And just that data and being more explicit around what you want that data for and how it's going to power an experience is just so much more valuable because I'm much more likely, having chosen to give my data to that brand, much more likely to return and therefore make a purchase through better interactions with me as a consumer. Hello and welcome to the Retail Podcast. Now, as you know, we'd like to solve problems on the show.
So we thought what better way that when retailers are looking at customer engagement platforms, we haven't really covered that area specifically. We've covered some of the partners and suppliers around that, but who better than Brace to to talk to when, when, when retailers are looking to, to fix that? And I'm joined by James Herridge Link, who is the director for partnerships at Braise. Have I got that right? Yeah.
And so global strategic partnerships and at Braise prior to that, I was actually the Global Head of Retail and Consumer Goods at Braise based here in London. I got you, but you're you're AUS company, right? Because I can see the head office is based in New York. That's right, yes, so frequently travelling overseas and, but but 20 years in in technology and I think the, the, the luxury or joy of travel is definitely starting to wear off.
OK, I got you. So listen, if I if I knew nothing about brakes, which is pretty much the case, how would you in layman's terms sort of describe brace? Sure. So a great place to start. So Braise is a customer engagement platform that helps brands to personalise and scale the customer experiences across
all channels. So it's one platform and endless touch points and channels that we support for customers including Deliveroo, ASOS, Estee Lauder, elf Cosmetics, many of the the best and and leading brands in the world. So I I noticed that's cross category, so you're not limited to fashion or beauty. No, no, we, we absolutely work with from like small, from very small businesses and through to some of the largest companies in in the world.
I got you and and so if I was like, you know, SS their Lauder, what what would be the outcome that you would you would you would create for me? What would you? Do sure it's a great question. So if, if we go back to, you know, pre kind of 1947, so SS Lauder was in New York, she was in hair salons and beauty salons and she was starting to actually implement what was her, her products to consumers as they
were having their hair blow dry. And, and that was really kind of the starting of what was high touch consumer experiences. And so for Estee Lauder, they want to continue to, to, to fulfil what was their kind of founding mission. And, and really that's being able to understand consumers in the moment through the various different touch points that they have, whether it's a a website, whether it's through their and skin or online diagnostics tool through to also in store and
experiences. By understanding those consumers based on their known and unknown behaviours or anonymous or known behaviours, be able to actually orchestrate journeys and delivering messaging through to those consumers across the various different channels that that brave supports. And in doing so means that they can launch campaigns quicker, they deliver more value when it comes to using own channels. So very much a prioritisation of own before paid.
And in doing so, you know you've seen significant reductions in the OR increases in the return on ad spend, just as as one example. So there was a / 200% increase in return on ad spend just by using braids. Got you. So, so if I, if I understand right, because one, one of the complaints I always hear senior execs at conferences talk about is that the, the fact that people take the decisions take longer and then more digital touch points that they, they touch before they come to
complete or purchase. And if I understand what you're saying correctly is that you sort of help secure that if you know, if there's an advert or a digital channel that they've gone and they've seen the brand and they've they've touched one of those digital touch points, if they're known to us, fantastic, we've got more data. But if they haven't that you can
also somehow bring that data. In well, so probably a good example is that you would see an an ad from a a brand and the most typical thing that you do is that could be. Anywhere right that on any? Social. Yeah, anywhere. Instagram, exactly. Exactly. And typically in those experiences, those consumers are unknown to the brand because they're not logged in. So they see an add on Instagram, they go to the website and they're anonymous.
But for the brand, they need to very, very quickly understand who that consumer is and drive them somewhere, right? So they want to typically drive them to either do a skin diagnostic, yeah tool or to say make a purchase. And So what Braise is doing is in the moment understanding that consumer based on their behaviours and then triggering messaging to drive some form of action.
And so that might be to a certain place on the website or it might be to make a purchase or actually even into to store to, you know, at that point, say download a coupon or something like that. But I think in so many examples, you've got consumers that and actually, if you ask them what they're looking for, they can't necessarily tell you. And I think that that kind of is like modern day life, right? If you ask someone what they're they're wanting or looking for,
they can't tell you. And, and what Braise is doing is actually just watching them and understanding their behaviours and then using messaging to drive some form of interaction, which ultimately drives then an outcome. And you look at many of the other brands that we serve, from elf Cosmetics to Zealando to Doctor Barbara Stern, that was a hard one to to to get out there. And all of all of these are able to actually just personalised experiences at scale.
And in doing so, consumers just become a lot more loyal. I got you. So I mean, from my own personal experience of working in tech, you probably have a view of what people get wrong, right? What do they not do or what do they take for granted? What what? Like, what are the top three things that people are getting wrong in this industry right now?
Sure. So I think one of the one of the big challenges that a lot of brands have is that they operate within silos, whether that's a channel based silo. So just understanding how consumers interact through e-mail or with data silos. So, you know, I think a lot of retailers have just legacy systems and they're not connected. And that's a real challenge for retailers because they want to be able to make data available
to therefore action. But where data lives in silos, they can't action it in the moment. And so there's always this latency. But then when it comes to channel silos, you're looking at how James Harris laying interacts for e-mail. But I didn't necessarily interact with brands through e-mail. I'm much more responsive, say, on the website or through WhatsApp. And I think the the, the core challenge that fundamentally a lot of the brands have is that that data is siloed and the
channels are also siloed. And therefore to be able to have cohesive, ongoing conversations with consumers through messaging, it's just really difficult. But yeah, I guess the reason it's difficult is because those signals that consumers are giving pretty much I don't know what percentage is are lost, right? Because you, you don't have some form of signal detector picking up all the signals that you're missing, right?
So obviously I can go on my how many people are responding to e-mail and that's going to be abysmal number, right? Because how many people respond to that as opposed to as you said, these new channels. So what are the channels that you're seeing influence purchasing behaviour? Sure. So I think so in what would be seen and say in product channels, so like web messaging on the website and in app messaging and then channels or out of product channels like e-mail, WhatsApp, SMS.
Also RCS when it, when it comes to say braised on a, on an annual basis runs what we call our consumer engagement review and that we go out to many different execs across our, our customer base. And a, a, a key stat for you. So 47% of retailers say that they're extremely or very concerned that their messaging isn't resonating with customers. And I think when, you know, when you even kind of break that down
further. So 95% of marketers through the consumer engagement review admit that they can't or sorry, they find it difficult to craft emotionally resonant messaging and this lack of connection can lead to lower engagement rate. So I think the it's very clear that there's an issue.
And I think one of the challenges is, is that a lot of brands have gone to or a lot of retailers gone to your kind of one-size-fits-all type technology vendor where what we're seeing is this shift to what is kind of composability and composable solutions. So being able to actually find the best in breed of a data warehouse or ABI tool or a customer engagement platform. But core to those technologies actually being able to work is that they can work together.
And I think, you know, Braze has very recently launched or announced our partnership and integration to Shopify. And I think for, you know, if you've got 70 million people in the UKI think we too frequently just look at the biggest businesses in the UK and the world that are then the example. But but actually 85% of consumers live outside of Greater London. So you've got I'm a parish councillor and on the Watlington Business Association as a
representative. And you just see that the challenges that a lot of these businesses have in trying to actually engage with consumers and actually resonate with them to increase the amount of spending and the, the, the frequency by which they're making purchases. And I think fundamentally they need technologies that can work together. And so composability I think is becoming more and more of a, a theme that that will play out
over the, the the coming years. How do you handle privacy across Europe or across the world? Because you have so many different privacy laws that you have to adhere by in different parts of the UK, or I mean, actually I think GDPR is a European, you know, almost if you're GDPR compliant. Do you have any thoughts on privacy?
So like privacy and, and, and customer data is, you know, cool to, to what we do it, it underlies everything but, or underpins everything that we do when you take it very seriously, because you can't build trust for the consumer without respecting their, their data and their privacy, but also having, you know, and again, taking security very, very seriously. I think an important point to consider is so many marketers hesitate to use personal data because of concerns around
consumer consent. So 45% of the UK marketers cite this as a top worry. And with an ever evolving landscape, it becomes even more important because you've got all of these various different technologies for Braise, security, privacy and compliance.
Is, is, is, you know, the, the, the most critical part to, to what we do because our customers and the reason that they love Braise is because we make sure that the, the relationship that they have with their consumers is just, you know, dealt with in a way that's secure, trustworthy and compliant in, in every way. I got you. I understand. So do you think that there's a hindrance?
Is there like do retailers, is that like does that perception block them from doing things in terms of they're eternally worried about not being compliant, whereas actually maybe the work that they are? I mean, what's what's the blockage of, of using a system like brace? I guess that's what I'm trying to understand. Sure. So I, I don't think compliance is one of the factors that kind of underpin or so being compliant in the way by which you communicate with consumers
is absolutely critical. We know that. But I think that that is kind of course of what all of these technologies allow brands to be able to adhere to in terms of kind of compliance and regulation. That said, I think one of the biggest fears that we we continue to see is that there's a risk of kind of taking that next step, as it were. So the status quo is, is, is the status quo. So I think a lot of brands are still chat struggle to, to to challenge what is that status
quo. I've got a, a stat here in terms of like the amount of of e-mail that's being used. So bear with me one second. Sure, no problem. So when it comes to e-mail like as a channel, so 43% of consumers or sorry, respondents to the customer engagement reviews say that e-mail is the preferred channel. Messaging apps like WhatsApp lying account talk is 39% SMS 38% and then slowly followed by by other channels.
And I think there's this still over reliance on one single channel and consumers are all different, right. And I the one like I said earlier, e-mail is, is one way of getting hold of me, but not necessarily the the best way. And I think it's also dependent by market as well. So in a lot of mobile first markets, so like India is a good example or South America, the penetration of mobile is just so
high. And you know, like e-mail to cut through is, is quite difficult because it's not a channel that that everyone uses. And so for a lot of brands that come to Braise is that they want one platform to walk a straight journeys and have an like a variety of different ways to communicate with consumers and to do so at scale. And I think where AI is going to, you know, change the way by which brands communicate is that it's not going to be a
one-size-fits-all. It's going to be really truly understanding who that consumer is, whether you know them or you don't, and then interacting with them based on their behaviours and other data that you have about them, but also being even more explicit about the data that you collect from them and
asking them. So you know, James, do you like this product versus this product or this experience versus this experience and using all of that data and it being available is going to what I think is, is, is the next wave that a lot of brands are are starting to embark on, but very few are actually doing it well, I would say.
I got you. So I think that brings us nicely to like the the final question in terms of you, you mentioned AI or when you look to the future of over what this industry, your industry looks like over the next two to three years, what does that look like? What? What is in, in, in, You know, what is in the future for us. So I think that there's, there's a number of factors outside of
just the, the industry. I think, you know, planning as, as one example here in the UK, there's planning laws that are changing. And I think the cost to live in a city centre, I live in, like I said, in in Watlington, which is junction six of the M40 for those who don't know, second smallest town in the UK and you know, you've got the LTN or the 20 mile an hour speed limits. It takes an hour to get into to
Oxford City centre. And I think planning laws are changing in a way that you're going to see new shopping centres and new malls built around housing because we've got a housing crisis. And I think that fundamentally is 1 opportunity that's going to change the way in that you've got property that allows for better connectivity and better experiences. And I think AI is going to change the way there in that it will move to a more Omni channel
way. So brands will see this more as even more of an opportunity that you need to connect online and install, equipping your, your teams, whether they're in store or online, but specifically in store with technologies that provide them with more knowledge, which is effectively AI or Gen AI is being able to equip them with, with, with more skills and, and, and knowledge. And, and in doing so, I think will change the way that consumers interact with the
stores. So being able to actually be identified as you walk in that store through a mobile app and then retail media, being able to actually deliver much more of an immersive experience to those consumers in store, using that behavioural real time data to then trigger more experiences, whether it's through your app or actually through kiosks and so forth. And I think where the power of AI is going to come in is it's going to allow you to do that at
scale. So your experience, Alex, will be different to my experience, James and, and so on. And what's your perspective on that? Well. That's a good question. I think there's there's a bit of a bun fight going on in terms of what the how AI wants to control the future channel.
So you've got AI companies or like perplexity who basically circumvent the website and take the customer to where the transaction happens to like the buy page because they feel that, you know, if you're looking for a floral summer dress, you don't necessarily need to go through the 25 different touch points on the website. Let's just take you to the buy page. We'll show you what that that
looks like. And so I think, you know, whether or not retailers accept that and say, you know, the amount of money they're they're spending on their websites, whether they'll obviously, they don't want to lose any channel. I just see that as them wanting to take more control to own that data rather than the data sitting in perplexity, TikTok, Instagram or wherever else. And I think that's what retailers are really probably struggling with building
coherent plans. Either they give up and say we're not going to have that data, it's all going to sit in meta and you know, that's the way it goes. Or they'll put some form of fight, fight back and really, really sort of double down on their own digital assets on owning the customer or, or providing better value for the customer and the reason to engage at that level.
So. Yeah, it's it's definitely an interesting one because I think the last time that brand actually asked me data about me instead of just assuming or understanding my behaviours. So Estee Lauder do this really well. They use a an in browser message on their website. So it might be cosmetics to actually surface a message that is interactive that you can potentially part ways with 0 positive data. So it might understand your skin type or what you're looking for.
And just that data and being more explicit around what you want that data for and how it's going to power and experience is just so much more valuable because I'm much more likely having. I've chosen to give my data to that brand much more likely to return and therefore make a purchase through better interactions with me as a consumer, and I think brands that get that right will build better longer term relationships with their customers.
Yeah, I think there's, there's so much that brands get wrong in terms of just look at, if you follow some of the chat rooms where you know what, why do the, why do people use ChatGPT? And it goes to beauty? It's they want to know what other colours are adjacent to the, that match their skin tone, right? And so they'll ChatGPT has a, has a, a capability of looking at you, taking, you know, using a vision AI, saying, OK, you're this colour. Consider wearing this, this than this colour.
And the beauty industry is nervously asking you to, you know, scan your face to see whether or not you, you, you're, you've done sconce sun damage. So I think there's that source of the bold will win because they understand or they'll look at these sort of what people are searching with AI and then think, well, we could do that. Why are we not offering a service of you bought this brown because you're that shade of brown and all these other colours that go with you or, you
know, I don't know. But it's that's where I think brands are need to invest more to not be left behind. And again, I heard someone say, well, is that like in the old days, like 10 years ago? Alexa voice, everyone was worried that that would be the channel. You'll just say, Hey, Alexa, buy this for me. And so retailers were like, well, we need to own that because we don't want, you know, if, if, if, if someone says buy some batteries, you don't want Amazon deciding what batteries
you're going to sell. You want to own that. That really didn't come into fruition as a channel. Maybe it still might because, you know, these things take take forever in terms of consumer behaviour changing. But yeah, that's it. Any closing thoughts? So. Thank you for for taking the,
the, the time for me today. And I think for, for, for those retailers and brands that want to have one platform that connects to their best of breed technology and be able to orchestrate journeys and deliver messaging to consumers in the moment using first and zero party data and across a variety
of channels. So in products, a web app and then out of product through e-mail, SMS and WhatsApp, Braises is becoming even more well known and just the customers that we work with and the results do speak for themselves. So I'd encourage those that are interested in finding out more to to to make contact. That's fantastic. Are you at any conferences that
are coming? Up we are so we'll be at Cannes Lion festival OK, and what's amazing about Cannes is that you get to make meet so many of the world's most amazing people and I think you do so obviously in 30° sunshine. And then we've got Viva tech and tomorrow or the twenty 20th of May we've got praise city by city and then other things like shop talk Europe that we'll also be at. So looking forward to having many great conversations with, with, you know, amazing people across the world.
That's fantastic, James. Thank you so much for giving up your time and I look forward to seeing you at one of these conferences. Great. Thank you, Alex.