Shownotes
Is the American Dream still alive? And if it has changed, who stands to win? Who stands to lose?
Simon-Kucher recently conducted an exhaustive survey of more than 5,000 Americans across all income levels and demographics to answer exactly these questions. The findings have profound implications for consumers, retailers, brands, and, frankly, any business that serves them.
Omni Talk is pleased to welcome Shikha Jain, Partner and Head of Consumer for North America at Simon-Kucher and the architect of this landmark research, to a special installment of our Ask an Expert webinar series. Joining Chris Walton, Shikha unpacks how years of economic uncertainty, inflation, and shifting consumer priorities are redefining the American Dream and what those changes mean for businesses looking to stay ahead.
Read the full Simon-Kucher "New American Dream" study discussed in this episode: https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/insights/new-american-dream
Key topics covered:
- How Americans across generations define the modern American Dream
- Why younger consumers remain optimistic, even as they believe success is harder to achieve
- The rise of financial stability, personal freedom, and life experiences over traditional status symbols
- How inflation and the ongoing "permacrisis" are reshaping consumer spending habits
- Why Gen Z and Millennials are prioritizing experiences over material possessions
- The growing comfort younger generations have with debt and what that signals for future consumption
- How retailers should rethink pricing, promotions, assortments, and customer experiences
- Why experiential retail and stronger value propositions are becoming competitive necessities
- The importance of combining customer data with ongoing consumer research to stay ahead
- How AI could fundamentally reshape consumer behavior and the future of the American Dream
Whether you're a retailer, marketer, consumer insights leader, or simply fascinated by how economic and cultural shifts influence buying behavior, this conversation offers research-backed insights into the forces shaping today's consumer and tomorrow's retail landscape.
P.S. To explore more conversations from the Omni Talk Ask an Expert Series, head here.
Music by hooksounds.com
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Transcripts
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hello everyone.
Speaker A:Thank you for joining us.
Speaker A:The American Dream, is it entrepreneurial?
Speaker A:Is it meritocratic?
Speaker A:Is it egalitarian?
Speaker A:What is it really?
Speaker A:And is our idealized conception of what it once was still what it is today?
Speaker A:That is the first question we are going to answer in today's webinar.
Speaker A:But it is the next level question that gets me even more excited, more interested, because once we examine the current state of the American Dream, there's an even more pressing question that emerges.
Speaker A:Who stands to win and who stands to lose?
Speaker A:Simon Kutcher recently conducted an exhaustive survey of the American consumer, surveying over 5,000 people across all ranges of incomes and demographics to answer these questions.
Speaker A:And the woman who spearheaded the effort, Shikha Jain, joins me now.
Speaker A:Shikha is a partner and the head of Consumer for North America, Imon Kutcher.
Speaker A:Shikha, thank you for joining me.
Speaker B:Chris thank you for having me.
Speaker B:I can't wait to get into this.
Speaker A:I know the American Dream, it's such an interesting topic and you know, I've never given it much thought really in terms of like, what does it mean?
Speaker A:Do I define it the same way as other people?
Speaker A:And I imagine you're going to have a lot to say on that subject, are you not?
Speaker B:I don't even think an hour is going to cover all the topics we have.
Speaker B:It's so complicated, it's so multi layered, it's nuanced, but not at the same time.
Speaker B:There's so much to go through.
Speaker B:So I hope we can get it done in an hour.
Speaker B:I hope we can provoke some thoughts for the audience and maybe we can bring in some practical advice of how to use this in your day to day.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I think, I think there's more than enough ground for us to cover in the time we've got with everyone.
Speaker A:Now, before we get started, I do want to remind everyone that's watching this live, if you're on LinkedIn with us, if you're on YouTube, feel free to ask your questions of Shika and me at any time and you can do it on LinkedIn via the chat session window that is just to the right hand side of your screen.
Speaker A:All right, Shika, I want to start by asking this question.
Speaker A:What prompted the research question in general into the American Dream?
Speaker A:Why did you all decide to research this?
Speaker B:So, Chris, I love consumer behavior.
Speaker B:I love psychology and behavioral psychology.
Speaker B:And so I'm always trying to run insights that combine both current trends as well as these topics of what's going on in the irrational consumer's Brain.
Speaker B:Every year, the second half of the year, we do a holiday shopping study and it's about promotions and these big promotional event days like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and so on to understand the nuances of that year.
Speaker B:And so we've run it for seven years continuously.
Speaker B:This year in the summer and into fall and winter will be our eighth year.
Speaker B:But the first half of the year is reserved for topics du jour.
Speaker B:So two years ago, as consumers, and sorry, not consumers, but as the workforce was returning to the office and we were still in hybrid, but we were still mandated to go into work a couple more days post Covid, footwear changed dramatically because prior to that, yes, you know, what I look like waist up did matter on video conferences, but now that I had to be in the office, casual footwear was on the rise.
Speaker B:This blend of athleisure footwear and making it more acceptable in the office place.
Speaker B:And so we did the state of footwear as a very interesting topic in 24.
Speaker B:Last year.
Speaker B:We pulsed consumers about their perception of tariffs, which was a big topic for retailers, businesses and consumers alike, and what tariffs meant to them, how this could impact price changes, how this could impact how they buy in topics of inflation that continue to plague us and how that tariffs could either exacerbate that further.
Speaker B:And this year, late last year, we had this idea.
Speaker B:I said, look, since the pandemic, consumers, and the American consumer in particular, has gone through so many shocks.
Speaker B:It's like a pendulum swinging back and forth.
Speaker B:We're, we went in a lockdown phase during the pandemic to suddenly being flush with cash from stimulus checks to driving demand, but that demand not being met due to supply chain shocks, to then leading that to inflation, then a hybrid work environment and us getting used to working in very different ways.
Speaker B:There was this period of revenge travel where we just needed to get out of our houses and, and do more and see the world that we couldn't for two, two plus years.
Speaker B:Then inflation, inflation, inflation, tariffs, geopolitical crises around the world.
Speaker B:So the American consumer has gone through a lot.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We talked about home prices and cost of capital, interest rates going up, young people not being able to afford daily living expenses.
Speaker B:I mean, it's just been a lot, right?
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It's just been.
Speaker B:The word I like to use is perma crisis or perma volatility.
Speaker B:That really hasn't been a stable period for the American consumer.
Speaker B:And so late last year I was like, oh wow, you know, it's been five, six years of just intensity.
Speaker B:I'd love to understand across the intersection of age, income, employment, education level, everything, ethnicity, everything that you talk about, immigration status, gender.
Speaker B:What are all of these topics around homeownership, retirement?
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What it means to be the American dream.
Speaker B:What does that look like?
Speaker B:And all of this suddenly, because you see a lot of different pieces of research that go into one topic.
Speaker B:They've gone into what it's like for daily living expenses, homeownership, what retirement means to you, what wealth accumulation means to you across generations, but no one's really pulled it all together.
Speaker B:So that was the genesis of the new American dream.
Speaker B:And Marianne, our PR person extraordinaire, was like, do you know it's America 250 in 26?
Speaker B:And I was like, right, it is.
Speaker B:That's right, exactly.
Speaker B:So what a better time than combining it with a big milestone that we as a nation are facing.
Speaker A:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker A:What was it?
Speaker A:Perma.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker A:What'd you say?
Speaker A:Perma.
Speaker B:Perma crisis.
Speaker A:Perma crisis.
Speaker B:Perma volatility.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There's a new crisis every day.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Some of which are manufactured, some of which are real.
Speaker A:But, yeah, it does feel like there's a perma crisis, you know, kind of owing to the whole permafrost idea, too.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:And we were joking before we even hit go here today that I'm going to probably quote you a bunch of times or tell you I'm going to quote you going forward a bunch of times, but perma crisis is.
Speaker A:Is a great one to kind of whet the appetite for the conversation.
Speaker A:All right?
Speaker A:So I'm going to choose my words really, really carefully here intentionally.
Speaker A:And so I want to ask you straight out of the get go, what is or what was the American dream?
Speaker B:Right, In a nutshell, the colloquial definition of the American dream has always been this idea of picket fences, white picket fences, you know, two adults, two kids, a dog, a nice big house in the background, front yard, backyard, all of those things.
Speaker B:And that, that was sort of the quick definition that I think many of us would bring to mind.
Speaker B:Now when we asked the question in our survey, it's still things like owning a home, raising a family, success through hard work, you know, financial stability to meet basic needs, stable employment, comfort in knowing you can retire and still have a good life.
Speaker B:Safety, security, these are all sort of the core things, you know, and we think about.
Speaker B:It's a lot more.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:That was the core.
Speaker B:But there was also things like access to quality public education, higher education, equal opportunity, financial Upward mobility, material goods or symbols of success and status, being better off than one's parents.
Speaker B:And so there was all of these multi layers.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So when we asked Americans in our survey, they said all of these things had importance to them or that they would say is the definition of the traditional American dream, but it's evolved.
Speaker A:So let's talk about that then because I'm curious, is it, I mean, the $64,000 question I want to ask and $64,000 question maybe irrelevant now given the perma crisis and the impact of inflation, but is the American dream still a reality for most Americans and is it still a reality across generations?
Speaker B:You know, it's so funny because you always hear pieces of the media talking about how Gen Z is kind of jaded or does not know if they can ever achieve or be better off than their parents.
Speaker B:And baby boomers are kind of holding all the wealth and thinking about transition plans, but not really benefit.
Speaker B:Like there's all of this news that pervades, pervades our news cycle.
Speaker B:The funny thing is young people still associate with the American dream either somewhat or strongly.
Speaker B:It's kind of like more than half, actually more than half will say, yeah, it does guide my decisions on a day to day virgin Z for millennials especially.
Speaker B:But actually it's a little less as you get older.
Speaker B:So it's like the inverse was true.
Speaker B:So there's never aspiration that young people drive towards.
Speaker A:Yeah, there's, there's more aspiration that people drive towards.
Speaker A:So like the younger, so that basically saying the younger you are, the more likely you are to hold on to the American dream, that you can better yourself, you can pick you up, pick yourself up by your bootstraps.
Speaker A:You can succeed in whatever definition of success you have put forward in your own mind.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:And you know, the American dream was always centered on this idea of hope.
Speaker B:Like, and you said pulling yourself, no matter where you started, no matter what your originating circumstances were, that there was still a way for you to rise beyond that.
Speaker B:And so that is the fascinating part.
Speaker B:And you know, you've seen the ads, the car ads on television, where it's like I can is in the word American.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:And so me, I don't know, I thought that was a little bit cute and a little bit gimmicky at the same time.
Speaker B:But there's very much this idea that you still can, you can still go beyond and achieve your hopes and dreams.
Speaker A:Okay, that's, that's, that's very counterintuitive to what I would have expected you to tell me, you know, heading into this webinar, into this discussion today particularly.
Speaker A:All right, so then I'm curious.
Speaker A:We talked about the American Dream at a broad level to start, and, and we tried to pinpoint it as best we could in terms of, like, what is its root definition?
Speaker A:But I'm curious, like, has anything shifted when you look across the generations?
Speaker A:Like, do they.
Speaker A:Do people view certain aspects of the dream more importantly than others?
Speaker A:You know, when you click into it?
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So there's a few interesting nuggets that came out.
Speaker B:So I talked about the traditional dream where we said everything was important.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It was multi layered.
Speaker B:It was everything defined the American Dream.
Speaker B:But today, what we're calling the more the redefine American dream, it's more personal.
Speaker B:It is more about things like financial stability, a lot more.
Speaker B:It is about retiring comfortably, but it's more about personal freedom and independence that has gained a few percentage points over the traditional dream.
Speaker B:Things like social status, material goods, you know, raising a family, access to public education.
Speaker B:That's quality community and social connections, Those are a lot less important.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So there's a combination of I just want the basics, but I want to do it my way or I want it to be very.
Speaker B:I want to have that personal freedom.
Speaker B:And I think that is true across generations as well.
Speaker B:When we dug into it, the other interesting part is that there's no singular path that leads to the American dream.
Speaker B:It is, you know, yes.
Speaker B:We ask questions like, is it about a skilled trade or a career in tech or entrepreneurship or a college degree or working your way up into a company or things like that?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:Maybe a little bit, but there's no clear majority there.
Speaker B:It's really about the fact that there's no singular pathway.
Speaker B:And I thought that was fascinating because it ties into the idea of personal freedom and independence and personal fulfillment.
Speaker A:So basically you're saying that what really stood out to you in this survey was that the inclination for people to want to have more freedom of choice, more individual expression is more pronounced than it ever was before.
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And do you have any sense of why that might be?
Speaker B:I think that's just.
Speaker B:That just tends to be something that has been a trend over the last few generations.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, if you think about the contextual ideas of how baby boomers grew up and what they had to deal with.
Speaker B:And for them, stability was really important.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because they were coming out of a lot of economic and geopolitical uncertainty.
Speaker B:And they were built.
Speaker B:They were the building gener and Then fast forward to Gen Z. Gen Z grew up in an environment that was all about individualism, all about the, not just freedom of expression and so on.
Speaker B:So it's just the cultural, it's the cultural moments that get tied into the dream.
Speaker A:So what are the implications here?
Speaker A:Like let's, and let's, I want to, I want to stay broad and then we'll come down too.
Speaker A:But like, what are the implications of this survey information as you see it for, for Americans broadly?
Speaker A:Let's start there and then we'll go into consumers and retailers too, which is why we're here.
Speaker A:But what are the implications when you look at the data, for the thinking of how we view ourselves as Americans?
Speaker B:Here's the thing, in today's world, regardless of the definition of the dream, and this is also in the study, these core milestones about owning a home, retiring comfortably or early financial independence, job stability, so, you know, high incomes, all of that, they're much harder than they used to be.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So for the most part, everyone said that it was either same or harder to have these things.
Speaker B:Very few people said that it was easier than previous generations.
Speaker B:And so even though the dream exists and there's it's there, it's just that much, it's further away than it used to be.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And we know this, we have all the data.
Speaker B:I don't want to regurgitate data about what it was like for how much a family of four could live on certain wages and how much it would cost to buy a home and the burbs, all that.
Speaker B:Right, we know that.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:And even though cost of living is something that affects all Americans, it is very much something that impacts younger Americans more.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And it has to do with things like even insufficient income, the feeling of job insecurity, uncertainty, uncertainty about the future.
Speaker B:There are also implications on not just age, but where you live, your immigrant status and your education status.
Speaker B:So people who live in the middle of a city, so your urban core, they're the ones who have a harder time achieving the dream because cost of living tends to be higher.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Folks that are first generation immigrants, as adults to the country or as children, have a harder time than people who've been, who are multi generational, multi generationally settled in the U.S. people who don't have advanced degrees, don't have bachelor degrees, maybe have a little bit of just high school or equivalent or haven't even completed high school, some high school or fully graduated have a harder time.
Speaker B:So you can start to say, see that if you talk about intersectionality.
Speaker B:There are going to be certain populations of Americans that are struggling more than the average.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Again, there's a social nuance, social piece to this, societal piece to this, that gets tied into it.
Speaker B:Despite that, despite all I said, and I'm coming back to the first point about hope, each generation does see that they have the best chance of achieving the dream.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That ties into the whole I can piece.
Speaker B:Now, implications also have to do with financial strain.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:We talk about this.
Speaker B:So even people who say, do you have trouble meeting daily needs and do you experience financial pressure?
Speaker B:All of those that I talked about, young people, first gen people in urban core, low education, they all have this struggle.
Speaker B:And the, the cost of living is just something that's pervasive now.
Speaker B:We cannot escape it.
Speaker B:And so inflation is creating reactions in American consumers.
Speaker B:And this is what we're, that this is the bridge to implications for retailers as well.
Speaker B:Even though we watch the cpi, correct.
Speaker B:We know it's a few percentage and so on annualized.
Speaker B:But in reality, perception, or sorry, in real perception is greater than reality in reality.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So perception is that prices have been going up fast and half of American consumers feel this way.
Speaker B:This is no different.
Speaker B:Everyone has this feeling that prices are a lot higher than they might be.
Speaker B:And it's also because of the basket, right.
Speaker B:If we think about fuel and food and the daily essentials.
Speaker B:And so what do people do?
Speaker B:They do things like wait for sales.
Speaker B:They do things like look for cheaper alternatives.
Speaker B:They change where they shop.
Speaker B:They stock up during promos, they buy lower quantities or they buy less frequently, or they just opt out of the purchase decision altogether.
Speaker B:And that's the, that's now getting into one of the implications for retailers.
Speaker A:Got it, Got it.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I want to make sure that we, we pause here for a second, make sure that we capture what you just said too, which is that for the most part, while the kind of big takeaway up front was the American dream is still alive across the individual generations.
Speaker A:However, what you are saying is that it is harder, people are feeling, it is harder to achieve than ever, yet people are still holding out hope that they can get it.
Speaker A:They still believe it, but they're also starting to be rational.
Speaker A:Not rational, but realistic in terms of whether or not it is as attainable as it once was.
Speaker A:That's the big takeaway.
Speaker B:Correct?
Speaker B:Correct.
Speaker A:Got it.
Speaker A:Okay, so since you started talking about the retailers and the implications, let's go into that more.
Speaker A:So like if I'm a retailer and I'm reading this survey and reading the data and we'll put the link in for everyone so that they can read it themselves.
Speaker A:What should I be doing?
Speaker A:What should I be doing to address this or to set myself apart in the marketplace?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So there's, can I just add a couple more points to this inflation piece that actually builds the full narrative for retailers?
Speaker A:Of course.
Speaker B:Okay, so we talked about the idea of inflation and let's talk about the idea of how people view money, especially across generations.
Speaker B:So Gen Z and millennials, their primary goal is to cover their daily expenses and save for emergencies.
Speaker B:Whereas Gen X, which is roughly 46 and up, and baby boomers that are 62 and up are more focused on saving for retirement.
Speaker B:This is natural in an adult's life cycle.
Speaker B:Right, sure.
Speaker B:And, but the, the, the, the difference is that across generations, and this was surprising to me because I had these stereotypes, maybe if you will, in my head, that people that older generations value possessions and material possessions more than younger generations.
Speaker B:I mean, I just think about all of my, you know, my parents and my friends, parents, houses that I go to and they're there.
Speaker B:There's just so much stuff because they didn't grow up with anything so they wanted to just have stuff.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker A:Or buy that sports car during your midlife crisis or something as an example.
Speaker A:Right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I'm not even talking about like those big thing, big purchases.
Speaker B:But yes, like you just go and they have like, you know, the, the cabinet full of china and crop.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And tons of Chachkis.
Speaker B:And it's like, you're never going to use this, but it's there.
Speaker B:They don't want to throw it out.
Speaker B:And it's like, it's weird.
Speaker B:But what I'm getting at is like there was this, this typical, oh, I want to have material possessions.
Speaker B:But younger people care more about experiences.
Speaker B:Actually that's true across the board.
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:People care more about experiences than they do about material possessions.
Speaker B:And so the way this manifests is that non essential spending.
Speaker B:So anything that's like outside of covering my daily expenses, all of that goes into enjoying life now.
Speaker B:And that's the trade off.
Speaker B:Younger people, well, let's, you know, older people, great, they've maybe built their nest egg.
Speaker B:But younger people are saying, I don't want to think about the future.
Speaker B:I'm going to enjoy my life now and I'm going to spend all my saving, whatever, whatever money I have discretionary for the now and I want to enjoy life now.
Speaker B:I want to reduce my stress now and then.
Speaker B:I'll think about things like investing in the future so you know and enrich for retirement.
Speaker B:So everyone is making trade offs.
Speaker B:So we asked the question, have you ever sacrificed long term financial goals to improve your quality of life today?
Speaker B:Half of millennials and Gen Z said yes.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:That I'm sacrificing long term goals and have you ever reduced savings or taken on debt to maintain a lifestyle?
Speaker B:Half of them said yes to that as well compared to fewer percentages on the Gen X and Baby Boomer side.
Speaker B:So that, that also we'll get to this but has implications for retailers.
Speaker B:So one implication, inflation.
Speaker B:We added to that covering daily expenses.
Speaker B:We added to that living for now.
Speaker B:And we added to that the fact that debt is a more comfortable medium to enjoy life now than to, than than older generations.
Speaker B:And we saw this in the data too.
Speaker B:Younger people are willing to take on debt at much younger ages.
Speaker B:That older people took on debt when they their first age, when they took on debt.
Speaker A:Debt is a conscious choice then that the younger generation is showing a conscious choice to use debt versus being forced into debt because of their situation.
Speaker A:It's just how they're looking at debt relative to past generations.
Speaker B:It could.
Speaker B:So one of it could be, I don't know, the causation correlation aspect.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Is it like we did, people did report that debt can be beneficial when used appropriately.
Speaker B:Now is that something you tell yourself to make yourself feel better?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:You know, but the point is that they are using debt.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:And so for the most part there's a lot more comfort with debt.
Speaker B:Using it to depending on the type of situation that you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker B:Debt can be seen as a positive.
Speaker B:Younger people are doing well on both sides.
Speaker B:On average, they're taking on debt at the age of 20.
Speaker B:Gen Z, right.
Speaker B:Versus millennials is 25 versus Gen X was something like 26 versus baby boomers was something like 28.
Speaker B:So that comfort with taking on debt is trending younger.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:And again it's the point you're making here is we don't actually know psychologically the comfort level that's inherent in that.
Speaker A:You're saying just the age at which debt is being taken on has progressively gotten lower and lower over the years, which is a really interesting phenomenon to think about, particularly as you go back to aspiration of the American dream.
Speaker A:It's getting harder.
Speaker A:And yet I'm also now inclined to take on more debt, good or bad, in terms of taking on the debt, which is hard for us to Say given the data that you have.
Speaker A:Okay, so yeah, so then what?
Speaker A:So if I'm a retailer watching this episode or listening back later on the replay, what should I be doing?
Speaker A:Like how should I be adjusting things?
Speaker B:So number one is to think about the fact that there's.
Speaker B:Oh man, I'm fatigued about saying inflation fatigue.
Speaker B:But I.
Speaker B:It's true, right?
Speaker B:Inflation is, is just really high for the average consumer.
Speaker B:And you have to think about your value prop, where you play on the spectrum, who your target segments are, are you going after mass market, you know, best price, are you going after value for money or are you more in the middle or are you more in the premium and ultra premium spaces?
Speaker B:So where, which consumer segments do you serve based on the assortment and the brand value proposition?
Speaker B:Depending on that, Regardless of whether you say, hey, we're, we cater to the top five, 10% of Americans, I think everyone is struggling at this point.
Speaker B:Even wealthy people are.
Speaker B:You know, I'm excluding billionaires and mega millionaires, right?
Speaker B:Like 100 millionaires, which is probably like 01%, one or two basis points.
Speaker B:Let's exclude those folks.
Speaker B:We're just talking about even the top few percentage or even 5% percent of Americans even they're saying that they're evaluating decisions because the cost of living has gone so high or even for the goods that they bought, premium and luxury goods, those prices have gone up significantly.
Speaker B:So really need to think about a few things.
Speaker B:What are your opening price points or opps, what is your assortment look like?
Speaker B:And a lot of times we have an assortment that's like this big, right?
Speaker B:And I'm talking these, these are your price corridors.
Speaker B:Can we create price ladders so we still protect our opening price point and grow for people who have different willingness to pay?
Speaker B:How do we think about promotions?
Speaker B:That's also important because we saw that a lot of Americans are waiting for promotions or using them as stock up periods.
Speaker B:But I have noticed a shift where retailers are over promoting, right?
Speaker B:They're looking for any opportunity to run a promotion and as a result sometimes a lot of those promotions are either negative on profit or not driving incremental traffic or not meeting the objective that they intended to.
Speaker B:So why are they still on the calendar, right?
Speaker B:So that's one thing to think about is are you optimizing your promotions?
Speaker B:And I know it seems so simple, but if it was so simple, why is it that every time I work with a retailer, right, There are some that do it well, they're like, oh, we just running the same playbook from last year.
Speaker B:And that's the point I want to make.
Speaker B:It's simple because you know the answer, but the execution gets really difficult.
Speaker A:Well, and the test is different.
Speaker A:That's what we've been talking about.
Speaker A:Like you may your answers to the test are the old answers to the test, that there's a new test in front of you.
Speaker A:The same, the same way you study is kind of the same for lack of if I keep, you know, running this to the ground.
Speaker A:But like you got to have balanced assortments, you got to have great value messaging.
Speaker A:There's.
Speaker A:Imagine you got to do the basic building blocks of retail, but you have to do them differently.
Speaker A:That's what I'm hearing you say.
Speaker B:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker B:You know, you have so much data, right.
Speaker B:That you need that is not being leveraged.
Speaker B:Retailers have the benefit of having millions and billions of data points that they can leverage.
Speaker B:But even the best retailers do not get, excuse me, get the most out of their data.
Speaker B:Here's another thing.
Speaker B:Experience can different.
Speaker B:Can retailers use their storefront for experiential purposes for things like creating pop ups or for things like creating flagship stores or for things like creating showrooms, you know, and creating store in store experiences.
Speaker B:Because that is honestly going to be a lot more catered to what we just heard, right?
Speaker B:This idea that people don't want to go into a retailer and like buy stuff.
Speaker B:Yes, they want to do that, but they want the experience aspect to it.
Speaker B:So the more we can try to give them experiences through our assortment, but also through the store, the storytelling at the store.
Speaker B:And how do we create more services in our plethora of offering going beyond just products?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:How do we own that consumer from awareness all the way to repurchase and loyalty.
Speaker A:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker A:And the tricky part with services and experiences is that usually generally requires more margin in your product products to make that work profitably from a business model perspective.
Speaker A:But maybe that's where, you know, technology can come into play to help lever or de lever the cost of doing that in ways that we've never been able to do before, especially on the service side.
Speaker A:You know, we've talked about AI making the service relationship more human.
Speaker A:That's the thing I keep hearing at conferences is it actually personalizes our experience in a new way that enables us to get to a deeper level of understanding whether it's with the sales associates that's standing in front of a customer in the store or whether it's the customer service person that you're interacting with online or via the phone or whatever, through chat, message, whatever.
Speaker A:And then also just the experience of bringing products to life in store in a new way to get at what you're saying too, which is like the uniqueness of the experience.
Speaker A:That's what resonated for me in the data, is that all Americans want to feel unique and special and they want a uniqueness of the experience.
Speaker A:Now, when you bring that into a store level, that gets really challenging to scale from one location to another.
Speaker A:But maybe technology can be the answer to that, too.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And I don't think it has to be in every location.
Speaker A:No, it doesn't.
Speaker B:It shouldn't.
Speaker B:It can be in some flagship.
Speaker B:Flagship stores or it could be in some stores that really, you can redesign this space.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:There's a couple of sporting retailers or one in particular that's done that very well.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, they have that.
Speaker A:I know who you.
Speaker A:I know of whom you speak.
Speaker A:All right, so in interest of time, let's keep.
Speaker A:Let's keep going.
Speaker A:And so, like, my big question next for you then is if that's the American dream, that's how people are viewing it, it's still there.
Speaker A:The implications of it are such, this is what you should do if you're a retailer to continue to stand out, which, you know, for the most part, you said you just need to be a better retailer day in and day out.
Speaker A:But you need to redesign your playbook for sure.
Speaker A:If you put your prediction hat on who wins and loses as this American dream is continuing to shift.
Speaker B:This is a tricky one.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Like you said, if the people who are just learning how to take the test, they have the knowledge, they have the answers.
Speaker B:But we sometimes struggle into bringing that to life.
Speaker B:And so, like I mentioned, and we all know this, retailers have a ton of data, billions of rows, billions of transactions that they can leverage.
Speaker B:But the inflection point is that transaction data will only tell you history and history will only get you so far.
Speaker B:The ones that are going to do really well are the ones that can blend in consumer insights and the ones that can keep a pulse on their consumer.
Speaker B:Ask them what they think, ask them what is the right value prop that they should have.
Speaker B:How do they view the store?
Speaker B:Store, Right.
Speaker B:So constantly doing that voice of consumer, voice of customer research and market research to get, bring those insights in.
Speaker B:The ones that are constantly experimenting, right?
Speaker B:So saying, oh, the old playbook of whatever, BOGO50 worked in these situations, but doesn't work in all situations.
Speaker B:How can we get creative with our promotions?
Speaker B:How can we think about using data to analyze which promotes promotions work, which ones didn't?
Speaker B:How do we think about our assortment?
Speaker B:Do we have white spaces?
Speaker B:Are we building the full price range?
Speaker B:Do we have opening price points and upsell price points?
Speaker B:Loyalty programs?
Speaker B:How are we using them to create more omnichannel experiences or using them as a way to really brick wall our best customers?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because there's this thing of acquisition is harder than retention, but we're always changing acquisition.
Speaker B:What are we doing to protect our best customers or best consumers?
Speaker B:And I think also it's, those are sort of commercial topics, but there's also practical visual and merchandising and in store experiences.
Speaker B:So that store of the future or the store, whatever, 5.0, whatever we're on at this point, how can we bring in experience and just making it an outing.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Kind of like some furniture stores do really well versus and a browsing experience versus just a, I have a trip mission of these things on my, my list.
Speaker B:I'm gonna go get them and I'm done.
Speaker B:So creating more spaces that people want to spend time in through, through different means is also going to be important because otherwise people aren't going to want to come to your store if they feel like it's the same thing over and over again.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Or minimally deciding where you're going to sit on that spectrum and making a conscious choice about the trade offs that you're going to allow, you know, when you, when you answer that question.
Speaker A:Because yeah, that approach, that approach won't work for everybody, but it will work for some.
Speaker A:And some people go the absolute opposite way and make it so that their experiences are the least experiential possible and just get you in and out quickly.
Speaker A:You know, I can think of many retailers that excel at that too.
Speaker A:So, you know, but it's about deciding consciously where you are in that spectrum.
Speaker A:And again, going back to the point about technology too, I think, you know, leveraging the technologies that are now at our fingertips to design new products, new experiences that we have never designed before, more often than we have in the past too, I think is part of this discussion.
Speaker A:All right, well, let's get you out of here on this.
Speaker A:I saved the best question for last.
Speaker A:I tend to do that because I want people to stick around and stay till the end.
Speaker A:But if you were to put a guess towards it and you were to examine the generations still to come.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Where do you hypothesize the American dream is going to shift next?
Speaker A:Now, I know you're a researcher.
Speaker A:I know that's kind of a tough question to ask you, but I'm curious if you got any indications in terms of, if you were to survey the next generation in five to 10 years, what are they going to say?
Speaker B:Oh, I don't want to sound tired and boring, but it's going to be AI And I'll tell you why.
Speaker B: efining moments for the early: Speaker B:That was a paradigm change.
Speaker B:Completely interesting.
Speaker B:Then we had the smartphone and now all of a sudden we became, we transacted mobily right before it was just in store and online, Internet, physical desktop, laptop.
Speaker B:Now it's mobile too.
Speaker B:And now I think about, and obviously the social aspects of it, I think AI is going to change it completely, right?
Speaker B:I think this next generation of middle schoolers that is growing up now and they're going to be the way we interact with AI now once the dust settles, right?
Speaker B:Because we still don't know what it's, what final shape it's going to take, right?
Speaker B: et native, right in the early: Speaker B:And so I don't know what that looks like, but I bet you they're going to supercharge everything.
Speaker B:They're going to have answers at their fingertips.
Speaker B:They're going to make microtransactions.
Speaker B:We used to talk about milli transactions and decisions.
Speaker B:They're going to make them micro.
Speaker B:I don't know what's smaller, but I'm guessing micro is smaller than really, right?
Speaker A:I have no idea.
Speaker A:That's a great capstone end on though, because like, what it got me thinking about is if I go back to.
Speaker A:Because beginning like, right, like will that generation still believe in the American dream?
Speaker A:That's the question.
Speaker A:Because that was the big matzo ball hanging out there for me when I started this conversation with you today.
Speaker A:It's like I didn't know were people still going to believe in the American dream?
Speaker A:And you tell me yes, to a generation, they all still do and yet they think it's harder to achieve it.
Speaker A:And so the question that you're raising, which I think is really interesting to close this out, is will AI make people more or less optimistic.
Speaker A:Optimistic about achieving the American dream here as it gets underway?
Speaker A:So I'll leave the audience with that.
Speaker A:They can answer it themselves.
Speaker A:Put it in the chat if you want.
Speaker A:Everybody.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker A:But chica, that was great.
Speaker A:Thanks for doing that.
Speaker A:Thanks for walking us through that as exhaustively as you did.
Speaker A:If people want to get in touch with you, anyone in your team get their hands on the research, what's the best way for them to do that?
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So my email is just first.last so s h I k h a j I n@Simon kutcher.com so s I m o n h k u c h r.com now kutcher is not with at so just remember that.
Speaker B:Otherwise you'll get a bounce back.
Speaker B:And if you just search on our website for the American Dream or put it into your favorite search engine, just search for Simon Kutcher.
Speaker B:Again, no t in the Kutcher and New American Dream.
Speaker B:It'll take you to all our insights.
Speaker B:It'll take you to the report where you can download it, read it.
Speaker B:There's a lot of good nuggets in there.
Speaker B:And if you are a consumer insights person, a CMO or a, you know, chief marketing, merchandising, chief, commercial chief revenue, really good stuff in there for you to read.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Awesome.
Speaker A:Well, Shikha, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker A:It was a real pleasure having you with us today.
Speaker B:Thanks for having me.
Speaker A:And that wraps us up, everybody.
Speaker A:Thanks to producer Ella Seord for producing today's webinar as well.
Speaker A:And as always, on behalf of all of us at Omnitok, be careful out there.