? And everybody liked to
be thanked?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
You know, you said you nifted people, and I'd love
to have you describe that, okay, because I'd love to
kind of elevate this part of the conversation above the
word thank you. I'd love to go back to, you know,
one of the early questions on commerce and talk about
it in that context because I want to make sure
(22:04):
that we all make the connection between gifting, quote, nifting
and thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right, So maybe I can describe the experience in a
little bit more detail, and everybody who's listening can go
and on our side and just look at it. Perfect.
But it's pretty simple. So you finished your workout with
Plan Fitness the first workout of the month. Some people
struggle with working out every month, so we want to
(22:29):
reinforce that behavior by saying thank you. They're going to
open their Planet Fitness app and they're going to see
thank you from Planet Fitness. You've earned a thirty dollars
gift for working out for the first time this month,
and then they're going to click into it, and then
they're going to have an option to pick between six
(22:51):
categories that are personalized to them. Each consumer gets a
different set of sex categories. For you, it probably I
don't know if it will or won't be eyeglasses Michael,
some other person. It might be swimwear, golfing equipment, a skincare,
or going to a restaurant. There's really any category you
can pick about. And then the consumer would pick two
(23:14):
out of those six categories, and they're going to get
two full pages describe each of the gifts in the experience.
So brands that are typically need to get customers onto
their own page can put really a complete origin story
of the brand in front of the customer when they're
(23:35):
most engaged. The consumer typically spends forty seconds debating between
those two options. I don't know how much your wife
friends decides on what to pick first, but the consumers,
it's quick. I've seen it play out. So it typically
takes forty forty one seconds to the consumer to debate,
maybe go to the website, investigate those two brands and
(23:57):
pick their one they're interested in, and once they pick it,
they go and get the gift from that brand.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break, We've got more insights to share.
Let me ask you a question. I want to come
back to where we kind of started. Are you in
(24:26):
the school of thought? Is commerce media the third wave
after search and social?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I think one percent.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And there are a couple of schools of thought that
I've picked up over the last you know, a couple
of years, where brands are becoming media companies, or maybe
media companies are becoming commerce engines, or maybe you know,
yellow is becoming green and green is becoming you know, blue.
(24:56):
None of that makes any sense, But I think you understand.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
The question I do is is that where we are? Oh,
the number speaks to themselves. I think brands and commerce
platforms and retailers clearly now are beginning or already understand
the value of having an engaged consumer and having the
ability to having one brand introduce you to another brand
(25:19):
and not have meta monopolize the top of the funnel.
It has passed TV as the primary destination of budgets.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Absolutely absolutely, And look where I think we're going. And
I'm curious of your view on this ellery and I've
talked about this publicly over the last year or so.
There's clearly a fragmentation of commerce or retail media networks.
There is I don't know, there's a couple of hundred now,
I mean more, do you see what I see, which
is the consolidation that has to happen because the proliferation
(25:53):
has created a fragmentation that is going to be unruly
at some point.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I think there needs to be some kind of let's
I'd be more reserved about consolidation that there's a clear
usability problem that brand cannot work with two hundred and
fifty commerce media platforms impossible.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Agencies are not going to spin up a bunch of
commerce media platforms with each of their ediosyncrasies to capture
market share. But the market is there where we're trying
to play in this space. It's very easy for us
to plug in the commerce media platforms because instead of
(26:32):
monetizing your audience or advertising, you can you can say
thank you, which goes a lot better with the product
team than another ad placement because it supports the product
team and supports the consumer experience rather than interrupt it.
And so we find the brands. Some brands prefer to
work directly with us, and we can syndicate across multiple
(26:55):
commerce media networks. And so when you say consolidation of
resources and potentially consolidation more than that. But this is
not going to scale. This is not it's not scaling already.
And on top of that, you have a lot of
small players that don't have the kind of resources large
commerce media networks have, and why shouldn't they be able
(27:17):
to participate and gain their fair share of revenue?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I agree, I think we're on the I think we're
on the same page.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Hillary.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I want to look forward. We've looked back a bit
five years from now, and maybe you've just answered it,
But what would feel naive about how we're talking about
commerce media today in five years, Like when we look
back to this and you know, posterity will allow us
to look back. You and are sitting around drinking a
martini or at least I will, I'm not sure your
(27:48):
choice of drinks. But and we put this on and
we listened to it, would we go WHOA, we were naive?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Boy?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
We missed that.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
What do you think I've heard an analogy that's stuck
with me and you'd remember this, and some of your
audience will too remember banner ads. Ye, yes, I do.
Where the Internet was banner ads, and then Goo came
in with the ad words and cost per click and Harold.
It's just like from there the industry built. I think
we are at that stage of commerce media right now.
(28:18):
It's all very transactional. There's no intermediate layers, the market's
not liquid, there's no scale, and to be perfectly blunt,
there's a lot of interruption going to the consumer experience
that I think is going to need to go away.
And this is kind of where I see the tension.
Commerce platforms need to make the ads more native in
(28:40):
order to not interrupt the consumer experience, and at the
same time, brands can't have a bespoke relationship with each
and every commerce media.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I would love to jump now to the lightning round.
You've got visibility as a scientist to look at this
industry different from a different vantage point. I really appreciate
your insights because I think you do bring a fresh
view to how we're looking at commerce media and what
(29:12):
the opportunities are. But you know, you said something about
you know inspiration, Is there anything in the industry that
you're looking at right now, or it doesn't have to
be limited to our industry that you say, boy, I
wish I thought of that.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I can't get inspired by other people's wins without thinking
what I should have done. I think I'm inspired by
a lot of innovation going in commerce media about how
consumer are served. I am inspired by the advancement in
an AI across multiple fields, and I do think it's
(29:50):
going to be a big change once the hype cycle's over.
And I am inspired by people people who are starting
something new, despite where they are in their career and
how senior or junior they are in both ways.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Ellerie, was there a mentor early in your career that
you could say stands out a and if so, was
there a particular piece of advice that that person gave you.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Since very early in my career, I've been seeking advice
from other people. I still do. Whenever we hire a
new person, I keep telling them, I'm looking forward to
learning from you, and thank God we wouldn't have maniced,
so I'm always trying to learn from others. There have
been a couple of people who stand out, and what
(30:39):
I've learned most from them is the F word, which
is focus, and focus is deciding on what not to do.
You could say yes, still a lot of things. Saying
no is very valuable. Focus is saying no is really
letting something that it hurts to you to not do
(31:01):
or not commit to, and just not committing to something
you shouldn't do right now. And that that is the
biggest advice and best advice I've ever gotten.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
But what's the best best gift you've ever received and
why was it meaningful? Ellary?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I'm going to take a risk of sany corney, but
the best gift I've ever received was my family.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
By the way, Ellary, I was hoping, and I mean
that genuinely. I was hoping you'd say that I had
no idea, but I was thinking if you were asking
me the question, I would begin with my grandchildren. But
you gave the right answer.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, I I you know. I'd like to say it
was some wonderful new gadget I got. But I do
view my family as a gift. Every little, every every
moment I spent with my kids as a gift. Every
moment I spend with my wife is a gift. And
that's the biggest gift I've gotten in life.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I couldn't ask for a better answer. But as long
as you brought up up the family, which I'm so
glad you did. I know this since we've met, that
you love to travel and you travel often with your family.
Is there one place that's on your bucket list that
you haven't gone that you want to go?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, New Zealand are We are an active munch We
go scuba diving together. Whoever's listening and is going scuba diving.
It's rare to see things when you scuba dive. My
oldest his first dive in Mexico recently saw a shark,
a mantarey, and a turtle, and he now thinks that's
(32:34):
what happens when you dive.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
No, but you can tell him. I was walking down
the street in Manhattan. I saw two sharks.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
If he wants to see many sharks, he needs to
work in our industry. And I go I was going to.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Say, Ellary, this has been an enjoyable hour for me,
and I know that our audience will be benefited and
have a good reason to listen. But I guess, in
the context of this conversation, the best thing I can
possibly say to you is Thank.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You same here. Thank you too, Michael.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm Michael Casson. Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good
Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures and
iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borger Purdeo, our executive
producer and head of Content and Talent, and to Carl Catle,
executive producer at iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Episodes are produced and edited by Mary Doo.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
We'll see you next time.
Good Company is a production of iHeartRadio, and I think
that by giving gifts, brands can move a little bit
more to be in your corner and a little less
than being in transaction. And every human being knows how
to reciprocate. You're in my corner and this today, I'm
in your corner tomorrow, and in hopes building a real
(00:22):
relationship and a real appreciation by the consumer to the
brand who's giving them a gift. And in tough times
it matters more than in good times.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I'm Michael Casson, and this is Good Company. Together we'll
explore the dynamic intersection of media, marketing, entertainment, sports and technology.
I'll be joined by visionaries, pioneers, and yes, even a
couple of disruptors for candid conversations as we break down
how these masters of ingenuity are shaping the future of business,
culture and everything in between. My bet is you'll pick
(01:03):
up a lesson or two along the way. As I
like to say, it's all good. If you're in media
and marketing, you're inundated with every buzzword under the sun
about attention, first party data, retail media, incrementality, attribution, you
(01:23):
name it, and some days it seems as though we've
built an entire industry on asking people for more, more time,
more clicks, more spend. But my guest today built a
company on something much simpler and much harder to distort.
Thank you. Ellari Feffer is the founder and CEO of NIFT,
one of the fastest growing companies using data and AI
(01:44):
to turn routine transactions into moments of genuine appreciation. Matching
people with gifts from brands they may not have discovered
on their own, instead of another banner or pop up
a checkout, after a payment or after a review, they
facilitate a high performance connection delivered at the moments that
matter most. Under Ellari's leadership, NIFT has grown at a
(02:06):
breakneck pace, plugged into major commerce platforms, and expanded internationally,
all while rethinking what growth and loyalty can look like
when it's built on reciprocity. We're going to dig in
what looks like in practice, in the data, in the partnerships,
and in the consumer sentiment that underscores it all. Ellery,
I want to thank you for joining me today on
(02:27):
good Company.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I want to start with an origin story. Before NIFT
was a company what was the real world moment that
sparked it? What was that klonel You know, my good
friend Jeffrey Katzenberg always says when he meets a singer,
he looks at them and the first question he asks
is who was the artist and what was the song?
And his question is really what inspired you? So I'm
(02:51):
asking you the same question. Was there a moment that
you said?
Speaker 3 (02:54):
Whoa?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
This is where I got to go.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
It started with me. Actually, I have multiple things that
I'd like to have be better in my life. And
as I go around, I'm.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Going to interrupt you, Ellary. Our viewers are listeners, rather
can't see you. But one of the things that I
want to be is as tall as you.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I am six foot nine. How tall are you, Michael?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, I'm a foot shorter than you.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I've done extensive versus research on this, and your listeners
would be happy to know that the ideal height for
a man is five foot two for longevity.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah, So, basically I had a need. I was going
around my neighborhood. I was kept on discovering these local businesses.
I keep on discovering products I've never heard about. So
I have a need to find out about new products
that makes my life better. And at the same time,
like chips in the night, brands keep advertising at me
(03:59):
and yelling at me to try to get my attention
to create some awareness of some product. And it seems
to me like I'm not getting my problem solved and
the brand isn't getting their problem solved. So how can
we make sure that me and the brands that I'm
interested in actually meet? And if you dig deeper into it,
(04:23):
I think the first newspaper ads was in seventeen oh
eight and it was for a lost anvil. And if
you look at it, so wait, ellery, is this where
mad Men really started? That is where mad Man really started?
And if you think about it ever since, then nothing
really changed. You attract people's attention with content and then
(04:46):
sell that attention to advertisers. And as you think about
how people do it today, they just do it a
lot more in a lot more sophisticated way. But they
still are trying to use technology to grab my attention.
And then if actually sell it to advertisers and none,
that is not solving my problem or the advertisers problem.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
What I think you stumbled on you stumbled on a
circumstance or created a circumstance where the simple two words
thank you became strategically critical and you saw an undervalued
utilization of those two words in a funny way. I
think as part of the inspiration.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
It is so, now, how do we create a completely
different mechanism rooted in technology where everybody wins. When I
went around my life and I've looked at products, I
found out I got a lot of them as gifts.
Somebody spent the time to think about what I want
and said, hey, Hilary, have you tried this product. Here's
(05:47):
a gift to try it. And I became a loyal
customer of those brands, some of them I've never heard about.
And at the same time, you know supermarket proprietors have
discovered this long ago to give you samples of the
food as you walk around.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Well, it's funny. The glasses that I'm wearing, guess where
I got them? And I've got I'm in a twelve
step program to get off of buying glasses because I
have way too many glasses. The worst thing for me
is when my prescription changes, I have to go refinance
a property because I have so many glasses to change.
But I got these glasses, which I get compliments on
(06:24):
every day. I got them as a gift.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
There you go, and.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
It was a brand I never heard of, and now
I own three pairs of them.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
That's the point. And so if you look at how
consumers really discover products, getting gifts is a big part
of it because somebody spent the time thought about what
you're going to like and found something for you. And
so the question is, how do we use technology instead
of trying to get people more addicted and more engaged
to content, how do we use technology to buy people gifts?
(06:52):
And that's the way to get them to try new products.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
And again, I'm using words that have meanings in different contexts,
but reciprocity, effectively is what you've built as a strategy.
It is you know, these are simple words that mean
a lot to a lot of different people, But you
made it a strategy, not a I guess you turned
it into a verb not a noun.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
The question that I asked myself always is where's the
win win? Where is one plus one equals five? The
more I looked into the advertising business, you interrupt consumers,
where's the win for the consumers, and reciprocity means that
the win for the consumers actually unlocks a win for
the break business. You give more and you get even more.
(07:41):
And so we built a system that allows our partners
to give gifts to their customers and get in return
a lot of love and allows brands to basically be
discovered by people who've never heard about one before, and
everybody wins. It's not some sinist or interruptive or incentive
(08:03):
misaligned mechanism.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
We're in a moment of kind of economic uncertainty. I
think the statistic is somewhere around you know, eight out
of ten folks in our neighborhoods are feeling and bracing
for instability. How does generosity reciprocation in a generous fashion
i e. Gifting how does that become even more powerful?
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Now?
Speaker 2 (08:29):
I mean obviously great, I got it as a gift.
I didn't have to pay for it, and if my
wallet is tight, that saves me money. But what does
this mean for commerce companies? You know, everybody's in commerce
in some fashion.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
I think that if you classify all your relationship in
your life, you know who is in your corner and
who's in it for the transaction, and I think that
by giving gifts, brands can move a little bit more
to be in your corner and a little less than
being in transaction. And every human being knows how to reciprocate.
(09:06):
You're in my corner and this today, I'm in your
corner tomorrow. And it helps building a real relationship and
a real appreciation by the consumer to the brand who's
giving them a gift. And in tough times it matters
more than in good times. We did a partnership with
Harris Bowl recently, and this is what consumers wanted. They
(09:31):
wanted to be recognized as humans by the brands and
not just wallets, especially in tough times.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
One of the unique things in the NIFT platform is
you used AI to kind of match people with brands.
What is personalization or good personalization? Let me modify that,
what does good personalization look like in twenty twenty six?
But both a technical and a human just stand point.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I'd like to double click on the term AI, and
I want to ask you a question. You've been around, Michael,
You've seen it all, You've seen multiple revolutions. When somebody
says AI to you, what does it mean to you?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
My wiseass answer would be an assignment.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
An assignment.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
You know, I'm I'm in the strategy consultant. Action item, yeah,
action item.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
But to do to do, to do? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
But you know, it's kind of like in the turn
of the century. I don't mean the eighteen hundreds. I'm
not that old. I remember early cocktail conversation with people
about websites. Sounds so you know colonial right now. But
you know, you'd be at a cocktail party and go, oh,
do you have a website? I need a website. Oh
(10:45):
my god. You'd see senior executives standing around. Everybody needs one.
I think that's what AI means to most people today.
I don't know what it means, but it means I
think somebody who can do work for me, And whether
that's replacing my job or if I'm at the senior level,
replacing the job of others, that's what it means to
most people. I'm sorry to say, that's what I believe.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
So people now take something that's undefined and put their
fears on it. That's what's happening. And so if you
take a look at AI and strip it from all
the buzzwords and all the hype, what is intelligence. Intelligence
is an ability to make decisions.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
You're right, But I heard a definition last year that
I have used all year, and I heard it from
Jensen Wang, not privately, but on a stage, and he said,
the difference between knowledge and intelligence. Knowledge is the act
or the knowing stuff. Intelligence is solving problems.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Yep, that's how he said it.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
But similar to what you're saying, intelligence allows you to
solve problems. Knowledge is the base you need to solve
the problem. But the difference between knowledge and intelligence I
thought was a good distinction.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
And then let's take it a step further. Solving problems
leads to me making decisions, and decisions lead to outcomes.
Absolutely so for me, when anybody says I use AI,
I asked the question, what are the decisions that are
being made and what are the outcomes? And so I'll
talk about what it is for us. But in general,
(12:19):
I think that your listeners might be interested to know,
especially those who are pretty scared that if you look
at decisions being made by AI today, they're not very good.
I'm not saying that they're they're going to be forever bad,
but they're not very good. And if you're tracking any
(12:39):
of the news. Open Claw is a aegentic system that
you can put on your computer and you can let
them make decisions, and it leads people's emails and send
you know, the leads people family photos, and invents all
sorts of things and you can just google what's going
on with it. And this is the real state of
(13:00):
how AI makes decisions today. There's pockets of success, but
it's not coming for your job just yet. And I'm
talking about it from a position of being practicing what
is now called AI for the last twenty years, and
I have patents on it going all the way back
to two thousand and nine and NIFT we deal with
(13:22):
transformer technology and with neural networks and with attention and
with all the cutting edge technology that people are using today.
This is not some point of it's not new to
you to me, And so we can all kind of
take a step back and take a big breath and
see what is really happening in the real world instead
(13:43):
of in our echo chamber of fears.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
Good company will be right back after the break.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
So so let's talk about the real world. Could you
give us a little of the thinking or the story,
if you will, around a particular and you pick it.
Recent partnership that would really define kind of where NIFT
is headed.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
I will, but before I just want to wrap up
the AI story for NIFT. So for NIFT, AI means
just one thing. How can we find the perfect gift
for Michael Cassen? How can we take all the information?
How you have my now you have my tention. How
do we find the perfect gift for Michael Casson? How
do we take all the information available to us and
(14:42):
find the perfect gift and make a decision about which
two gifts to show you, of which you pick one?
And our AI makes that decision. And that's that is
what we call AI. And I could talk. So I'm
blue in the face about our or technology, but I
(15:02):
think that at the end of the day, what people
care about is outcomes, and what the outcome for our
technology is is we can find for every person the
gift for them.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I make it easy for most people because I buy
one particular brand a lot. I will tell you this
particular store was very happy when I had a milestone
birthday last year. They had their best month ever. So
in my case, it's easy. Yeah, I don't want to Yeah,
you don't want to know.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, I couldjole you to do a plug for them,
but you'll have to tell me what it is. Off
got you finish a workout, you check your stats, and
instead of an ad, you receive nice work today, Michael.
And as a thank you, you get two gifts that
were picked specifically for you to choose from. And that's
(15:55):
that's the gist of our experience. We ask you a
couple questions ahead of time. We'll give you two gifts
to a workout gear, the music, the healthy meals to
two out of eight thousand brands?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Can I commission Niff to help my wife? She's going
to get mad at me for telling this story. But
with a group of her really good friends, when it's
somebody's birthday, she will ofttimes buy them two gifts. I said,
why'd you buy two? She says, I couldn't decide which one,
so I want them to decide. It's very funny, So
maybe we can get Runnie.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Maybe we get yeah, funny and expensive, you know, some help?
Yeah exactly. I am all forgiving more gifts than less,
so I'm not going to convince her to just buy one.
That's right, I'll give you another example, your mid right
Share You're already looking at what's going on and you
see thank you for writing with us, and you pick
a couple categories and you see two gifts as a
(16:48):
thank you for writing with this right share app. And
that's how our gifting experience works, and it can fit
in any moment you can say thank you. It's completely
on the channel. We have partners who found it it's
better to give a gift in giving a person a
piece of paper. Not everything has to be digital. You
can hand out an associate can hand out a gift
(17:13):
to a customer on the spot. Hey Michael, you know
you've been here a long time in the store, You've
looked at a lot of things. You made a couple
of great choices. We thank you for your business. Here's
a thirty dollars gift from us, right And so you
can say thank you in so many ways. You could
say thank you in your life and through a nift,
(17:35):
you can say thank you for anything and anyway.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Well, look, Ellary, I would apply it in business as well.
You know, employees, I've always believed it's appropriate to give
the ad a boy to give the pat on the
back to acknowledge that special extra. It matters. That's a
gift in some way. Thank you. You know. I had
a friend tell me the other day it was a
(18:00):
tough year in his company. He traveled literally across the
pond fifty weeks out of fifty two, and at the
end of the year, he said, the one thing I
didn't hear from leadership was thank you. It's really interesting.
He said, forget the money. I didn't get to thank you,
and that really landed with me. I said, never forget
(18:21):
to say thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Never forget to say thank you. I want to tell
you a story. I was standing in line at the
grocery store a couple of days ago. I'm in Boston.
There was a big snowstorm, but the tellers worked really
hard against the almost infinite line of customers just before
the storm came, and as I was standing in line,
I just said to the cashier, I said, hey, I
(18:46):
just want to say thank you. You guys are really
hustling to get this line across. He's a cashier. He
could not care less. I mean he should care, but
some of them could.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
No.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
I care less about how fast the line moves. He's
going to get paid as But he went above and beyond.
And the person I was with told me this is
the first thank you he probably heard all day. And
that's just sad. Well, and that's just sad. And I
think that we should the minute you feel it even
a little bit, just say thank you. They thank you
(19:19):
to a service provider, say thank you to a friend, certainly,
say to thank you to employee and a customer.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Absolutely, you've given me a great segue into your own
leadership style. It's not for the faint of heart. NIFT
has grown literally, I think over one thousand percent in
a three year period.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
It did.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
And whilst hypergrowth sounds glamorous, was there a moment that
you went, WHOA, is this happening too fast?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Is this you know?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Did you second guess yourself or did you just go
with it?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Running a startup, you can't really time being at the
right place at the right time with the right product,
And when you find that window, the worst thing you
could do is go slow.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
My form or partner who's retired now, taught me something
very very smart a long time ago. What she told
me was speed kills if you don't have it, She's.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Exactly, I'm not in your uh to your audience. Yes,
I'm in violent agreement with.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
That, and we tell that to our partners all the time.
You know, the two best answers in the world are
yes or no. Just give them them exactly. You know,
purgatory is not a fun place to be and therefore
I just need to know one way or another. Speaking
of that and the growth you're expanding now out of
the starting point of Boston into the UK and apac
(20:38):
is the concept of appreciation culturally the same everywhere or
you know, is there Do you have to and I
have to be careful because I always thought this was
just a term, and it's actually a protected term. Think
globally and act locally. Do you have to do that?
I'm sure you do. But have you found differences culturally?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
No, we have none across the world. Thank you still
thank you still works c exactly in every language is
a word thank you. I mean, growing up, I always
heard the Inuits have fifty words for snow. So some
areas of the world have more emphasis on some things.
But thank you. As global, it's one person, one person
(21:22):
to another, and we are you know, we're US, Canada, UK, Australia.
We are now expanding very rapidly throughout Europe and Apec
over the next twenty four months, and everywhere we go
and whoever we talk to, we hear the same thing.
How come nobody did this before? And everybody liked to
be thanked?
Speaker 2 (21:43):
You know, you said you nifted people, and I'd love
to have you describe that, okay, because I'd love to
kind of elevate this part of the conversation above the
word thank you. I'd love to go back to, you know,
one of the early questions on commerce and talk about
it in that context because I want to make sure
(22:04):
that we all make the connection between gifting, quote, nifting
and thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
Right, So maybe I can describe the experience in a
little bit more detail, and everybody who's listening can go
and on our side and just look at it. Perfect.
But it's pretty simple. So you finished your workout with
Plan Fitness the first workout of the month. Some people
struggle with working out every month, so we want to
(22:29):
reinforce that behavior by saying thank you. They're going to
open their Planet Fitness app and they're going to see
thank you from Planet Fitness. You've earned a thirty dollars
gift for working out for the first time this month,
and then they're going to click into it, and then
they're going to have an option to pick between six
(22:51):
categories that are personalized to them. Each consumer gets a
different set of sex categories. For you, it probably I
don't know if it will or won't be eyeglasses Michael,
some other person. It might be swimwear, golfing equipment, a skincare,
or going to a restaurant. There's really any category you
can pick about. And then the consumer would pick two
(23:14):
out of those six categories, and they're going to get
two full pages describe each of the gifts in the experience.
So brands that are typically need to get customers onto
their own page can put really a complete origin story
of the brand in front of the customer when they're
(23:35):
most engaged. The consumer typically spends forty seconds debating between
those two options. I don't know how much your wife
friends decides on what to pick first, but the consumers,
it's quick. I've seen it play out. So it typically
takes forty forty one seconds to the consumer to debate,
maybe go to the website, investigate those two brands and
(23:57):
pick their one they're interested in, and once they pick it,
they go and get the gift from that brand.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
We're going to hit pause for a moment, but stay
with us after the break, We've got more insights to share.
Let me ask you a question. I want to come
back to where we kind of started. Are you in
(24:26):
the school of thought? Is commerce media the third wave
after search and social?
Speaker 1 (24:30):
I think one percent.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
And there are a couple of schools of thought that
I've picked up over the last you know, a couple
of years, where brands are becoming media companies, or maybe
media companies are becoming commerce engines, or maybe you know,
yellow is becoming green and green is becoming you know, blue.
(24:56):
None of that makes any sense, But I think you understand.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
The question I do is is that where we are? Oh,
the number speaks to themselves. I think brands and commerce
platforms and retailers clearly now are beginning or already understand
the value of having an engaged consumer and having the
ability to having one brand introduce you to another brand
(25:19):
and not have meta monopolize the top of the funnel.
It has passed TV as the primary destination of budgets.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Absolutely absolutely, And look where I think we're going. And
I'm curious of your view on this ellery and I've
talked about this publicly over the last year or so.
There's clearly a fragmentation of commerce or retail media networks.
There is I don't know, there's a couple of hundred now,
I mean more, do you see what I see, which
is the consolidation that has to happen because the proliferation
(25:53):
has created a fragmentation that is going to be unruly
at some point.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
I think there needs to be some kind of let's
I'd be more reserved about consolidation that there's a clear
usability problem that brand cannot work with two hundred and
fifty commerce media platforms impossible.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Agencies are not going to spin up a bunch of
commerce media platforms with each of their ediosyncrasies to capture
market share. But the market is there where we're trying
to play in this space. It's very easy for us
to plug in the commerce media platforms because instead of
(26:32):
monetizing your audience or advertising, you can you can say
thank you, which goes a lot better with the product
team than another ad placement because it supports the product
team and supports the consumer experience rather than interrupt it.
And so we find the brands. Some brands prefer to
work directly with us, and we can syndicate across multiple
(26:55):
commerce media networks. And so when you say consolidation of
resources and potentially consolidation more than that. But this is
not going to scale. This is not it's not scaling already.
And on top of that, you have a lot of
small players that don't have the kind of resources large
commerce media networks have, and why shouldn't they be able
(27:17):
to participate and gain their fair share of revenue?
Speaker 2 (27:23):
I agree, I think we're on the I think we're
on the same page.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Hillary.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
I want to look forward. We've looked back a bit
five years from now, and maybe you've just answered it,
But what would feel naive about how we're talking about
commerce media today in five years, Like when we look
back to this and you know, posterity will allow us
to look back. You and are sitting around drinking a
martini or at least I will, I'm not sure your
(27:48):
choice of drinks. But and we put this on and
we listened to it, would we go WHOA, we were naive?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Boy?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
We missed that.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
What do you think I've heard an analogy that's stuck
with me and you'd remember this, and some of your
audience will too remember banner ads. Ye, yes, I do.
Where the Internet was banner ads, and then Goo came
in with the ad words and cost per click and Harold.
It's just like from there the industry built. I think
we are at that stage of commerce media right now.
(28:18):
It's all very transactional. There's no intermediate layers, the market's
not liquid, there's no scale, and to be perfectly blunt,
there's a lot of interruption going to the consumer experience
that I think is going to need to go away.
And this is kind of where I see the tension.
Commerce platforms need to make the ads more native in
(28:40):
order to not interrupt the consumer experience, and at the
same time, brands can't have a bespoke relationship with each
and every commerce media.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
I would love to jump now to the lightning round.
You've got visibility as a scientist to look at this
industry different from a different vantage point. I really appreciate
your insights because I think you do bring a fresh
view to how we're looking at commerce media and what
(29:12):
the opportunities are. But you know, you said something about
you know inspiration, Is there anything in the industry that
you're looking at right now, or it doesn't have to
be limited to our industry that you say, boy, I
wish I thought of that.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I can't get inspired by other people's wins without thinking
what I should have done. I think I'm inspired by
a lot of innovation going in commerce media about how
consumer are served. I am inspired by the advancement in
an AI across multiple fields, and I do think it's
(29:50):
going to be a big change once the hype cycle's over.
And I am inspired by people people who are starting
something new, despite where they are in their career and
how senior or junior they are in both ways.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Ellerie, was there a mentor early in your career that
you could say stands out a and if so, was
there a particular piece of advice that that person gave you.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Since very early in my career, I've been seeking advice
from other people. I still do. Whenever we hire a
new person, I keep telling them, I'm looking forward to
learning from you, and thank God we wouldn't have maniced,
so I'm always trying to learn from others. There have
been a couple of people who stand out, and what
(30:39):
I've learned most from them is the F word, which
is focus, and focus is deciding on what not to do.
You could say yes, still a lot of things. Saying
no is very valuable. Focus is saying no is really
letting something that it hurts to you to not do
(31:01):
or not commit to, and just not committing to something
you shouldn't do right now. And that that is the
biggest advice and best advice I've ever gotten.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
But what's the best best gift you've ever received and
why was it meaningful? Ellary?
Speaker 1 (31:18):
I'm going to take a risk of sany corney, but
the best gift I've ever received was my family.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
By the way, Ellary, I was hoping, and I mean
that genuinely. I was hoping you'd say that I had
no idea, but I was thinking if you were asking
me the question, I would begin with my grandchildren. But
you gave the right answer.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, I I you know. I'd like to say it
was some wonderful new gadget I got. But I do
view my family as a gift. Every little, every every
moment I spent with my kids as a gift. Every
moment I spend with my wife is a gift. And
that's the biggest gift I've gotten in life.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I couldn't ask for a better answer. But as long
as you brought up up the family, which I'm so
glad you did. I know this since we've met, that
you love to travel and you travel often with your family.
Is there one place that's on your bucket list that
you haven't gone that you want to go?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Well, New Zealand are We are an active munch We
go scuba diving together. Whoever's listening and is going scuba diving.
It's rare to see things when you scuba dive. My
oldest his first dive in Mexico recently saw a shark,
a mantarey, and a turtle, and he now thinks that's
(32:34):
what happens when you dive.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
No, but you can tell him. I was walking down
the street in Manhattan. I saw two sharks.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
If he wants to see many sharks, he needs to
work in our industry. And I go I was going to.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Say, Ellary, this has been an enjoyable hour for me,
and I know that our audience will be benefited and
have a good reason to listen. But I guess, in
the context of this conversation, the best thing I can
possibly say to you is Thank.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
You same here. Thank you too, Michael.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm Michael Casson. Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good
Company is brought to you by Three C Ventures and
iHeart Podcasts. Special thanks to Alexis Borger Purdeo, our executive
producer and head of Content and Talent, and to Carl Catle,
executive producer at iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Episodes are produced and edited by Mary Doo.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
We'll see you next time.
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