Ulta Beauty enters the UK, Target goes big on back-to-school, AI hits a trust challenge, cannabis beverages gain ground, and Walmart eyes tween fashion. Alex Rezvan and Jill Dvorak (SVP of Content, NRF) decode five major trends reshaping retail in America:
Ulta Beauty’s Global Move: Expanding internationally with 83 new stores in the UK.
Target’s Back-to-School Strategy: Huge discounts, cross-category deals, and personalized offerings.
Retail AI: Trust vs Experience: Consumers love AI recommendations but lack trust in accuracy.
Cannabis Drinks vs Alcohol: Big Alcohol turns to cannabis-infused beverages to recapture lost market share.
Walmart’s Tween Fashion Launch: “Weekend Academy” targets a critical gap in affordable youth fashion.
Join Alex and Jill as they unpack why these shifts are more than trends—they’re signposts of where US retail is heading next.
Alex Rezvan – Founder, The Retail Podcast
Jill Dvorak – SVP Content, NRF (National Retail Federation)
Ulta Beauty, Target back-to-school, Retail AI, cannabis beverages, Walmart fashion, US retail trends, retail podcast, NRF, consumer insights, Five Things Friday
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Five Things Friday
Thank you, Jill. I'm Alex.
I'm from the world famous retailpodcast is world famous now.
(00:23):
We're now literally almost in every single continent was in
Saudi Arabia yesterday, Singapore on Monday.
It's it's global expansion. Global Baby.
Yeah, and and it's all about helping people who sell to
retail. All retailers understand what
are the top five things happening in their region from
(00:43):
amazing experts in the field wholive and brew retail.
There is no better example of that than the wonderful Jill
Dover, SVP of Content, NRF. Jill, Hello.
Hello. Oh, it's lovely to be back and
thank. You lovely to have you back.
So we're going to jump straight in because we want to try and
keep this to 15 minutes all there or thereabouts.
Not going to be LED. The first thing we're going to
(01:05):
talk about is not Walmart tweensis Ulta Beauty.
Yes, this I was so excited to see this about a week and a half
ago. So as you know Alex, when you
were in Singapore, the NRF big show, I had Josh Friedman with
me who is the STP of digital forUlta.
Now Ulta's was pretty much only domestic at that point, but a
little birdie had told me there could be some plans in the
(01:27):
works. So this was really exciting to
see that Ulta bought a huge player in London, they and even
Europe, and now they have about 83 stores that they're going to
have now. It's huge, huge, huge.
And that Keisha Steelman, their CEO, has said that international
expansion was always going to bea big part of the Ulta Beauty
Unleashed, which was kind of herplan when she took over the
(01:49):
brand. They're world renowned and
obviously in the US, Ulta Beautyhave done a fantastic beauty
within store, right? Because I think Ulta Beauty is
within Target. They have some spaces, yes,
within Target. It'll be interesting to see kind
of, you know, how that plays out.
But Ulta Beauty itself, there are many, many, you know,
hundreds and hundreds of standalone stores.
One thing they're really known for is the services they provide
(02:11):
in store. So you know, you can kind of go
and you know, do the makeover, but they can they test out the
products for you. So if you want to see something
on your hair or how see how powerful a blow dryer might be
to combat the Singapore humidity, you know, that's
something that they, that they do there and they do an
unbelievable amount of local want to say it was something
(02:33):
like 70,000 local events and alltheir stores kind of, you know,
global, every store really has kind of a neighbourhood feel,
multiple events, even, you know,per week.
They're just getting kind of thecommunity involved.
So it feels much more, you know,a place you can pop in and grab
(02:53):
one thing rather than, oh, I have to go buy, you know, 500
things to stock up. So they're really doing a great
job in that in that play. I think, I think there's lots of
good examples of beauty players that are just crushing it and
beauty as a category being a growth category, still a new
entrance coming into this because I cover this, but
(03:13):
anyway, talk so much. As we can spend more, yeah.
OK, keeping on with Target, they're launching a a week
inspired back to school campaignand it's all about basically
major, major discounts. So when I look at it starts on
the 27th of July to the August the 2nd, it's the kick off the
(03:36):
back to school season. Deals include 25% of children's
apparel, 30% of backpacks and pens, every writing supplies and
they've also given $15.00 gift cards if you spend over $50 on
home care items. So for me, that's a wonderful
cross category play. Yeah, family is in buying
(03:57):
something for the house. Oh, here's a $50 voucher for
back to school, which I think which family wouldn't use that,
right? Real money, Yeah.
It's actual real money, yeah. Yeah, and they're offering
personalization stores in nearly500 stores.
This is doubling from last year because people, and I know what
(04:17):
it's like having kids, you want to put their name on everything,
tattoo it onto literally anything that you can tattoo it
onto. It's interesting.
So the, the BOGO and all of the deals, I mean, back to school
shopping is unbelievable driver here, you know, at least in the
US, you know, think we did a pulse.
(04:37):
It was about two weeks ago, so kind of early mid-july and it
there was something like 84% of households still hadn't
completed back. You know, they're back to school
shopping, which makes sense. The school really doesn't start
some regions here early August, but K through 12, the average
that most households will spend is around $300.
(05:00):
It's on electronics, then another 250 clothing and
accessories, then another 170 onshoes, and then another $143 on
school supplies. When you put all that together,
I mean, Target sells every single one of those categories.
They should be a major player inthis space.
And, you know, kids love Target because what else do they have?
(05:23):
Toys. It's real like that.
That was always, you know, growing up, like they know the
bullseye before they know the name and they want to go through
and buy. So, so here's the thing right
here. Here's what they have done
phenomenally well. I live in another continent,
right? My kids have never seen a
target. You would think that, but thanks
(05:43):
to the power of Minecraft, thanks to the power of YouTube
and Targets, amazing social activations, my little boy,
every time he sees the bullseye target.
I mean, I've worked with Target,so I've bought some bullseyes
home for it, but he knows and hegoes, oh, can we go to to Target
when we're in the US? Because that's what Youtubers,
(06:05):
you know, they go in and I don'tknow, grab everything off a
shelf in 5 minutes. Although I think, you know,
Target is having an incredibly difficult time now.
I can see that the influence that they've put into this sort
of new generation through thingslike YouTube stars definitely
having an implants and obviouslythis lends itself, this category
(06:27):
lends itself to silent influence.
I think is that is a nice way tolook at it.
Exactly, yeah, they're, they're telling me where they want to go
to back to school shopping. So it's that's happening then
yeah, it's a real impact on the wallet, so.
So another, another interesting element to share is this whole,
you know, you and I have heard AI stories, you know, retailers
(06:50):
talking about we're going to useit in our back end, we're going
to use it in our front end. There's been some great research
by Aquino. Di Nata did it for Aquino and
they found, they, they surveyed 3500 customers and they found
84% of shoppers who used AI generated product
recommendations, had positive experiences, which is great.
(07:11):
So the recommendation sort of was getting it right, but only
45% of shoppers then trusted theAI to be accurate in whatever it
was providing it back. So it was a positive experience.
But then there's that, I guess that cynicism is actually
accurate. And then actually, so, and then
(07:33):
only 44% engage with them to, to, to actually go on to make a
purchase. And I don't know what, what,
what, why there's a difference here, but there's a difference
by the people who engage and then the people who actually
made the purchase. That's 32%.
So I think AI in the shopping experience, apart from
(07:56):
recommendations, but in terms ofinfluence discovery, insights,
the things that we've been saying, hey, look, you need to
be getting your data sets, you need to be getting those
signals, you need to be getting customer profiles integrated
into your customer channels. Otherwise you're going to end up
with this disjointed experience.I think some retailers are doing
it really well. They don't talk about who and
(08:17):
where and what the only do they mention any other retailers?
No, they don't. It just says that, yeah, no,
there, there, there's no sort ofwho is, they're not naming who's
doing it right, but they are. They are saying that the the the
the AI tools that retailers are.Yeah, I've got a lot of people
(08:39):
don't even know that's happeningin the background, right.
You know when you start, when you start out in merchandising,
you know you're doing cross sells and up sells manually
based on well this goes with this and outfit choices.
A lot of that now is being done by AI where it was done by a
merchant who was sitting behind their computer.
So a lot of that kind of heavy lifting and work and then
(09:03):
differences and tastes in the personal choice that should be
more than up to a merchandiser or two.
That should be up to based on what you've clicked on and what
you know. And it, it's always interesting
when I go, you know, example, shopping on Amazon, shopping for
my kids for camp. I'm shopping for my husband for
a vacation. And then I go and shop and I'm
(09:25):
getting, oh, well, no, your sizeis, you know, 11 male.
I'm like. Yeah.
So, you know, in a way, it's like we're sold the beginning
stages where you almost want to be able to choose a profile of
this is Jill shopping, this is Jill shopping for her husband.
Don't. Get on profiles, I mean, yeah.
It's such a bigger issue than just are you getting further
(09:47):
along in the funnel? It's like you're intelligent,
but now I'm expecting you to be smart and you're so stupid.
Yeah, I think for Crossland upsell, yes.
But like as you mentioned, sizing is a still so, so I mean
I've seen true fit, tried to fixthe problem.
I've seen lots of different organisations try to fix the
(10:08):
problem. But it's that there is no one
size category. So I think that's probably the
last element, which is the most important to you and I as
shoppers, we want that fit. We want it to fit us when we get
it, this leg. They definitely don't want me to
return it. I definitely don't want to
return it. It's it really is solving that
(10:30):
at the UX experience. I mean, I would say Amazon does
a pretty good job now. Nordstrom does a really good
job. You know, reviewers say this
item runs small. Reviewers say this item runs
large or Amazon says this is a frequently returned item.
I don't want to tell them, but Ialso then don't buy that item.
I'm like, OK, next. So you know you in a way you
(10:52):
really need to think about what are you using this AI for?
Is it what's to inform so you don't have a return?
Because with Amazon, I'm sure that's what they're doing.
And sometimes they just say keepthe item, here's your cash back,
right? Well.
It's margin erosion, right? This is eroding your margin.
And then what's fixing it? Yeah.
OK, so we're almost at the weekend and it's, well, it's
(11:14):
Friday. So this one, I think, sort of
lends itself to that Friday feeling.
I love it. Big alcohol, although the lack
of alcohol, basically we're not drinking as much.
And the especially generationally, people are
making alternative choices. So this news article is about
specifically how drinks companies are looking at
(11:37):
cannabis drinks to try and revive sales that are lost to
the decline in in wines and beers.
I I think we just had Wimbledon over here and Tom Holland, Mr
famous spider man Marvel Universe, it's his brand that
they launched. They had a massive activation at
Wimbledon again 0 alcohol. This is about people enjoying
(12:00):
the flavour, the taste, the the whole ecosystem of drinking
without the the alcohol. And what's again, what's
interesting is the US drinks. I don't know if they went to to
label on the Boston Beer Company.
So shows that this is, you know,a cannabis inspired, I'm sorry,
not inspired of cannabis based drink.
(12:20):
Something but I. Don't know if you're going to
get there here Is this like, I don't know I'll I'll stay away
from making. But it's interesting, right?
Is this the shape of think why? Because the amount of the Gen XS
and Gen Gen X Gen Z having some form of CBT cannabis experience
(12:41):
now shifting it to being a drink.
I don't know. Yeah, it, it is interesting.
There's definitely, there's beena huge wave in the past couple
years, honestly since kind of coming out of COVID, where a lot
of people maybe went down the alcohol rabbit hole, maybe too
much. You know, everyone had their own
COVID experience. I wouldn't comment.
(13:01):
I wouldn't say from, not from experience.
Not here to judge. I'm also not I'm also not, you
know, a sober person, but the, you know, the sober movement is
sober. Curious that California's sober
there all these terms where it'sjust it's not as appealing to
have alcohol in the younger generations now.
So it is really interesting to see there they might want
(13:25):
something, maybe it's a 0 proof drink, so they aren't just
standing there with water in their hand.
But then again, there there might be something like, you
know, CBD has been around obviously for quite some time,
infused drinks, but cannabis drinks that in the states,
obviously 50 states, 50 different laws.
(13:46):
And that has been probably a harder nut to crack because the
distribution have to be 21. You have to, you know, it's,
it's, it's kind of it's a new category, which and so it's,
it's really interesting. And also, if you don't know
tolerances and you pull it off the shelf, you know, that's a
whole new thing as well because it, it might hit a bit
(14:09):
differently than some of the other cannabis products out
there. So I think it's a really
interesting model to follow and to watch and just see how big
it's going to get. It's, I believe it's going to be
huge, obviously. I think before we go into the
last one and unconscious of time, basically all of the all
of the things, all of the echoes, all of the signals that
we're hearing is there's this massive seismic shift in the
(14:31):
market. It's having impact on the way we
drink, on the way we shop, on the way we review things, get
inspired by things. But the the industry is shifting
and changing with it. And I think that's the wonderful
thing that the opportunity that you and I have are these new
categories. People like warmer as we come on
(14:51):
to the final story, you know, they are looking at these
categories thinking how, you know, this new, it's not new IT,
but newish tweens, this new in the new generation.
How do we stay relevant to them?And where's the white space?
I mean, Walmart has been really good at fashion the past couple
years. I mean, Denise and Candela
(15:12):
running their fashion programme has been, you know, she came
from luxury and it, I remember very clearly when she moved over
to Walmart, it was, you know, when she tells the story, mouths
were dropping like what? Why?
And a lot of it is like just democratised fashion.
And, you know, they really went for the women's customer 1st and
then obviously kind of the baby and the kids.
(15:32):
But there's been a real hole in the markets for when you're out
of kids sizes but you're not into men's or women's sizes.
What happens if if even if you kind of fit into the men's or
women's clothing, A, they're notcut right, Maybe for the shape,
But B, I mean, I don't have daughters myself, but I hear
from all of my friends, I don't want my daughter wearing a crop
(15:54):
top or shorts that are so short to school at age, you know, 11.
Just because she's tall doesn't mean she should be wearing.
So there's really been this veryhard, like they want to be
trendy. They want to be look like
they're, you know, a teen and they want to look cool for their
friends. But there hasn't really been a
(16:14):
whole lot of brands that have stayed in this space.
Some have come and gone, but with Walmart launching Weekend
Academy, I think, you know, it'sa perfect timing.
We were just talking about back to school and Target, but you
know, look at some of this stuff.
It's. Well, it's not full of cut, it's
not cutesy, cuddly mumsy. You know that sort of that's
what my little, you know, 10 or 11 year old doesn't want right.
(16:38):
But his body when when I go intothe stores, that's what I get
you just. Get a bigger.
It's really nice. It's appropriate clothing for
parents who, you know, still have the influence that are
holding on to that influence. I know I won't have it much
longer, but yeah, really, reallyexcited to see how this goes.
And, you know, it's priced. There's a lot below $10.
(17:01):
I think the most expensive is somewhere in the. 12 bucks for a
skirt or 698 for a T-shirt. I mean that's incredible.
I mean that's team pricing, right?
That's see that's that's where that.
That is exactly. And they have the backpacks and
all the things, the purses, the coats, all the things to go with
it, which may be a little bit above $15.00, but still you're
(17:22):
not. I don't want to take my kid
into, you know, a Nordstrom's orMacy's and spend $60.00 on a
shirt they're growing out of in two weeks, so.
Absolutely. It's a really, really lovely
play and I'm just excited to hear kind of the results of how
they do. Well, listen, this has gone
flown by, but we're we're at thetop of our allotted slot.
(17:44):
So thank you so much Jill for this weeks 5 things Friday.
Until next time.
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Five Things Friday
Thank you, Jill. I'm Alex.
I'm from the world famous retailpodcast is world famous now.
(00:23):
We're now literally almost in every single continent was in
Saudi Arabia yesterday, Singapore on Monday.
It's it's global expansion. Global Baby.
Yeah, and and it's all about helping people who sell to
retail. All retailers understand what
are the top five things happening in their region from
(00:43):
amazing experts in the field wholive and brew retail.
There is no better example of that than the wonderful Jill
Dover, SVP of Content, NRF. Jill, Hello.
Hello. Oh, it's lovely to be back and
thank. You lovely to have you back.
So we're going to jump straight in because we want to try and
keep this to 15 minutes all there or thereabouts.
Not going to be LED. The first thing we're going to
(01:05):
talk about is not Walmart tweensis Ulta Beauty.
Yes, this I was so excited to see this about a week and a half
ago. So as you know Alex, when you
were in Singapore, the NRF big show, I had Josh Friedman with
me who is the STP of digital forUlta.
Now Ulta's was pretty much only domestic at that point, but a
little birdie had told me there could be some plans in the
(01:27):
works. So this was really exciting to
see that Ulta bought a huge player in London, they and even
Europe, and now they have about 83 stores that they're going to
have now. It's huge, huge, huge.
And that Keisha Steelman, their CEO, has said that international
expansion was always going to bea big part of the Ulta Beauty
Unleashed, which was kind of herplan when she took over the
(01:49):
brand. They're world renowned and
obviously in the US, Ulta Beautyhave done a fantastic beauty
within store, right? Because I think Ulta Beauty is
within Target. They have some spaces, yes,
within Target. It'll be interesting to see kind
of, you know, how that plays out.
But Ulta Beauty itself, there are many, many, you know,
hundreds and hundreds of standalone stores.
One thing they're really known for is the services they provide
(02:11):
in store. So you know, you can kind of go
and you know, do the makeover, but they can they test out the
products for you. So if you want to see something
on your hair or how see how powerful a blow dryer might be
to combat the Singapore humidity, you know, that's
something that they, that they do there and they do an
unbelievable amount of local want to say it was something
(02:33):
like 70,000 local events and alltheir stores kind of, you know,
global, every store really has kind of a neighbourhood feel,
multiple events, even, you know,per week.
They're just getting kind of thecommunity involved.
So it feels much more, you know,a place you can pop in and grab
(02:53):
one thing rather than, oh, I have to go buy, you know, 500
things to stock up. So they're really doing a great
job in that in that play. I think, I think there's lots of
good examples of beauty players that are just crushing it and
beauty as a category being a growth category, still a new
entrance coming into this because I cover this, but
(03:13):
anyway, talk so much. As we can spend more, yeah.
OK, keeping on with Target, they're launching a a week
inspired back to school campaignand it's all about basically
major, major discounts. So when I look at it starts on
the 27th of July to the August the 2nd, it's the kick off the
(03:36):
back to school season. Deals include 25% of children's
apparel, 30% of backpacks and pens, every writing supplies and
they've also given $15.00 gift cards if you spend over $50 on
home care items. So for me, that's a wonderful
cross category play. Yeah, family is in buying
(03:57):
something for the house. Oh, here's a $50 voucher for
back to school, which I think which family wouldn't use that,
right? Real money, Yeah.
It's actual real money, yeah. Yeah, and they're offering
personalization stores in nearly500 stores.
This is doubling from last year because people, and I know what
(04:17):
it's like having kids, you want to put their name on everything,
tattoo it onto literally anything that you can tattoo it
onto. It's interesting.
So the, the BOGO and all of the deals, I mean, back to school
shopping is unbelievable driver here, you know, at least in the
US, you know, think we did a pulse.
(04:37):
It was about two weeks ago, so kind of early mid-july and it
there was something like 84% of households still hadn't
completed back. You know, they're back to school
shopping, which makes sense. The school really doesn't start
some regions here early August, but K through 12, the average
that most households will spend is around $300.
(05:00):
It's on electronics, then another 250 clothing and
accessories, then another 170 onshoes, and then another $143 on
school supplies. When you put all that together,
I mean, Target sells every single one of those categories.
They should be a major player inthis space.
And, you know, kids love Target because what else do they have?
(05:23):
Toys. It's real like that.
That was always, you know, growing up, like they know the
bullseye before they know the name and they want to go through
and buy. So, so here's the thing right
here. Here's what they have done
phenomenally well. I live in another continent,
right? My kids have never seen a
target. You would think that, but thanks
(05:43):
to the power of Minecraft, thanks to the power of YouTube
and Targets, amazing social activations, my little boy,
every time he sees the bullseye target.
I mean, I've worked with Target,so I've bought some bullseyes
home for it, but he knows and hegoes, oh, can we go to to Target
when we're in the US? Because that's what Youtubers,
(06:05):
you know, they go in and I don'tknow, grab everything off a
shelf in 5 minutes. Although I think, you know,
Target is having an incredibly difficult time now.
I can see that the influence that they've put into this sort
of new generation through thingslike YouTube stars definitely
having an implants and obviouslythis lends itself, this category
(06:27):
lends itself to silent influence.
I think is that is a nice way tolook at it.
Exactly, yeah, they're, they're telling me where they want to go
to back to school shopping. So it's that's happening then
yeah, it's a real impact on the wallet, so.
So another, another interesting element to share is this whole,
you know, you and I have heard AI stories, you know, retailers
(06:50):
talking about we're going to useit in our back end, we're going
to use it in our front end. There's been some great research
by Aquino. Di Nata did it for Aquino and
they found, they, they surveyed 3500 customers and they found
84% of shoppers who used AI generated product
recommendations, had positive experiences, which is great.
(07:11):
So the recommendation sort of was getting it right, but only
45% of shoppers then trusted theAI to be accurate in whatever it
was providing it back. So it was a positive experience.
But then there's that, I guess that cynicism is actually
accurate. And then actually, so, and then
(07:33):
only 44% engage with them to, to, to actually go on to make a
purchase. And I don't know what, what,
what, why there's a difference here, but there's a difference
by the people who engage and then the people who actually
made the purchase. That's 32%.
So I think AI in the shopping experience, apart from
(07:56):
recommendations, but in terms ofinfluence discovery, insights,
the things that we've been saying, hey, look, you need to
be getting your data sets, you need to be getting those
signals, you need to be getting customer profiles integrated
into your customer channels. Otherwise you're going to end up
with this disjointed experience.I think some retailers are doing
it really well. They don't talk about who and
(08:17):
where and what the only do they mention any other retailers?
No, they don't. It just says that, yeah, no,
there, there, there's no sort ofwho is, they're not naming who's
doing it right, but they are. They are saying that the the the
the AI tools that retailers are.Yeah, I've got a lot of people
(08:39):
don't even know that's happeningin the background, right.
You know when you start, when you start out in merchandising,
you know you're doing cross sells and up sells manually
based on well this goes with this and outfit choices.
A lot of that now is being done by AI where it was done by a
merchant who was sitting behind their computer.
So a lot of that kind of heavy lifting and work and then
(09:03):
differences and tastes in the personal choice that should be
more than up to a merchandiser or two.
That should be up to based on what you've clicked on and what
you know. And it, it's always interesting
when I go, you know, example, shopping on Amazon, shopping for
my kids for camp. I'm shopping for my husband for
a vacation. And then I go and shop and I'm
(09:25):
getting, oh, well, no, your sizeis, you know, 11 male.
I'm like. Yeah.
So, you know, in a way, it's like we're sold the beginning
stages where you almost want to be able to choose a profile of
this is Jill shopping, this is Jill shopping for her husband.
Don't. Get on profiles, I mean, yeah.
It's such a bigger issue than just are you getting further
(09:47):
along in the funnel? It's like you're intelligent,
but now I'm expecting you to be smart and you're so stupid.
Yeah, I think for Crossland upsell, yes.
But like as you mentioned, sizing is a still so, so I mean
I've seen true fit, tried to fixthe problem.
I've seen lots of different organisations try to fix the
(10:08):
problem. But it's that there is no one
size category. So I think that's probably the
last element, which is the most important to you and I as
shoppers, we want that fit. We want it to fit us when we get
it, this leg. They definitely don't want me to
return it. I definitely don't want to
return it. It's it really is solving that
(10:30):
at the UX experience. I mean, I would say Amazon does
a pretty good job now. Nordstrom does a really good
job. You know, reviewers say this
item runs small. Reviewers say this item runs
large or Amazon says this is a frequently returned item.
I don't want to tell them, but Ialso then don't buy that item.
I'm like, OK, next. So you know you in a way you
(10:52):
really need to think about what are you using this AI for?
Is it what's to inform so you don't have a return?
Because with Amazon, I'm sure that's what they're doing.
And sometimes they just say keepthe item, here's your cash back,
right? Well.
It's margin erosion, right? This is eroding your margin.
And then what's fixing it? Yeah.
OK, so we're almost at the weekend and it's, well, it's
(11:14):
Friday. So this one, I think, sort of
lends itself to that Friday feeling.
I love it. Big alcohol, although the lack
of alcohol, basically we're not drinking as much.
And the especially generationally, people are
making alternative choices. So this news article is about
specifically how drinks companies are looking at
(11:37):
cannabis drinks to try and revive sales that are lost to
the decline in in wines and beers.
I I think we just had Wimbledon over here and Tom Holland, Mr
famous spider man Marvel Universe, it's his brand that
they launched. They had a massive activation at
Wimbledon again 0 alcohol. This is about people enjoying
(12:00):
the flavour, the taste, the the whole ecosystem of drinking
without the the alcohol. And what's again, what's
interesting is the US drinks. I don't know if they went to to
label on the Boston Beer Company.
So shows that this is, you know,a cannabis inspired, I'm sorry,
not inspired of cannabis based drink.
(12:20):
Something but I. Don't know if you're going to
get there here Is this like, I don't know I'll I'll stay away
from making. But it's interesting, right?
Is this the shape of think why? Because the amount of the Gen XS
and Gen Gen X Gen Z having some form of CBT cannabis experience
(12:41):
now shifting it to being a drink.
I don't know. Yeah, it, it is interesting.
There's definitely, there's beena huge wave in the past couple
years, honestly since kind of coming out of COVID, where a lot
of people maybe went down the alcohol rabbit hole, maybe too
much. You know, everyone had their own
COVID experience. I wouldn't comment.
(13:01):
I wouldn't say from, not from experience.
Not here to judge. I'm also not I'm also not, you
know, a sober person, but the, you know, the sober movement is
sober. Curious that California's sober
there all these terms where it'sjust it's not as appealing to
have alcohol in the younger generations now.
So it is really interesting to see there they might want
(13:25):
something, maybe it's a 0 proof drink, so they aren't just
standing there with water in their hand.
But then again, there there might be something like, you
know, CBD has been around obviously for quite some time,
infused drinks, but cannabis drinks that in the states,
obviously 50 states, 50 different laws.
(13:46):
And that has been probably a harder nut to crack because the
distribution have to be 21. You have to, you know, it's,
it's, it's kind of it's a new category, which and so it's,
it's really interesting. And also, if you don't know
tolerances and you pull it off the shelf, you know, that's a
whole new thing as well because it, it might hit a bit
(14:09):
differently than some of the other cannabis products out
there. So I think it's a really
interesting model to follow and to watch and just see how big
it's going to get. It's, I believe it's going to be
huge, obviously. I think before we go into the
last one and unconscious of time, basically all of the all
of the things, all of the echoes, all of the signals that
we're hearing is there's this massive seismic shift in the
(14:31):
market. It's having impact on the way we
drink, on the way we shop, on the way we review things, get
inspired by things. But the the industry is shifting
and changing with it. And I think that's the wonderful
thing that the opportunity that you and I have are these new
categories. People like warmer as we come on
(14:51):
to the final story, you know, they are looking at these
categories thinking how, you know, this new, it's not new IT,
but newish tweens, this new in the new generation.
How do we stay relevant to them?And where's the white space?
I mean, Walmart has been really good at fashion the past couple
years. I mean, Denise and Candela
(15:12):
running their fashion programme has been, you know, she came
from luxury and it, I remember very clearly when she moved over
to Walmart, it was, you know, when she tells the story, mouths
were dropping like what? Why?
And a lot of it is like just democratised fashion.
And, you know, they really went for the women's customer 1st and
then obviously kind of the baby and the kids.
(15:32):
But there's been a real hole in the markets for when you're out
of kids sizes but you're not into men's or women's sizes.
What happens if if even if you kind of fit into the men's or
women's clothing, A, they're notcut right, Maybe for the shape,
But B, I mean, I don't have daughters myself, but I hear
from all of my friends, I don't want my daughter wearing a crop
(15:54):
top or shorts that are so short to school at age, you know, 11.
Just because she's tall doesn't mean she should be wearing.
So there's really been this veryhard, like they want to be
trendy. They want to be look like
they're, you know, a teen and they want to look cool for their
friends. But there hasn't really been a
(16:14):
whole lot of brands that have stayed in this space.
Some have come and gone, but with Walmart launching Weekend
Academy, I think, you know, it'sa perfect timing.
We were just talking about back to school and Target, but you
know, look at some of this stuff.
It's. Well, it's not full of cut, it's
not cutesy, cuddly mumsy. You know that sort of that's
what my little, you know, 10 or 11 year old doesn't want right.
(16:38):
But his body when when I go intothe stores, that's what I get
you just. Get a bigger.
It's really nice. It's appropriate clothing for
parents who, you know, still have the influence that are
holding on to that influence. I know I won't have it much
longer, but yeah, really, reallyexcited to see how this goes.
And, you know, it's priced. There's a lot below $10.
(17:01):
I think the most expensive is somewhere in the. 12 bucks for a
skirt or 698 for a T-shirt. I mean that's incredible.
I mean that's team pricing, right?
That's see that's that's where that.
That is exactly. And they have the backpacks and
all the things, the purses, the coats, all the things to go with
it, which may be a little bit above $15.00, but still you're
(17:22):
not. I don't want to take my kid
into, you know, a Nordstrom's orMacy's and spend $60.00 on a
shirt they're growing out of in two weeks, so.
Absolutely. It's a really, really lovely
play and I'm just excited to hear kind of the results of how
they do. Well, listen, this has gone
flown by, but we're we're at thetop of our allotted slot.
(17:44):
So thank you so much Jill for this weeks 5 things Friday.
Until next time.
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