Future Commerce

Phillip and Brian sit down with Carlos Gutierrez, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce and former chairman and CEO of Kellogg, ahead of the release of his memoir, Sheer Will. Carlos explains how the Commerce Department became one of the most powerful seats in Washington, why America should out-innovate China in the AI race, and why he thinks Americans are reluctant capitalists.An America of Reluctant CapitalistsKey takeaways:With USTR now reporting to Commerce, the department holds more economic power than ever.Judging Mexico by the trade deficit misreads its value as a production partner.To win the AI race, America should out-innovate China rather than rely on sanctions.AI can't motivate people. Judgment and intuition will matter more for leaders.Global brands stay competitive when local teams share ownership of the P&L."The Commerce secretary will be as powerful as the president wants him or her to be." — Carlos Gutierrez"I think that our [AI] strategy needs to be to out-innovate China." — Carlos Gutierrez"We are reluctant capitalists. We're reluctant to go too far. We're reluctant to embrace these trillion-dollar companies." — Carlos Gutierrez"I wanted 40, 50 people to go to sleep worrying about the P&L, not just me." — Carlos GutierrezIn-Show Mentions:Sheer Will: Learning to Lead When There Is No Path by Carlos Gutierrez (St. Martin's Press), available October 6Associated Links:Member Brief: The First 100 Days: Reshaping a Modern Commerce Department on the World StageMember Brief: Consolation PrizeMember Brief: The Power of the Modern Commerce Department: Every Fable Has a MoralThe Senses: The Commerce Department Is a Hedge Fund NowPolicy Brief: The Halo Effect of the New EconomyTabula Rasa: Commerce in the Great Geopolitical GameThe Senses: 100 Days Later and We're Still Tariff-iedMember Brief: Costco and the New American ImperialismEpisode 414: Kunle Campbell – Is Commerce in Conflict with Idealism?Episode 309: AI Should Empower Your Workforce, Not Replace ThemCheck out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Taste can’t be manufactured, so brands are hiring the people who have it. Writer and gr8 collab founder Emma Apple Chozick returns to talk with Phillip about her creative process (sans content calendar), building ShopMy’s Signals Substack on proprietary data, and what the long-gone BEST Products showrooms can teach us about designing retail spaces worth remembering.A Category of OneKey takeaways:Brands can’t manufacture taste; they’ve learned to partner with people whose judgment audiences already trust.Real editorial starts with an insight, question, or tension. Consumers today can sniff out a product pitch from a mile away — if a brand’s editorial isn’t valuable as standalone content, it’s not worth sharing. BEST Products’ SITE showrooms prove the best retail trades measurability for memory.Emma Apple Chozick: “Taste is obviously completely subjective. But when a brand resonates with a particular person’s taste, that’s not replicable. A brand can’t create that on their own. They can try, but it’s never gonna feel authentic.”Emma Apple Chozick: “I don’t know if the goal is actually ‘to grow.’ I think the goal is to work on really compelling projects that are aligned with what I’m interested in and can reach new people. But the goal isn’t always reach.”Phillip: “I don’t know that any of those [hot new channels] actually reflect culture. I think we bend culture to those things because that’s where we put capital, and an industry likes to talk about them because they’re new. But the people actually define what the culture is around the brand.”In-Show Mentions:Watch Emma’s BEST Products videoFind Emma Apple Chozick on LinkedIn and InstagramLearn more about gr8 collabExplore the archive of SITE New YorkRead Signals: A Publication by ShopMyWatch Surroundings on YouTubeRead Emma’s Dwell essay, “The Midcentury House That Raised Me”Listen to Emma’s first Future Commerce episode, Creating Credible Content and Community-Building CollabsAssociated Links:Read: Member Brief: Return on Experience and the New KPIs of Store DesignRead: Insiders #188: Architecting Desire: How Retail-Hospitality Hybrids are Changing ConsumptionRead: Substack and Retail’s New Media EraRead The Senses: “That’s a Great Collab”Listen: Where Culture Happens, Commerce FollowsVISIONS Summit at MoMA, New York City: Join us on November 3, 2026Watch: Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Future Commerce Rewind, where we revisit our deepest and most enduring conversations. This week, we're playing back our April 2025 conversation with Andrew McLuhan, grandson of Marshall McLuhan and director of The McLuhan Institute. Andrew joins Phillip and Brian to explain why his grandfather's ideas still hold up: the side effects of a technology tend to become its main effects, and the Global Village was never as idyllic as it sounds. AI has become a companion, an advisor and a shopping assistant. McLuhan's asks the core question: what do our new tools extend, and what do they change about us?Associated Links:Get your ticket to VISIONS Summit: NYCCheck out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The in-house research team has hollowed out, and the LLMs picking up the slack are only delivering their best guesses. Merciv, the agentic brain behind Future Commerce’s Signal Reports, has set out to deliver auditable, defensible, and unified reporting solutions — and it’s redefining what brands are capable of achieving in-house in the process. Phillip and Alicia welcome Merciv co-founder and CEO Shaia Erlbaum to the show to talk about how brands can read signals in real time, and verify their relevancy. Shaia argues that data itself is commoditizing, but verification is not. The most honest consumer signal lives too deep for surveys to reach, which is why our Signal Reports are looking deeper than stated behaviors and are telling completely new kinds of retail and culture stories.The Toothpaste Doesn't Lie Key takeaways:Insights teams keep shrinking while the C-suite depends on them more than ever.Surveys capture posturing. Forums, reviews, and comment sections capture behavior.Data is commoditizing. Proprietary brand knowledge is the durable moat.The first Signal Report, a collaboration between Future Commerce and Merciv,  maps where GLP-1s removed cultural friction – and where friction migrated to."Almost everyone answering a survey question about how many times they brush their teeth in a day will say twice. But if you actually look at those sales figures, they simply don't sell enough toothpaste." — Shaia Erlbaum"These models aren't built to tell you, 'Hey, I don't know.'" — Shaia Erlbaum"There's a world where data's already becoming a commodity… a lot of the real advantage is less rooted in which model's more intelligent, but more so in to what degree can we actually verify the information we're coming across." — Shaia Erlbaum"The office of the CMO is becoming more of an individual contributor role." — Phillip JacksonIn-Show Mentions:Merciv: merciv.com"Frictionless Wellness: GLP-1s and What Comes After the Age of Autonomy" – the first Future Commerce Signal Report, powered by Merciv.LORE, our newest book on who really writes your brand's story. Get it in the Future Commerce shop.Associated Links:Read the first Signal Report, Frictionless Wellness: GLP-1s and What Comes After the Age of AutonomyInsiders 204: The Ozempic Effect: How GLP-1s Rewrote the Gospel of Self-LoveEpisode 435: Predictions 2026: Prepare for the Age of AutonomyEpisode 367: AI Agents Are Here. "Brands" Might Be In Danger.Episode 447: The Agent Has Left the BuildingCheck out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nikita Walia and Elliot Vredenburg of U.N.N.A.M.E.D. Studios took to the VISIONS stage at MoMA last year to enlighten a room of retail executives and brand marketers about the realities of worldbuilding. Their theory: a brand’s final form is decided by the public—and the strategist's job is to navigate that story, not control it. And they use Mercator, Buckminster Fuller, Guy Debord, free public Wi-Fi, and an acne sticker to back up their claims.Mapping Meaning Isn’t About Being RightKey takeaways:Branding isn't worldbuilding because worldbuilding just imposes another set of rulesA three-hundred-page brand book is obsolete the day it ships, and rebrands every five to ten years are theater for stakeholdersThe public decides a brand's final form, not the guidelines deckRegenerative brands are always rebranding[00:00:25] "Counter to what you've heard today, branding is not, in fact, worldbuilding." — Nikita Walia[00:04:34] "This is sameness being sold to us as a form of consistency." — Nikita Walia[00:15:45] "It's not about being right. It's about being useful, and useful in motion." — Elliot Vredenburg[00:17:09] "A regenerative brand doesn't need to rebrand every five to ten years because it's always rebranding." — Elliot VredenburgIn-Show Mentions:The Mercator projection (1569) and Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion MapSuperstudio, The Continuous MonumentGuy Debord and psychogeographyLinkNYCBurberry, Daniel Lee, Demna's Balenciaga, Pierpaolo PiccioliStarfaceAssociated Links:Read Alicia Esposito's companion essay, The New Meaning of Brand Building: Cartographies of MeaningWatch the original session at VISIONS Summit: Cartographies of MeaningHear Dami Lee's VISIONS session, The Stories Behind Our SpacesListen to Building Culturally Intelligent Brands with Dr. Anastasia Kārkliņa GabrielRevisit The Anti-Blands, Existential Brands, and the New DadaismRead Surface Culture: When Brands Mistake Wallpaper for AuthenticityCheck out Future Commerce on YouTubeCheck out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and printSubscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce worldListen to our other episodes of Future CommerceHave any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.