From Cannes to the Future: AI, Brands & the Power of Human Connection

Transcript

Our transcripts are generated by AI. Please excuse any typos and if you have any specific questions please email info@digitalshelfinstitute.org.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (00:00):

Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where industry leaders share insights, strategies, and stories to help brands win in the ever-changing world of commerce. Welcome back to Unpacking the Digital Shelf Live from Cannes Lions. I'm Lauren Livak Gilbert, and today I am joined by Eric Sheinkop in the press room. As we dive into the biggest themes shaping the marketing and commerce world, we're talking about what brands are missing, how AI will shape our future from influencer marketing to grocery shopping, and why human connection might be the only thing that saves us from becoming obsolete. Let's get into it. All right, here we go. We are at Cannes Lions, and I'm here with Eric in the press room recording a pod. How's it going?

 

Eric Sheinkop (00:57):

It's very exciting. Yeah, it's beautiful. Overlooking the yachts.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:01):

Complain. My gosh. I know, but we're in air conditioning, so

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:03):

I know.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:03):

That is the key point here.

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:05):

That is absolutely the most important thing about canned.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:08):

Yes. It's so much hotter than last year.

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:09):

I know. I know. It's like, I guess that's global warming, right?

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:13):

Yeah. Here it comes. That's another podcast. So Eric, how has can so far, big themes, big takeaways. What are you feeling?

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:21):

I mean, it's great. As you were saying, it's the place just to get everybody in one room, so to speak, and just go door to door to door to door and all of our clients, all of our meetings. The takeaways, it's a good question. It's the same themes from any conference these days.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:43):

I know, right?

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:44):

But

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (01:45):

Ai.

 

Eric Sheinkop (01:46):

Ai, but I mean, I think it's interesting to see the themes come and go. I was just saying Shop Talk two years ago was only the metaverse, and everybody's like, if you don't have your brand on the metaverse, you're behind. I haven't heard that word once. That's what I'm saying. So it's always interesting just to hear what's hot at the moment. But obviously AI is not going to be a fad. It is Here. It is going to be an institutional shift, so we might as well learn about it.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (02:12):

I agree. And there's also, we were talking about this, there's a younger crowd, a lot more creators. A lot more influencers.

 

Eric Sheinkop (02:19):

Yes. Very interesting.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (02:21):

Bigger focus on TikTok and snap, and

 

Eric Sheinkop (02:23):

They're coming for the money. They know the brands are here, so it's coming for it.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (02:28):

They are. Well, speaking of brands, what do you think brands are really underestimating right now?

 

Eric Sheinkop (02:34):

I think connection, real, true human emotional connection, I think is completely lacking in marketing these days. And I totally understand how we got here. It's the pendulum always swings, and brands are scared. They're timid, so they're not taking a stance one way or another. They're just trying to play right down the middle. And in doing, they're not connecting with anybody. So I started coming to CAN 15 years ago.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (03:06):

Oh, wow. You are like a champion.

 

Eric Sheinkop (03:08):

Yeah. I met my wife here 15 years

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (03:11):

Ago. Oh, I love this story. Yes. Oh, best story ever can meet and greet.

 

Eric Sheinkop (03:14):

Yes. So I love it. But there used to be so much, there was a stance. Every brand you knew where they stood, and you could even put them on a diagram and say, okay, this brand stands for this and this. And they still say, well, Disney and Coke, they sell happiness, and this one sells family and this one sells that. Now, it's really hard to know where brands stand. And so if you don't have that emotional connection, then people don't care about your brand. So what are they not realizing from all this is, in all honesty, I think brands are going to become unnecessary. I agree. And what I mean by that is when we look for something on Amazon right now, and it's kind of like hangers or whatever, it's just like the Amazon basics is fine things for my kids. Yeah. Amazon basics fine. I don't care. And if there's not a loyalty, if there's not a connection, if there's not a reason to actually support, then brands are going to lose customers and we're just going to be buying from factories.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:22):

But think about the iconic brands, right? Sure. Coca-Cola, Pepsi, I think of bandaid. They didn't start this year last year. They are institutional brands. Absolutely. And that's amazing. And they have so much equity and they have a lot of power in the industry, and they're in a great position. They can do a lot of amazing things. But tell me a brand that has become like that in the past three, five years. That's really everywhere. I mean, Stanley's the first one that comes to mind, but

 

Eric Sheinkop (04:52):

It's different. But again, that was a fad,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:55):

Exactly.

 

Eric Sheinkop (04:56):

A trend I should say.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:57):

But it's not like an institutional

 

Eric Sheinkop (05:00):

Brand. No, it's not a staple. I mean, you see things like Aura ring, but that's because of the function. I'm wearing one. Yep. Everybody's wearing them. But it's the function. It's not the brand. Love become what they are today because they sell sugar water. They sold a brand and people wanted to wear their brand. And I just don't think that exists. I think you're right. There isn't something that comes to mind. There's popular brands, but not ones that people are loyal to.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (05:31):

And I think it's going to be more niche. So you're going to find a community of people that you as a brand can really connect with because you understand how they're shopping, you understand what they want, and people crave connection. So there's still a place for brands, but I think it's shifting in the traditional word of brand.

 

Eric Sheinkop (05:48):

Absolutely. I do think though, that this, not trying to offend anyone, it just, they're losing their voice. It's nothing memorable.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:02):

I agree. I agree. Well, speaking of that, in terms of being memorable and making sure, and offensive and offensive, obviously, because we're going to dive into that, there's also a fear around being replaced, being replaced as a brand, being replaced as a human with ai. So what do you think is the defining feature or characteristic that will make sure that we don't get replaced by ai?

 

Eric Sheinkop (06:26):

So when I think about ai, here's the worst case scenario. We have shopping bots that we could have do our shopping. And every retailer has shopping bots. So our bots are going to be buying from bots,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:37):

Agent

 

Eric Sheinkop (06:39):

To agent, agent to agent. They are going to not care about the brand or anything of that nature. They're going to care about the cheapest, fastest delivery. And again, just kind of cutting out the human relationships. So my whole thing is you have to start with human. I believe that AI influencers will replace regular influencers.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:00):

Wait a second. Can we talk about that? Yes. When you say AI influencers, you mean you're creating a

 

Eric Sheinkop (07:05):

Persona? Yeah. That's

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:06):

Made by AI and has an opinion

 

Eric Sheinkop (07:09):

And has opinion.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:10):

Are you seeing that now?

 

Eric Sheinkop (07:11):

Yeah, absolutely.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:12):

Really? Do you have an example

 

Eric Sheinkop (07:14):

You share? Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of companies that have been out for several years. They were way ahead. Chris Tavern's company, and I'm forgetting the name of it. He used to create digital humans, and they would look fake, but that was kind of like the point. Now they've evolved so much that you don't even know. They're fake. They

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:30):

Look real.

 

Eric Sheinkop (07:31):

And the problem is our whole thing at the Desire companies, we talking about you could buy reach, but you can't buy expertise. So influencers right now, they're not even getting organic reach. You have to pay for it anyway. So if they have a million followers, less than 1% are seeing it unless they pay to boost it. So you might as well just cut them out and pay to boost anybody anything, even if it's fake. So I think that the influencer world, I think we are seeing the last pop of it right now,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (08:01):

And

 

Eric Sheinkop (08:01):

I think that will be replaced with ai. But I think something that AI will never be able to replace is the actual human experience. And it's not necessarily that emotional connection that I was talking about, but AI will never be able to tell you the truth. It only knows what the world has put on the internet. It's whatever model it's created off of or it's learned from. That's its truth. And the internet is full of everything on the internet is true. Whatcha talking about Eric? Yeah, exactly. So that's what AI knows. That's what AI is working off of and human experiences, taking a brand, using it, touching it, feeling it, getting the results, and then saying, here's what I think about it. Here's why I like it. Here's why I don't like it. Here's what I recommend it for. Here are the results that you could expect. AI will never be able to do that, ever. So I think that's where AI will not replace. But in terms of jobs and everything else of that nature, absolutely. It's here.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:10):

It's going to change. There was even an ai, fully AI creative piece that was submitted as a part of Cannes Lions. So I agree it's here, but we're still not sure where it's going to end, but we know it is going to enable us and supercharge us to be able to do

 

Eric Sheinkop (09:25):

More. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love the thought that literally in five years from now where the average work week will probably be 10, 15 hours.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:35):

That sounds fantastic. Yeah, it does. We could just come to the south of

 

Eric Sheinkop (09:38):

France. Yeah, exactly. But I really do, because why would we do all the, I mean all this stuff, I save tens of hours a week with AI already

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:47):

Agreed.

 

Eric Sheinkop (09:48):

So just imagine where that's going to go.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (09:50):

Well, what I think is really interesting or exciting I should say, is we are on a constant hamster wheel. We're staying up with what's happening in the industry. We're making content, we're reading, we're doing all these things. And when you are constantly running like that, it is harder for your brain to come up with new ideas and to really get into a state of flow and really be creative. So I think it's exciting because it can automate a lot of that work where hopefully it can bring out new ideas. People have more time to go for a

 

Eric Sheinkop (10:20):

Walk

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:21):

A hundred percent and think about what's happening or come up with some new amazing concept that we just can't because we're just constantly moving.

 

Eric Sheinkop (10:27):

Yeah. No, creativity has been sucked out of the average human because we don't have time to think.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:33):

Yes.

 

Eric Sheinkop (10:34):

So I do look forward to that and excited about some free time to create.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:42):

I agree. And let's think about the PDP, right? So content on the PDP. Do you think that AI is going to create all of that content and it's going to be constantly optimized? How do you see the brand manager, the e-commerce manager, fitting into that scenario?

 

Eric Sheinkop (11:00):

Yeah, I think that the majority of it absolutely will be created by AI and optimized and personalized by ai. But I also think that we're going to see regulations where you can't fool the consumer. That's the number one rule of the FTCs. You cannot mislead the shopper. So if you're showing a product and it's in somebody's hand and it's in the snow, and then it's in somebody's hand and it's in the desert, that's an AI image that is a generated image that they did not do an actual model shoot. And I think in the near future, I haven't heard anybody talk about it yet, but I feel like in the near future, it's going to have to say the same way it does on Instagram, that it has hashtag paid or ad or whatever.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (11:48):

Oh, created by ai,

 

Eric Sheinkop (11:49):

Created by ai, AI generated, because otherwise, again, it's not true. It's not telling the truth about the product and the use case of the product. So I think that when it comes, and I'm also saying that because otherwise my company's in trouble, but I think we're in a good situation

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (12:07):

Also. We don't want to be fooled. I want to know. I don't want to have a moment where I'm like, is this real?

 

Eric Sheinkop (12:11):

Right? Yeah. And that's

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (12:11):

Already happening. I know

 

Eric Sheinkop (12:13):

It's, it's already happening. I'm watching whatever you see. I remember my daughter coming in and being like, did you know that blah, blah, blah. I was like, where did you see that?

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (12:21):

Oh, no.

 

Eric Sheinkop (12:22):

I was like, that did not actually happen.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (12:24):

We need to teach people to ask questions. Right?

 

Eric Sheinkop (12:26):

Yeah, absolutely. It's scary.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (12:28):

It is scary. And I feel like Europe in general has a lot more regulations. So I think we're probably going to see a lot more happen around AI here before it kind of moves to the us. But I do believe there needs to be more regulations, but I just don't think people understand it enough to be able to make a regulation about it. It's even in schools, I'm sure as your daughter gets older and is getting a phone and writing

 

Eric Sheinkop (12:54):

Essays,

 

(12:55):

They took away their laptops this year and next year they're replacing them with school monitored laptops because they do not want them using ai, which I think is silly because AI is here, it's not going anywhere. I understand that You have to learn how to do five plus five is 10, but we have calculators, and so we should think about AI in the same way that if here, let's learn how to use it effectively instead of being scared and trying to ban it. And we do see a lot of, I mean, you are right about Europe. They're really good at actually kind of a negative word, but suppressing certain things that they don't want in their society.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (13:40):

Well look at the data security here, which is fantastic, exactly where your data is being used, and you usually see it happen here, and then the kind of trend moves. So it'll be interesting to monitor that.

 

Eric Sheinkop (13:49):

Yeah. So I think it's coming sooner than later.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (13:51):

I agree. I agree. We're still talking about AI because obviously we're going to be talking about AI for the next how many years? I don't know. So how do you think it'll affect the cost of products, right? We're in the world of tariffs right now, but is it going to help with pricing, supply chain, and even jobs? How are you kind of predicting that?

 

Eric Sheinkop (14:13):

So I think the price of products will drop dramatically over the next five years.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (14:19):

What's music to everyone's ears

 

Eric Sheinkop (14:20):

Except

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (14:21):

Said by Eric?

 

Eric Sheinkop (14:22):

Except so will jobs to create those products because we won't need designers, we won't need packager. All of this stuff will be generated by AI manufactured without people and shipped out without marketing and people, because it'll be the AI bots, Ryan from AI bots. However, I think that we will see absolute job cuts, but people will have more disposable income because things will be

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (14:51):

Cheaper. See, that is a beautiful non doomsday approach. I really like that. Okay. All

 

Eric Sheinkop (14:57):

Right. So that's where I think it's going. It's like we are going to work less. We are going to have less jobs as we know them today, but it will be more affordable. Now, that being said, food and stuff, I don't know

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:12):

How

 

Eric Sheinkop (15:13):

That's going to change.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:13):

Eggs are finally cheaper than they were, but like $10 before, so I'm happy about that.

 

Eric Sheinkop (15:18):

But soil and getting the most out of your soil and the lighting and making sure that diseases don't kill plants and things that bring up the cost of food, that will decrease, that will go away. AI is really good at detecting when there's an invasive species or something of that nature. But yeah, so I think food will remain expensive, and I think everything else will be dirt sheet,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:48):

But this is the least doomsday approach I have heard, which is fantastic. Yeah,

 

Eric Sheinkop (15:53):

Thank you.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:53):

It'll be interesting to see what plays out. I feel like in five years we need to do another podcast and be like, huh, what happened? How are our predictions?

 

Eric Sheinkop (15:59):

We'll be in the same place. I'm

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (16:00):

Sure AI's going to take off soon. It's going to be great. You never know. You never know. Okay. We're going to play a little fun ending here. It's 2035. Okay. And you have to go grocery shopping. What do you think that experience will look like?

 

Eric Sheinkop (16:20):

Go grocery shopping

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (16:21):

Or you need, okay, that's a great, I should have said you need groceries in 10 years. How is that going to work?

 

Eric Sheinkop (16:28):

I think we'll be based off of food planning, so okay. Let's say it for me.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (16:33):

Yeah, yeah, please.

 

Eric Sheinkop (16:34):

Not everybody, but what I would do is, and I'm already doing this, I'm already having, we've got three kids. We cook. I'm already going to AI and saying I'm vegan, except I eat fish. My wife is kosher. She doesn't eat certain things. So I give it AI that, and I say, make me a couple of recipes, make me a couple of meal plans. And then it will say, do you want me to create a shopping list for this? And it will give you all the ingredients. Now, at this point in time, I'm still going out and buying those. But all of that will be one process. So meal planning will be the basis of food shopping. It'll cut down on waste. We'll buy less stuff that we don't use, and then the food will be delivered by magic one way or another, a drone nanotechnology, spaceship. And then my automated chef will cook it,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (17:28):

An automated chef. So you think we're going to have robots in the home to

 

Eric Sheinkop (17:33):

Do it? Oh, for sure.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (17:33):

Yeah.

 

Eric Sheinkop (17:34):

Yeah. In 10 years from now. Absolutely.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (17:36):

So what is the value then of, let's talk about influencers and experts. What's the value of a chef then? Like a real chef who has years of experience? Do you see that being an input to the AI that helps make those suggestions? Where do those experts fall?

 

Eric Sheinkop (17:53):

Yeah. AI has to always learn from something. So it's going to learn from the best chefs out there. However, if you just have AI absorb the past 20 years of the food network, it's going to be a pretty good chef. I think what is going to be missing, and I think this will change, but if you think about certain moments of creativity, like going from jazz music or classical music and jazz music and rock and roll and hip hop, those were moments where somebody did something really creative and they took a very, very different approach that had never been done before. So I think that is where ai, I don't know how to think about that, how it's going to

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (18:39):

Advances forward in those new stages

 

Eric Sheinkop (18:42):

Of it rolled out. But innovation, it comes from AI already, but at the same time, it's very linear. It's very algorithmically based. You have to break that algorithm to create something that new. And I don't know, AI will be able, if my home robot chef will be able to break that algorithm of itself to create something drastically new and a new way. I mean, every once in a while you go to a fancy restaurant and I'll have a texture that I've never had

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (19:13):

Before,

 

Eric Sheinkop (19:15):

And that's somebody who spent years developing that and perfecting it. And that's a question. But yeah, how I'll go grocery shopping. I will tell the computer or whatever it is, probably won't even have computers. I will speak to my glasses. You'll something in your house. It'll

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (19:32):

Just come on

 

Eric Sheinkop (19:35):

What I want to eat for the week or whatever, and it will take it from there. And I will have my food prepped for the week.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (19:42):

You know what? You sparked a thought here. And I think what's going to be more important, you talked about connection, is also experiences. I feel like because we're moving so far into the digital side of things, people crave coming to conferences, going to a pop-up,

 

Eric Sheinkop (19:57):

Doing

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (19:58):

Something really, really cool, and then talking about it on social media, right? Those experiences, I think we're going to be even more exciting for people as we move this way. Do you

 

Eric Sheinkop (20:08):

Agree? Yeah. We're already seeing that people are spending 80% more on experiences than they were a couple of years

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (20:13):

Ago. Oh, really? That makes sense.

 

Eric Sheinkop (20:17):

And I'm not just talking about from the pandemic. I think the pandemic put us in a state of mind where it's like, okay, life right now might be short and okay, all this stuff I have in my house is not helping right now. What does help is these memories that I create and all of that. So absolutely. And again, I think people will have a little bit more disposable income and all of that stuff will get cheaper too, because you will need less people on cruise lines. You'll need less people to work at the airports and teleportation pads.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (20:48):

Oh my gosh. Things of that nature. I've always wanted that. I get motion sick, so I do not want to be on any moving object. Just beat me up, Scotty. I know that shows my age, but I want to be in a

 

Eric Sheinkop (20:58):

New

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (20:58):

Place

 

Eric Sheinkop (20:59):

That's coming too. I really think watching tv, we'll be able to press a button. Yep. I want to buy that. And we will have our nano technology printed out in front of us. So right there in our living room,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:11):

This future world, Eric. Cool. But scary. Yeah, right.

 

Eric Sheinkop (21:14):

But it's happening. We got to embrace it.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:17):

It is. I agree.

 

Eric Sheinkop (21:18):

As someone's going to create it too, so you might as well be part of the creation,

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:21):

Part of the change. Yeah. Amazing. Eric, thank you so much for your thoughts, for your non dystopian future with AI and for your robot chef.

 

Eric Sheinkop (21:30):

Yeah, thank you very much. Come over and try it sometime.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:33):

Amazing.

 

Eric Sheinkop (21:34):

Alright, thanks Eric. Thanks for having me.

 

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:35):

That's a wrap from the Cannes Lions press room. Huge thanks to Eric for sharing his insights, optimism, and yes, robot chef predictions. If you're feeling inspired or a little overwhelmed by the AI power future, remember, creativity, connection, and curiosity will always be our superpowers. Don't forget to subscribe and we'll catch you on the next episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf.