DM Magazine April 2025

10 Interview with Mark Abraham on Personalization ❱

14 The Future of the Customer Journey – A Role for AI ❱

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Strategic Messaging in a Distracted World

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Talking Points

INTERVIEW

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APRIL 2025

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Personalization at Scale

An Interview with Mark Abraham, Global Leader, Boston Consulting Group

❯ 14

The Future of the Customer Journey: AI agents take control of the buying Process DMN.CA ❰

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talking points

Deal reached to create “one esteemed Hall” for Canada’s marketing and branding heroes.

AMA Toronto is expanding the reach and influence of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends, one of the country’s most respected and renowned industry award programs. The association has reached an agreement to take title of Canada’s Marketing, Advertising, PR and Communications Hall of Fame, a Vancouver-based award show run by Jelly Academy. In the agreement, the “Hall of Fame,” a three-year-old award program with a similar theme and mission, will cease to operate as a separate event or show and be incorporated into Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends.

Established in 2004, Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends honours the industry’s most inspiring visionaries, enablers, builders and mentors who’ve had tremendous impact on the field of marketing and branding throughout their careers.

“In the competitive environment of award shows, the continual evolution of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends strengthens its 21-year legacy as our industry’s premier leadership recognition award platform,” says Olga Pigeon, president of AMA Toronto. “This new agreement, which reduces marketplace confusion while broadening our footprint across the country, marks a new chapter for the program.”

“My hope is that the Canadian marketing ❱ DMN.CA

landscape can see this agreement as an inspiration to keep finding ways to work together as separate clubs, associations and awards,” says Darian Kovacs, founder of Jelly Academy. “It’s a relief for applicants, sponsors and winners to know that there is simply one esteemed Hall in Canada, versus two separate ones.”

As part of the integration, AMA Toronto will honour the 41 Hall of Fame inductees on its website, utilize its Indigenous-designed graphic to inspire and expand the vision and influence of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends.

Organizational collaboration between AMA Toronto and Jelly Academy will also see Kovacs, an Indigenous marketer and prominent industry advocate for DEI, serve as a member of the selection committee for Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends this year and assist AMA Toronto in reaching further underrepresented marketers.

The 2025 award recipients of Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends will be honoured and formally inducted by AMA Toronto on May 9th at an exclusive gala event at Arcadian Court in Toronto.

“Through Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends, the career stories of these marketing and branding heroes are celebrated to inspire us, share wisdom, and ultimately help empower new leadership and business growth throughout our community,” adds Pigeon.

After over two decades and over 100 inductees, Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends has evolved into a unique and distinguished year-long Legends program involving the award recipients, one that’s focused on mentorship, knowledge-sharing and inclusion. In addition to their induction into Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends, award winners participate in programming that runs throughout the year, including the popular Legendary Leadership Series of events, blogs, as well as the video podcast series “Legends Journey: Lessons in Leadership.”

Jelly Academy is a world leader in current and future-focused training, rapid reskilling, micro-training, digital skills training, and offering corporate team training certificate courses, workshops, association mentorship training, and events both online and at their learning studio.

Established in 2021, Canada’s Marketing, Advertising, PR and Communications Hall of

Fame was a national awards program that emphasized recognizing under-represented audiences. Created and promoted by Jelly Academy through its Marketing News Canada publication, the Hall of Fame has 41 alumni from coast to coast representing a diverse kaleidoscope of our industry.

Founded in 2004, Canada’s Marketing Hall of Legends honours inspiring Canadian leaders who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of excellence in the field of marketing. The award, created to spotlight the stories, people and brands behind Canada’s greatest marketing and branding successes, recognizes a noteworthy body of work and a lifetime of achievements and leadership, including contributions that have made our community a better place. Nominations for induction are held annually.

AMA Toronto is a community of volunteer marketers who have been empowering leadership and business growth for more than 70 years in Canada. The AMA, with more than 30,000 members and 70 chapters across North America, is the largest not-for-profit marketing association in the world serving organizations and individuals who practice, teach and study marketing.

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Riyadh Air Partners with Loyalty Juggernaut to Launch a Next-Generation Digital Loyalty Program.

Riyadh Air, the new national carrier of Saudi Arabia, and Loyalty Juggernaut, Inc. (LJI), an innovation leader in loyalty technology, announced today a strategic partnership to power Riyadh Air’s next-generation digital loyalty program, during the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai, UAE. As Riyadh Air prepares to redefine travel experiences for a new era, the airline is building a loyalty program that is as modern, dynamic, and digitally native as the brand itself. Powered by Loyalty Juggernaut’s cloud-native GRAVTY® platform, Riyadh Air’s loyalty program will deliver a fully personalized, seamless, and rewarding experience for travelers worldwide.

“At Riyadh Air, we are committed to setting a new standard in customer experience,” said Vincent Coste, Chief Commercial Officer of Riyadh Air.“ Loyalty Juggernaut’s cuttingedge GRAVTY® platform allows us to create a digital-first loyalty program that matches the ambition, innovation, and scale of Riyadh Air. Together, we are shaping the future of travel loyalty.”

He added, “the program will feature realtime engagement, AI-driven personalization, expanded partnerships, dynamic earn and redemption opportunities, and a seamless mobile-first experience — redefining traditional loyalty for a new generation of travelers.”

APRIL 2025

// 5 Designed for scale and innovation, the GRAVTY® platform’s modular, API-first architecture ensures rapid deployment, future-proof scalability, and effortless integration with Riyadh Air’s broader digital ecosystem.

“We are honored to partner with Riyadh Air in this landmark initiative,” said Shyam Shah, CEO of Loyalty Juggernaut. “Our mission is to elevate loyalty into a strategic growth engine.

GRAVTY®’s nextgen capabilities will enable Riyadh Air to deliver extraordinary value to its guests and partners, setting a bold new benchmark in airline loyalty.”

The new loyalty program is expected to launch ahead of Riyadh Air’s inaugural flights and will be a core pillar of the airline’s broader customer engagement and growth strategy. This partnership represents a shared vision: to build a loyalty experience that goes beyond points and miles — to create lasting emotional engagement with travelers at every touchpoint.

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SpreeAI creates a dynamic and engaging shopping experience. For retailers, SpreeAI is engineered to reduce returns and boost sales conversions, offering a transformative solution for the fashion industry.

Led by visionary Co-founder and CEO John Imah, SpreeAI’s board is bolstered by legendary supermodel and fashion icon Naomi Campbell, alongside entrepreneurs Bob Davidson and Larry Ruvo. Having one of the world’s most recognized fashion figures on the board underscores SpreeAI’s fusion of high-fashion insight with cuttingedge tech. The company recently achieved a $1.5 billion valuation after an undisclosed funding round led by The Davidson Group, a prominent family office known for supporting groundbreaking ventures. This milestone valuation reflects the market’s confidence in SpreeAI’s mission and its rapid growth at the intersection of technology and style.

“It’s inspiring to be part of SpreeAI’s transformative journey under John’s visionary leadership. I’ve always believed in pushing boundaries and embracing innovation, and

and 23 pending, SpreeAI safeguards its proprietary technology, ensuring its position as a frontrunner in the competitive retail tech market. This foundation of innovation is further supported by internal initiatives like Protea—a platform that helps retail partners integrate and test SpreeAI’s solutions— empowering brands to enhance operational efficiency and customer experiences.

“The CFDA is proud to collaborate with SpreeAI, a fashion technology leader delivering innovative solutions to help designers and brands thrive in the fashion industry,” noted Steven Kolb, CEO, Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA).

2025 is set to be a transformative year for SpreeAI, with major retail and luxury brand partnerships and new product features on the horizon. As part of this momentum, SpreeAI is announcing new partnerships with luxury fashion label Sergio Hudson and Londonbased contemporary womenswear brand Kai Collective. The timing of these collaborations coincides with a cultural moment: the 2025 Met Gala’s theme, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which honors Black designers. Both Sergio Hudson and Kai Collective’s founder Fisayo Longe are celebrated Black designers at the forefront of fashion innovation. John Imah will attend the Met Gala as the firstever fashion tech in AI startup CEO invited, underscoring SpreeAI’s prominent role in the fashion world and its commitment to celebrating the creative visionaries who inspire its technology.

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SpreeAI Is Redefining Retail With Virtual AI-Powered Try-Ons. SpreeAI, a New Yorkbased leader in fashion tech innovation, is transforming retail with its photorealistic try-on product so lifelike the naked eye can’t tell it’s virtual.

Combined with sizing technology boasting 99 percent accuracy, SpreeAI delivers hyperpersonalized shopping experiences that enhance both retail companies’ operations and consumers’ satisfaction. Designed for seamless use both in-store and online, SpreeAI is reshaping shopping by merging advanced AI with real-world applications.

For consumers, SpreeAI adds an unparalleled level of personalization, allowing shoppers to become the model and visualize clothing in a lifelike, photorealistic way. Packed with upcoming features like an AI stylist, a virtual wardrobe, and more, APRIL 2025

seeing John’s passion and determination firsthand makes me even more excited about the future we’re creating together. SpreeAI represents the powerful fusion of fashion, technology, and inclusivity — and I’m thrilled to be on this groundbreaking path,” said Naomi Campbell, Fashion Icon and SpreeAI Board Member.

Exclusive collaborations with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Carnegie Mellon University across research initiatives, talent development, and technical collaboration drive SpreeAI’s deep commitment to innovation.

Additionally, SpreeAI’s partnership with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) further solidifies its intersection between advanced technology and highfashion expertise. These prestigious alliances enable the company to lead the industry with unmatched solutions. With 4 issued patents

Canadian Business Triumphs: Announcing Canada’s Best Managed Companies.

Deloitte Canada is honoured to announce the 2025 winners of ‘Canada’s Best Managed Companies’.

Now in its 32nd year, it is the country’s leading business awards program, recognizing privately owned and managed Canadian companies. This year’s 494 recipients demonstrated outstanding achievements in strategic business transformation and operational resilience, positively impacting their workforce and communities, and driving economic growth.

“Over the 32-year history of these awards, Canadian companies have shown resilience and adaptability through economic highs and lows, and this year is no different” said Lorrie King, national co-leader of DMN.CA ❰

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talking points

Canada’s Best Managed Companies program and partner with Deloitte Private.

“We are honored to recognize this year’s Best Managed companies across Canada, who excel in all aspects of their business.

These companies all help drive Canada’s productivity and innovation, which bolsters our economy, so it’s important to recognize their accomplishments and showcase them as examples and inspiration to the broader business community.”

These Best Managed Companies employ more than 556,000 people across the nation and achieved total sales of over $221,000,000,000 in the previous year, operating across a diverse range of industries, including consumer, energy, resources and industrials, financial services, technology, media, and telecommunications, life sciences and health care, and education, among others. Notably, 274 of the 494 companies are family-owned, underscoring the entrepreneurial spirit in Canada.

The 2025 recipients, from Ontario, Québec, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador, represent regional business excellence across Canada.

Among these, 22 are new members, 81 have achieved Gold Standard status (maintaining their status for four-six consecutive years), including 24 new to this designation this year, and 329 are Platinum Club members (having maintained their status for seven consecutive years or more), with 27 new members joining the Platinum rankings this year.

“The spirit within our Canadian business sector is energizing, and the companies in the Best Managed program are well-positioned to adapt to today’s evolving economic environment,” said Derrick Dempster, national co-leader of Canada’s Best Managed Companies program and partner at Deloitte Private. “These companies show national pride by supporting our people and communities and using resources right here at home. Diversification beyond our borders is also important to them, as they explore opportunities to grow investment and elevate Canada’s presence in ❱ DMN.CA

the international marketplace.”

To secure a coveted Canada’s Best Managed Companies designation, companies apply annually and undergo a meticulous assessment led by a multidisciplinary judging panel that evaluates leadership in strategy, capability and innovation, workforce and talent, governance, and financial performance.

This year, judges analyzed investment, M&A growth, ESG and DEI strategies, talent retention and recruitment, purpose in local and Indigenous communities, digitization, cyber resilience, data-driven decisionmaking, and supply chain diversification and nearshoring back to Canada.

“We are honored to support Canada’s Best Managed Companies and the exceptional leaders who drive innovation and growth in their industries and local communities,” said Blair Cowan, Executive Vice President, Commercial Banking at CIBC. “Together, we are fostering a vibrant business environment that encourages excellence and inspires future generations of entrepreneurs.”

First established in Canada, Best Managed is a flagship program presented by Deloitte Private, a division of Deloitte exclusively focused on serving private clients of all sizes. Since its inception, the program has expanded beyond Canadian borders and is now present in more than 40 countries, with over 1,643 Best Managed Companies around the globe. Winners have access to professional development and networking opportunities, as well as an exclusive network to help foster relationships with global industry leaders and other best-managed companies.

For more information about Canada’s Best Managed Companies and to see the full list of winners, visit www.bestmanagedcompanies.ca.

Canada’s Best Managed Companies continues to be the mark of excellence for private Canadian-owned and managed companies. Every year since the launch of the program in 1993, hundreds of entrepreneurial companies have competed for this designation in a rigorous and independent process that evaluates their management skills and practices.

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Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign raised record-breaking $22.6 million this year.

Tim Hortons is proud to announce that a record-breaking $22.6 million was raised through the sales of Smile Cookies this year, supporting over 600 charities and community groups across Canada and in the United States. “We’re so grateful for the outpouring of support for this year’s Smile Cookie campaign from Tims guests across Canada. Thanks to your incredible generosity we topped our previous Smile Cookie record,” says Axel Schwan, President of Tim Hortons.

“A huge thanks to every single Tim Hortons restaurant owner, team member and volunteer who collectively helped to bake and hand-decorate millions and millions of cookies. Your dedication and enthusiasm represents the kind of deep care for our local communities that Canadians can rely on from Tim Hortons.”

Since the first-ever Smile Cookie campaign in 1996, the annual charitable campaign has raised a total of more than $151 million for charities and community groups, which are selected every year by Tim Hortons restaurant owners. Recipients include local hospitals, community care organizations, food banks and schools. Tim Hortons restaurant owners will be presenting their charity partners with Smile Cookie cheques over the coming weeks.

For a full list of local charities and community groups benefiting from Tim Hortons annual Smile Cookie campaign, visit www.timhortons.ca/smile-cookie.

In 1964, the first Tim Hortons® restaurant in Hamilton, Ontario opened its doors and Canadians have been ordering Tim Hortons iconic Original Blend coffee, Double-Double™ coffees, Donuts and Timbits® in the years since. For more than 60 years, Tim Hortons has captured the hearts and taste buds of Canadians and has become synonymous with serving Canada’s favourite coffee.

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VIBE Unveils 2025 Canada’s Most Influential Changemakers.

View the VIBE is proud to announce the release of its fourth annual Power 60 List, presented by the Park Hyatt Toronto hotel.

This year, the list has expanded into the Power 60 Plus, spotlighting the 100 most influential people in Canada right now. This definitive ranking honours a bold and diverse mix of trailblazers, disruptors, and cultural icons who are using their platforms to drive real impact and spark change — across industries and communities.

From globally recognized superstars like Drake, Sandra Oh, and Ryan Reynolds to rising disruptors like Izzi Poopi, DCR Milda, and Prayag Mishra, the 2025 list celebrates influence in action — not just fame for fame’s sake. At its core, the Power 60 is about empowerment, representation, and practical influence: those who take up space, use their voice, and elevate others along the way.

“For the fourth year in a row, this list represents a labour of love and deep intention,” says Steven Branco, Editor-in-Chief of View the VIBE and Chief Creative Officer of Stamina Group. “Curating our Power List is a thorough and often strenuous process that we never take lightly. Each name is chosen with care to reflect the incredible diversity and strength of Canadians who continue to APRIL 2025

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rise to the occasion. I’m incredibly proud of how representative this year’s list is—and honoured that View the VIBE can shine a light on their work.”

The View the VIBE POWER 60 launched its inaugural list in 2021, featuring 60 of Toronto’s most inspiring Women of Influence; and in

2023, to support an underserved and represented minority in Canada, featured 60 of Canada’s most inspiring Asians of influence. Last year in 2024, we featured 60 of Canada’s most inspiring leaders including 3 People to Watch. Again this year, the 2025 list features the most inspiring Canadians who truly paint a picture of our beloved country. They represent various industries, age groups, career levels, ethnicities, minorities, skills, and talents and hand-picked by View the VIBE’s very own editorial team, with support from an anonymous panel of consultants.

“Every person on this list is inspiring not only because of their assets or achievements — of which there are many —but because they inspire us all through their courage, tenacity, and dedication to their goals,” said Branco. “Ultimately, the 60 Canadians that we chose to feature this year are part of a much larger extended group that are all making their mark.”

The 2025 View the VIBE Power 60 list names incredible Canadians from some of the nation’s rising and most prestigious/ iconic brands alike, of all experience/skill levels, ages and ethnic backgrounds - all

PROUDL PROUDLY CANADIAN. Here to help with your direct mar keting.

with one remarkable common denominator: their undeniable influence, each in their own way. The POWER 60 list names leaders from organizations, communities and media brands (in no particular order) like: Breakfast Television, MLSE, CBC, TikTok, Loblaw Companies Ltd., Cineplex, Elevation Pictures, Gusto 54 Group, Canada Goose, Mr Saturday, Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Netflix Canada, GQ/CondeNast, Penske Media, HoopQueens, BellMedia, eTalk, WNBA, NBA, Liberty Entertainment Group, ZoomerMedia Group, Air Canada, Universal Music Canada, Sony Entertainment Canada, Warner Music Canada, Dragon’s Den, Roots, INK Entertainment and others. For the full list of names, please visit: https://viewthevibe. com/canadian-power-60-list-2025/ View the VIBE’s editorial team spent months compiling nominations, researching cultural impact, and analyzing influence beyond the algorithm. Our focus: voices that are shaping the future, shifting narratives, and showing up authentically — not just those with status or a blue checkmark.

Since its inception, the Power List has been a celebrated cultural marker in Canada, hailed for its inclusive approach and forwardthinking lens. In its fourth year, the 2025 edition builds on that legacy with its most ambitious and diverse list yet.

Since 1959 DCM has been meeting the marketing and communication needs of Canadian organizations.

Today our 2,500+ clients include 70 of the top 100 Canadian companies.

And we continue to be there for them, helping them simplify their marketing complexity, from highly personalized direct mail and triggered omnichannel campaigns to regulatory communications.

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APRIL 2025

DMN.CA ❰

KICKER

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Winning the Battle for

ISTOCK/ GOLUBOVY

Attention ❱ DMN.CA

APRIL 2025

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TACTICS IN DM

Strategic Messaging in a Distracted World

BY GEOFF LINTON

T

en years ago, marketing was simpler: fewer digital vehicles, less algorithmic targeting, and audiences with more time and fewer interruptions.

Today, in our fast-paced, evolving digital world, marketers are scrambling to keep up.

Balancing data, technology, numerous marketing vehicles, and relentless campaign schedules is overwhelming. By wearing so many hats, marketers risk becoming overly focused on execution — pumping out campaigns and content without strategic cohesion. Mediocre, general content now floods the market, and GenAI is accelerating a new wave of automated, low-value content, sometimes referred to as “splot” (spam-like bot output).

Good marketing must be anchored in the customer — their needs, priorities, and a clear, reinforced value proposition.

Fundamentally, brands are no longer just competing with each other. They are fighting for attention against an endless stream of interruptions, often amplified by the ever-present smartphone.

This article explores today’s messaging challenges and offers insights on how brands can better capture and retain customer attention. Research confirms that attention spans are plummeting.

As digital rewires behaviors and brains, marketers must adopt new approaches.

Fix the “More” Mindset and Bombardment Problem The “more” mindset is undermining marketing effectiveness.

First, there are simply more digital channels to manage. A CMA/Ipsos Reid study identified over 19 digital marketing vehicles today, compared to fewer than 7 in 2010. Consumers are now bombarded constantly — via social media, email, text, and apps. As marketers deploy more vehicles, they inadvertently overwhelm audiences, leading to desensitization. (Reminder: eyeballs are not engagement.)

APRIL 2025

Meanwhile, social media algorithms tailor content streams, training users to become addicted to constant stimuli and prompts.

The results? ❯ Shorter attention spans ❯ Multi-screen fixation ❯ Reduced ability to focus on meaningful content At the same time, brands and agencies have reacted by generating more content — in more formats — leading to severe audience fragmentation. Fragmentation complicates targeting, while overpublishing low-value content erodes trust. Our audits of email marketing programs reveal that many operate on autopilot, with bloated, unclear messaging. The obsession with “more” is creating real strategic liabilities.

Assess Your Content Inventory Creating relevant, high-quality content demands significant resources. Leading brands anchor their content around strategic themes and pillars that align with their value proposition.

Using AI tools, we have observed that many brands scatter their content across too many disparate topics. As marketing thought leader Tony Chapman recently noted: “What if the content companies are producing doesn’t even matter to their customers? That’s a massive misallocation of capital and effort.”

Content is a strategic asset.

Brands must audit their content for relevance, quality, and uniqueness — particularly against key competitors.

“The right content mix and messaging can shape the market and drive market share gains,” Chapman emphasizes.

The Science of Attention: Leveraging Conversational Analysis Capturing attention requires two things: relevance and receptivity.

In an era of constant interruptions and competing screens, understanding what matters to your audience is critical.

Many leading marketers now mine social media to identify core topics of conversation.

A SocialPulse report typically outlines 5–10 key topics resonating within target customer segments. Analysis focuses on: ❯ Volume (number of unique conversations) ❯ Longevity (how long topics stay relevant) ❯ Emotional connection (sentiment, variance, and attitudes) AI models can rank topics by attitude scores, momentum, and

even predict emerging themes — helping brands refine their content strategies rapidly (often in less than two weeks).

GEOFF LINTON, P.Eng, MBA, Chartered Marketer is Senior Consultant & Strategist, ClaroVant Digital. He is a marketing engineer with 35 years of industry experience helping companies drive business results through optimizing digital strategies, integrating platforms and adopting new technology. Geoff is also an active member on the CMA AI Committee.

Pro Tip:

If you have strong first-party data, an AI engineer and data scientist can build a proprietary Attention Index to measure and track topic resonance.

Plant Your Stake:

Strengthen Digital Footprint & Positioning ANOTHER POWERFUL STRATEGY is to compare the key elements of your value proposition and content portfolio through the lens of Net Promoter Score (NPS), especially segmented regionally. NPS analysis can spotlight strengths, vulnerabilities, and whitespace opportunities — areas where competitors are weak.

Further, Agentic AI systems can audit both owned and earned media content to: ❯ Classify published topics ❯ Identify conversational gaps (where your brand is absent) ❯ Prioritize new content development By closing conversational gaps, you not only strengthen your digital footprint but also position your brand more effectively in search prompts, AI-generated results, and user recall.

Conclusion: Strategy Before Structure

The accelerating evolution of digital and AI impacts both consumers and marketers. Winning attention today demands strategic precision — not just tactical volume.

Start with a Know Your Customer (KYC) mindset.

Here are key questions to elevate your messaging strategy: ❯ Who is your addressable audience? Which customer segments are the priority? ❯ Are your marketing messages truly breaking through? ❯ Are your customers desensitized? How long is their attention span? ❯ Does your content matter to them? ❯ Do you have content or conversation gaps? ❯ What conversational opportunities are you missing? ❯ Are there topics you should de-emphasize? ❯ What will the future of brand-customer interaction look like?

DMN.CA ❰

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INTERVIEW

Personalization at Scale

An Interview with Mark Abraham, Global Leader, Boston Consulting Group

Mark Abraham is Boston Consulting Group’s Marketing, Sales and Pricing Practice Leader for North America and the co-author of the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI.

BY STEVE SHAW

R

ight offer — right time — right message.

Tough for most marketers to get right, never mind in real-time.

Yet marketers have drooled about that possibility ever since Don Peppers and Martha Rogers first popularized the idea of one-toone marketing way back in the early 1990s. But until very recently, personalization at scale has been largely wishful thinking. Because, to pull it off, marketers need the right data — right technology — right processes.

And that trifecta is rarely found outside of direct-to-consumer companies whose business model is predicated on getting it right.

The cost and complexity of putting in place the required technology infrastructure has always stood in the way of real-time personalization becoming feasible for most businesses. Any attempts at doing so by intrepid marketers is usually foiled by the Sisyphean effort involved. The trade-off just doesn’t seem worth it. And the business case is hard to get past the CFO who scoffs at the rosy sales projections. Which is why most forms of personalization today are limited to “next best offer” messaging, the use of dynamic variables in e-mail, or the particular mix of images and text you might see on a web landing page — what’s called “performative” personalization, as in “Stephen, we handpicked this offer just for you”. ❱ DMN.CA

APRIL 2025

// 11 Most marketers are just fine with the fluffy use of personalization, content to keep blasting out campaigns with minimal segment-based variation, because to do otherwise would slow the whole process down to a crawl. And marketers are always in a hurry to push out the next social media post, e-mail or targeted online ad. Complexity is their constant nemesis.

It gets in the way of execution. It means more time spent planning, testing, measuring. It puts enormous pressure on content production. And it demands a lot of back-end data engineering to stitch together a unified customer profile.

Nothing is ever push button. That’s why campaigns can take weeks — sometimes months — to launch.

Until now, that is. Because soon — maybe even very soon — marketers will be able to step back and hand over the grunt work to personalization engines.

Artificial intelligence is already beginning to revolutionize how marketing creates, develops and produces one-to-one communications.

Marketers everywhere are finally able to individualize content, images, offers, web pages and video using AI platforms. GenAI tools can write the copy, design the layout, create the imagery, generate multiple versions of those assets for testing, and adapt it to each channel, taking into account what works best based on past performance, clicks, buying habits and known preferences. And as almost everyone has seen by now, the creative output can be eerily human.

If all of that sounds too good to be true, there is another major inflection point just ahead: the use of agentic AI to autonomously run end-to-end marketing campaigns, all without manual intervention. This will cause marketing talent and resources to invariably shift from producing stuff — even thinking about what to produce — to overseeing its creation and deployment. But here is where it gets even more intriguing: AI agents will automatically guide customers through every step of their online journey — interacting with them in real-time, advising, selling, servicing, prodding, reminding, coaxing, stroking — again without the overhead of marketing involvement. Each interaction will pick up from where the last one left off. The customer experience will be completely streamlined, perhaps to the relief of time-starved marketers who can never seem to give it the attention it deserves.

But doing personalization at scale — even with the help of AI — is still a daunting challenge, as Mark Abraham, head of BCG’s personalisation practice, is quick to acknowledge, pointing out that only about 10 percent of companies today are true personalization leaders. In the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, he and his co-author David Edelman lay out a framework for delivering impactful personalization that enhances the customer experience, arguing that it should be a strategic priority for every company and a source of competitive advantage.

APRIL 2025

Stephen Shaw: What led you to start up a personalization practice at BCG? Mark Abraham: In the 2010s we were doing all this great digital strategy work for companies who then couldn’t scale a lot of the pilot projects we had started. At the time we had brought together this awesome talent — human centered designers, martech experts, data scientists, data engineers — and one of the first big builds we did was Starbucks’ personalization engine. They were one of the first movers among the non-digital native companies. But since then, and especially after COVID, our other clients have recognized the importance of scaling personalized experiences.

mindset. They’re pushing out communications to customers that can often take three, four months, let alone measuring it and trying to improve it. In one bank we work with, for example, maybe 80 people can touch a campaign across the agency, internal marketing, and the tech folks. There might be 15 handoffs or more.

But the personalization leaders — the top 10 percent of companies — are maniacally focused on shrinking that time. That’s why the digital natives — companies like Spotify, Netflix, Uber — operate with a mindset of running thousands of campaigns and experiments, learning from each of them, and optimizing the experience as a result.

SHAW: Are you still having to sell companies on your personalization vision?

ABRAHAM: Ten years ago when we started there was a lot of work convincing companies on the importance of that. But it’s been incredible how in the last five years that has shifted. I took over the leadership of our marketing and sales practice right at the start of COVID, so March 2020. One month we were worried nobody was going to have any work and then the next month the phones were ringing off the hook.

Literally everyone recognized how critical building a digital AI-driven capability was. Our own team doubled in the span of 18 months.

Today I think the imperative to do it is no longer a question.

SHAW: So the essence of your formula is the compression of time to accelerate learning and improve the experience faster?

ABRAHAM: Yes. Before it was more about predicting what the customer might want.

There was tremendous emphasis on the data science and the AI used to predict what kinds of marketing messages customers were likely to respond to.

SHAW: What does personalization at scale really mean?

ABRAHAM: Personalization at scale really means you learn something about a customer in every single interaction you have with them.

And you are using that insight and knowledge to make their next interaction better, faster, cheaper, more convenient, and doing that not just for one customer, but if you’re a large brand, across millions of customers and billions of interactions. It’s about thinking how to empower the customer.

SHAW: You say the main idea in the book can be distilled into one equation: volume of interactions multiplied by speed to the power of two. How did you arrive at that particular formula? And why is speed so important in the equation?

ABRAHAM: Yes, so let’s unpack that a bit. It’s a simple distillation of a ton of research we’ve done, benchmarking hundreds of companies, using what we call our “personalization index”.

What we found was, number one, if you want to do personalization at scale, you do need a significant number of interactions that you’re capturing digitally. And so that’s where the N in the formula comes from: How are you engaging with the customer so that you actually have more interactions than you have transactions?

But the speed component is the most important and that’s why we underscore it in the equation. Most companies have a campaign

SHAW: You referenced your “personalization index” — can you describe the elements of that score?

ABRAHAM: Ultimately the personalization leaders deliver on five promises to the customer that they make. Number one is “Empower me”.

How are you using personalization to help me?

If I’m Spotify, I’m trying to help you get access to the music that you love. What is the outcome for the customer? Are you making it better, faster, cheaper or more convenient? So that’s where it starts. But in order to do that at scale, you also need to have all the enablers for that. And that’s where the other four promises come into play.

So, the second one is “Know Me”. You need to actually have customer data. And again, back to the Spotify example, they have not just my profile as a customer when I log into the app, but all the songs I’ve listened to in the past, what genres they are, all the metadata about those songs, how long I listened to them, which ones I skipped over, who my friends are that I’m connected to on the platform, et cetera. That is the key foundation on which personalization is built. Spo there’s a lot to think about from a data architecture standpoint.

The third piece then is “Reach Me”. So once you have all that data, you’ve got to know how to make it easy for customers to access that experience. In the case of Spotify, they have this amazing music library. They use AI to curate playlists that are incredibly personalized for the listener.

Next comes “Show Me”. You’ve got to have the right content. And so obviously in the Spotify example, that’s not just their catalog, it’s also new songs and podcasts and so on. Or even notifying customers when their favourite artist is coming to town so they can get tickets and shop for merch.

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INTERVIEW What’s interesting in the last couple of years though, it is way easier to create content with GenAI than it has ever been and so we’re in the midst of a content explosion.

And lastly, and this is the most important enabler actually, because it comes back to this point around speed, “Delight Me”. Are you making the experience better every time I come back to you? In all of our consumer research work, we found that 90 percent of customers are willing to share their data when they have a better experience. So there’s tremendous appetite for personalization, even with all the concerns around data privacy, as long as companies deliver on these five promises.

So that’s how the index works. And we score companies from a simple 0 to 100. We find that only 10 percent of them score above a 75 or so, making them a personalization leader. The average company only scores a 49. So there’s a lot more work to do on personalization, which is one reason I wrote this book.

SHAW: Who are some of the companies you’ve deemed to be personalization leaders?

ABRAHAM: The digital natives, not surprisingly, still score the highest on the index. Uber and Spotify are doing this really, really well. I love what Spotify has done with “Daylists”1 because the name and tagging that’s personalized to you is so iconic that it’s become a way for Gen Z and Gen Alpha to interact with each other and get to know each other quickly.

On the brick and mortar side, there’s a lot of interesting companies, whether it’s Fidelity or Voya in financial services, or the likes of Woolworths, Tesco and Home Depot.

SHAW: What are the main reasons that companies are struggling with the transition to personalization at scale?

ABRAHAM: About 70 percent of digital transformations fail mainly because of people.

So I would start with fixing the operating model.

Especially for personalization. It is the most cross functional initiative any company can undertake. It requires customer first thinking.

So, the marketing team, the insights team, have to be at the table. But in order to actually deliver at scale, you need analytics, data, engineering, tech, and digital experience to come together.

And you need to identify key use cases that will deliver value to the business. Because there are real investments that have to be made to make a meaningful difference for the customer. So ❱ DMN.CA

that’s really the art of getting it right.

SHAW: You say that personalization at scale comes down to content. Is content the biggest choke point right now?

ABRAHAM: Initially the big bottleneck was the data and what I would call predictive AI. So getting the algorithms right and fine tuned and making sure the data is set up and clean, and I would say very, very few organizations have that fully right. It’s a constant evolution. But once you get that to an okay place, content becomes the bottleneck.

What’s interesting in the last couple of years though, it is way easier to create content with GenAI than it has ever been and so we’re in the midst of a content explosion. So you can create not just static images or copy, but even video and human characters, all with GenAI tools, in a matter of minutes and hours, whereas that used to take really expensive photo shoots and many months of planning. And it also enables you to take one campaign, let’s say an ad for a product, and create 100 versions of it. So you can do things like a global launch across 50 markets aimed at five different personas. What’s exciting is you can set up these content libraries that are geared towards your target customers with GenAI and pair the predictive AI with that to serve up the right content at the right time.

Jesper, Dall-e, et cetera are great tools for images. When it comes to video, Google’s VO2 just launched. But then you have other ones like Flare.AI, Flickr, etc. that solve different elements like motion. Adobe’s Firefly allows you to take copyright approved content for things like images of humans and characters. So there’s a plethora of tools and different ones are good for different tasks in the content creation space.

There need to be teams internally that stay on top of the evolution of those tools — that have the knowledge of how to mix and match them.

But it does take a partnership across clients and agencies to leverage these tools fully, thinking about where they can take cost out and invest back in more content creation.

SHAW: I do want to touch on one other challenge that companies are wrestling with and that is finding more agile ways of

working. You say that’s the hardest thing to get right. And to go back to your campaign mindset reference, is that because most companies just aren’t set up that way?

ABRAHAM: So a great example of this is a travel and airline client that had 50 different products. They were trying to sell the customer everything from seats to ancillary flight products, like an upgrade to a credit card, travel insurance, and other products. And each of those products was set up as a separate P&L with an owner who was responsible for hitting quarterly targets. So of course they were creating great content and pushing that out to customers through email and on the website and the app in order to hit their targets. And they were even using predictive AI to figure out which customers would be interested in which products.

The problem, of course, was that the highest value customers were actually getting hit with the most product offers while the least engaged customers were not getting anything. So some customers were getting 10 emails a week and a lot of outreach through the app and others were getting nothing. When you flip that on its head and actually ask, what’s the best for the customer, you get to a very different approach.

But in order to make that change we had to set up a personalization lab, assemble a team, carve out a few hundred thousand customers and show the organization that this is what can happen when you take a customer first approach. We proved that we could reduce the number of emails we send by 30 percent. We proved we can drive 10 percent more cross sell revenue. But we said that we needed a team that’s actually going to think customer first and act as air traffic control and build the technology platform in a way where it can operate seamlessly. So that was a huge change.

It required rewiring their organization, their incentives, as well as doing integration of the backend technology.

SHAW: What are the main elements of the technology infrastructure to do personalization right?

ABRAHAM: Number one is the data. You have to have accurate data. So you need a data platform, and you need to understand what you may be missing based on your use cases. Back to the Starbucks example. Like many retailers they have many different product hierarchies. And so in order to get product recommendations right we had to really understand what is the right product hierarchy from a customer standpoint.

So again, start with the use case and line up the data accordingly.

Next, there is a whole set of components that have to come together from a martech standpoint: the tools to be able to set up lots of experiments. There’s also the actual delivery of APRIL 2025

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that experience into given channels. There are a lot more tools that are available now whereas in the past you had to custom build.

But there is always some customization required to make sure the solution is tailored to your business, versus just relying on out of the box models.

SHAW: Let’s move on to organizational structure. In the past personalization has been first and foremost a marketing tool. But importantly it’s also a way of enhancing the customer experience. So who should have point on transformation?

ABRAHAM: It’s one of the biggest issues in organizations. I think ultimately personalization rises to the level of a CEO. It should be part of corporate strategy for a company. AI with personalization can be used to drive growth. In fact, personalization leaders grow 10 points faster than laggards. And so, at the end of the day, the CEO should have it on their agenda.

Operationally you’ve got to think about alignment around a shared roadmap and vision. Where are we going over the next three to five years? And what are the use cases that we’re going to tackle with what payback and investment? Someone needs to own that roadmap and hold the organization accountable even though they’re not going to control all the resources, because some of it will sit in tech, some of it will sit in marketing, some of it will sit in analytics.

That leader typically is at least a VP — often an SVP — who has the buy in and respect of the organization. That SVP or VP can sit under a number of leaders — the Chief Marketing Officer, the Chief Customer Officer, the Chief Digital Officer, even the CTO if the technology group owns digital.

But the key is cross functional senior alignment and a mandate to drive change.

They need to be able to flag issues, get rid of roadblocks and hold the organization accountable.

SHAW: You also call for a Personalization Officer.

ABRAHAM: What that looks like will be very organization specific. But that role in itself can’t solve everything. So it’s also about how you set up “tiger teams” — the “two pizza teams” that can make progress in three to six months against a set of KPIs, show the value and then line up the next set of investments after that.

SHAW: You say the future org structure is going to look more like a jazz ensemble instead of a symphony orchestra. Can you APRIL 2025

explain what you mean by that?

ABRAHAM: So instead of command and control trying to set the direction from the top down, this is where those tiger teams are run by a conductor who has the ability to improvise. If every Monday morning that tiger team is looking at the customer dashboard and looking at whether they drove engagement or not, the conductor can say, well, the content guru needs to go and make some tweaks, or the data and analytics person needs to tweak the targeting. Now let’s launch that campaign in two days and see what happens next week. So it is much more akin to a jazz group improvising than it is performing sheet music.

SHAW: I want to move on to a discussion about agentic AI because obviously that is one of the big game changers now. Is it the magic potion for taming the complexity of personalization?

ABRAHAM: We are on the cusp of a massive revolution. What we’ve witnessed so far is push personalization. Now we are now entering this phase of pull personalization.

Customers are going to be in the driver’s seat, and they get to decide when they want a personalized experience. Look at Delta and what they’ve announced with Delta Concierge CES2. The Delta app will be your virtual travel assistant, anticipating when you need to go to the airport, surfacing exclusive YouTube TV content for you on your phone while you’re in the plane, and then predicting when to have that Uber show up at the gate when you land. I think this is the direction we’re going.

The old world of email where you’re clicking through an experience will be transformed by these virtual assistants that are guiding you through voice and chat and video.

SHAW: You also talk about this idea of a brand serving as a gateway to a bunch of value added partners.

ABRAHAM: Yeah, I think that’s incredibly important. It is not just one company trying to provide all these services. That’s what I love about the Delta example — tying together YouTube and Uber and Joby and all their partners to try to provide a seamless travel experience.

SHAW: In a world where customers will be hiring agentic AI tools to do their shopping for them, you certainly have to question the role of marketing.

ABRAHAM: Yeah, yeah. I mean one of my CPG clients is revamping their entire marketing process and organization because they’ve told the Board in the next three years a third of their multi-billion dollar

marketing budget will be marketing to AI-powered agents. And so in a world like that, how do you ensure the virtual assistant recommends your products? So big, big change coming.

SHAW: Some of the personalization challenges you lay out in the book do seem formidable, if not insurmountable.

What’s your answer to the CFO who says, yeah, yeah, nice theory, but I don’t think it’s worth investing in right now?

ABRAHAM: Yeah, unfortunately there are many jaded leaders out there who’ve been told just make this $10 million investment in this martech tool and it will solve everything.

And then they figure out it’s made no real difference. That’s because all the “five promises” have to come together — one leg of the stool is not enough.

No company I work with has a shortage of ideas on how to improve the customer experience. So you need to get your cross functional team together in a room. In an hour you can fill the whiteboard with use cases for how you can improve the customer experience. Start with a specific channel or start with a specific step in the customer journey, or start with a specific market or set of products and map it out. What KPI are you going to move over what time period? Challenge yourself that it has to be in field within three to six months because the CFO is not patient. Explain that a proof of concept pilot will make it easier for the organization to swallow the change. Start with use cases that are going to build the confidence of the CFO and the organization.

The truth is, there are many, many proven personalization use cases that pay back within the year in every single industry. That is the biggest change actually. When I first did the personalization index benchmarking 5-10 years ago, it was really just retail and digital natives that were far ahead of everyone else.

Today it’s banks and healthcare companies and B2B companies as well. So pick those use cases and win the trust of the organization that way versus spending too much time on the grand vision.

1 Spotify’s “Daylist” is an algorithmically generated playlist for subscribers that plays the music they like to listen to at specific times.

2 Delta Concierge is an AI-powered travel assistant from Delta Air Lines designed to personalize and streamline the travel experience.

STEPHEN SHAW is the Chief Strategy Officer of Kenna, a marketing solutions provider specializing in delivering a more unified customer experience. He is also the host of the Customer First Thinking podcast. Stephen can be reached via e-mail at sshaw@kenna.ca

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TECHNOLOGY

The Future of the Customer Journey: AI agents take control of the buying Process We share 3 predictions for how generative AI and agentic commerce will transform the experience across the 5 stages of the customer journey.

Shopping could soon be as simple as saying “yes.” ❱ DMN.CA

BY CB INSIGHTS

IMAGINE: Your personal AI agent notifies you that a hair dryer you’ve been eyeing is now on sale. The product page highlights benefits tailored to your curly hair, while the agent confirms it will arrive before your upcoming trip.

With your approval, the agent handles the purchase through your secure wallet. Later, it proactively suggests complementary hair care products for the summer season.

This world of autonomous commerce isn’t as far off as it seems. Tech and e-commerce leaders — including OpenAI, Nvidia, Amazon, Walmart, Google, and Apple — are already building AI systems that are steps away from conducting transactions.

Advancements in generative AI have already started enabling hyperpersonalized customer experiences that have driven increases in conversion rates, enabled smarter upselling, and streamlined operations.

The traditional customer journey consists of 5 steps: 1. Awareness: Discovering new products, brands, or businesses 2. Consideration: Researching potential options or solutions 3. Decision: Selecting and buying the preferred option 4. Service: Using the product and accessing support 5. Advocacy: Building loyalty and recommending to others APRIL 2025

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new tool, ArtBotAI — a content platform that collects clients’ creative assets, brand messaging, and customer data to generate personalized ads and other content. ❯ Similarly, in September 2024, food giant Mondelez International launched a platform in partnership with Accenture and Publicis Groupe to create personalized text, images, and videos for the company’s brands.

AI agents will impact each stage, streamlining the path to purchase and fundamentally transforming how businesses build relationships with consumers and drive loyalty.

We use CB Insights data on early-stage fundraising, public companies, and industry partnerships to analyze how generative AI — especially AI agents — is transforming the customer journey.

Across the 5 stages, 3 predictions emerge from our analysis: 1. First-party transaction data will shape the future of AI-driven personalization. Effective marketing, advertising, and merchandising personalization relies on deep customer insights spanning transactions, preferences, and context. As personalization becomes more sophisticated at the awareness and consideration stages, companies with direct access to first-party data will have an edge. This data offers a richer understanding of customer preferences and behaviors, which will drive more informed personalization. Retailers, financial services firms, and digital wallet providers like Apple are well-positioned to capitalize on this shift.

2. Direct-to-agent (D2A) commerce will kill traditional loyalty. With AI agents handling browsing and shopping, consumers can skip websites and brand pages altogether. Traditional loyalty programs will lose effectiveness as agents optimize shopping across a select group of merchants or deepen ties APRIL 2025

to specific businesses. To stay competitive, companies must rethink how they drive loyalty as purchases become increasingly automated — such as offering data-sharing incentives that enable AI agents to make better recommendations (e.g., sharing behind-the-scenes brand data on sustainability or product quality).

3. A few AI agents will own the customer relationship. The exact agent model that will win out remains uncertain. However, companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple — with critical distribution and financial services infrastructure — are well-positioned in commerce.

To stay competitive, consumerfacing businesses must build partnerships with big tech and other agent leaders or risk being excluded from consumers’ buying decisions.

First-party transaction data will shape the future of AI-driven personalization.

Mentions of AI’s impact on personalization have surged in earnings calls over the last two years as marketers, brands, and merchants prioritize instantly digesting reams of consumer data. Brands, merchants, and other businesses that can feed AI personalization tools with first-party transaction data will be in the driver’s seat across the customer journey. AI agents are turning marketing messages into personalized conversations.

Ad leaders already use generative AI to drive awareness via personalized end-to-end campaigns, aggregating creative assets, brand messaging, and customer data. For instance: ❯ Early in 2024, the CEO of global marketing fi rm Omnicom Group discussed the company’s

But agents will take brand messaging a step further by transforming formerly one-way marketing into full conversations.

Firsthand, founded by former TV and digital advertising executives, offers one vision for that next phase. The company’s solution includes not only a platform that gives brands more control over AI’s use of their content but also generative marketing agents that enable on-site customized conversations between brands and consumers.

For instance, after reading about a particular topic, a consumer could immediately converse with an agent from an advertiser to learn more about its related solutions.

AI generates unique online “stores” for every customer Customer data and AI tools are also powering the next stage in complete personalization: generating unique online “stores” for each consumer.

Walmart is leading this

Source: CB Insights — Earnings transcripts mentions DMN.CA ❰

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TECHNOLOGY charge. In late 2024, the retailer announced plans to create unique home pages for each shopper visiting its website by predicting what customers want to see based on their preferences.

Meanwhile, enterprise search companies and startups are expanding their use of large language models (LLMs) — not only to deliver more precise search results but also to enhance and personalize the e-commerce experience with generative AI. 1. AI-optimized e-commerce UX solutions focus on personalizing the entire front-end shopping experience — from product pages to sponsored content — to boost conversion and engagement.

2. Generative AI – e-commerce search leverages AI to interpret user intent, deliver more relevant results, and enable natural language interactions (e.g., chatbots) on e-commerce platforms.

3. Composable AI is a broader technology framework that provides modular, interchangeable AI components (e.g., NLP, computer vision) that can be combined and scaled for various use cases beyond e-commerce.

These shifts toward hyperpersonalized marketing and merchandising only elevate the position of companies with robust transaction data, particularly retailers and financial services companies.

These companies can connect consumers’ buying habits across platforms (online and in stores) and maintain transparency about the collection and use of that data. This development could put media networks from retailers and other consumer-facing businesses (e.g., Uber or PayPal) on an equal footing with ad network giants.

For companies without first-party data, data-sharing partnerships will be critical — for instance, with financial services fi rms, shared merchant loyalty networks, or e-commerce platforms providing insights to marketplace sellers. Incorporating contextual data, such as location, referral sources, and engagement patterns, will enable more sophisticated targeting. ❱ DMN.CA

Direct-to-agent (D2A) commerce will kill traditional loyalty Once shoppers arrive at their customized homepages, AI assistants will evolve to be their personalized shopping companions, learning individual consumer preferences to anticipate needs and guide purchases.

Consumers’ gradual reliance on agents will lead them to skip brands or retailers entirely. In direct-toagent commerce, the advantage will be with the agent that can most quickly learn and act on a consumer’s habits and preferences.

and recommends new cards based on users’ spending habits. The company raised a $10M Series A round in May 2024. Programs like Kudos’ could also help strengthen retention by identifying likely churn before it happens and taking automated steps to re-engage program members.

AI assistants become personal shoppers Major retailers are already launching their own smart shopping assistants that are making shopping support continuous, personalized, and efficient: ❯ Amazon’s Rufus (launched February 2024) answers product questions using information from reviews and external sources. ❯ Walmart’s Customer Support Assistant now recognizes returning online shoppers and can perform tasks like finding orders and managing returns. ❯ Target’s Store Companion helps store employees answer on-thejob questions, train new team members, and support store operations.

landscape, the company’s CB Insights Mosaic health score is significantly higher than the average for agents overall, pointing to Cognigy’s traction: The next wave of shopping agents will be able to alert consumers about price drops on items they want, suggest products that match their style, or even automatically reorder items they regularly use.

But prompting product discovery — and acquiring new customers — will become increasingly difficult as customers become entrenched with their agents.

In response, merchants and brands will need to find new or alternate channels to influence potential buyers’ buying decisions and the information that agents gather to make decisions. This means more focus on niche media platforms, user-generated content, cross-industry partnerships, message boards, and more.

At the same time, customer support agent companies are developing even deeper capabilities. Germany-based Cognigy, which raised $100M in June 2024, offers AI agents that can simultaneously handle tens of thousands of customer conversations across retail, airlines, and banking. While primarily focused on contact center support, its agents can also offer recommendations, product searches, re-engage abandoned carts, and more before purchase.

Cognigy’s advances are notable: in the broadly nascent AI agent

Agents automate and personalize relationshipbuilding with customers Long-established loyalty-driving tools like special offers will also have to evolve as consumers’ interactions with brands and other consumer businesses narrow.

For instance, cross-platform AI agents will strengthen rewards across merchants, negotiating the best combinations of rewards and offers on consumers’ behalf.

Smart wallet Kudos demonstrates this shift — it automatically selects the credit card offering the highest rewards per purchase

A few AI agents will own the customer relationship Perhaps the most significant step will be for agents to understand consumers’ preferences, anticipate their needs, and complete transactions.

While the universe of startups creating AI agent infrastructure is rapidly expanding — 100+ companies are developing agent applications from marketing to customer support — big tech and AI companies with native AI infrastructure, established financial services, and digital wallet capabilities are well-positioned to lead broader adoption of agents overall, and more specifically of agentic commerce.

AI agents know what to purchase and when — and hit the buy button AI giants have opened the door to agent-led buying. In January 2025, OpenAI introduced its agent Operator, which uses its own browser to perform tasks, interacting with the web independently on users’ behalf.

The tasks can include everything from filling out forms to placing online orders.

So far, users have reported that Operator often needs backup — such as help entering login information or getting through bot-tracking tools like CAPTCHAs — and can act with too much independence, adding fees for tips or fast delivery without permission.

But big tech companies are close behind. Google and Amazon have both discussed expanding

Source: CB Insights — The generative AI for e-commerce market map APRIL 2025

CMMC CANADIAN MUSEUM MARKETING CONFERENCE June 6, 2025 Canadian Canoe Museum, Peterborough, On ATTEND: This newly-minted Conference’s mission is to expand and enhance the ability of Canada’s museums, galleries, historic sites and cultural organizations to meet the challenges in today’s sector.

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Opening Keynote Speaker: Olivier Carré-Delisle, Vice-President, Digital, Public Affairs and Commercial Operations, Ingenium Added opportunities: • Hands-on marketing and communications skills building • Plus a behind-the-scenes tour of the new museum • Outdoor camping skills workshop with Canoe Museum guide • And much more. Full details to be revealed shortly.

sponsored by:

To Register or Get More Information ATTEND FOR AS LITTLE AS $150.00 (for volunteer-run facilities).

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See the full speaker roster and sign up now to save with Early Bird Registration discounts for single, dual or team registrations.

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TECHNOLOGY

developers to generate single-use virtual cards with spend controls that agents can use to make purchases. AI search platform Perplexity is using Stripe’s singleissuing capability to power its new “Buy with Pro” agentic commerce service.

Even as big tech and payments leaders pull ahead, a key question remains for agentic commerce: Will consumers use agents tied to specific retailers or platforms (e.g., Amazon’s Rufus) or independent agents that can work across merchants and platforms (e.g., OpenAI’s Operator or Google’s Gemini)? For example, an independent agent could book airline tickets directly, bypassing upsell attempts from airlines offering seat upgrades.

Amid this uncertainty, consumer-facing businesses — from merchants to banks — should partner with AI agent infrastructure leaders now. This approach not only ensures their digital platforms are optimized for AI but also lays the groundwork for developing their own agents.

Source: CB Insights — Kudos company profi le

the reach of their AI assistants to perform more shopping tasks. At the same time, Apple is developing its AI suite, Apple Intelligence, as a tool that could eventually reach into apps and other functionality on Apple’s devices to perform user tasks. The company’s strong privacy focus and robust wallet infrastructure give it a distinct advantage in this emerging field.

One wild card to enable fully agentic buying: controlling agents’ buying power.

Early movers in payments are developing solutions for payment rails and digital wallets where users can restrict the funds available to agents. Coinbase Ventures-backed Skyfi re is targeting agent-to-agent transactions using crypto wallets.

Its platform assigns each AI agent a digital wallet where a user can deposit a set amount of funds that can be used for a purchase.

While early in its deployment, the company has begun processing payments between AI agents ❱ DMN.CA

and businesses, including LLM aggregators and large-scale financial services. Skyfi re is among the few companies in the nascent market for companies

concentrating on building AI infrastructure for payments.

In November 2024, Stripe launched a similar service called Stripe Issuing, which allows

CB INSIGHTS is a platform that provides market intelligence and analysis, particularly focusing on private companies, startups, and their investors. It’s a valuable resource for individuals and organizations in fields like private equity, venture capital, and corporate strategy who need to stay informed about emerging technologies, market trends, and competitor activities. This article is based on a research paper about the future of the customer journey. www.cbinsights.com

Source: CB Insights — 15 tech trends to watch closely in 2025 APRIL 2025

// 19

Resource Directory DATA ANALYTICS

DIRECT MARKETING

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Version:

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Ratio of Website Visitors to In-Store Visits s Augu

6.0

t ‘20

h Marc

‘21

h Marc

5.0

‘22

4.7

4.0

3.0

2.0 1.9

2.0

1.0 1.0

2019

Nigeria

Retailer A

Toronto CSD by Dissemination Area

2020

2021

March

January

February

October

December

November

July

September

May

June

August

April

March

January

February

December

November

July

August

October

September

May

June

April

March

January

February

December

November

July

August

October

May

June

September

India

April

March

January

China, People’s Republic of

February

0.0

Dominant Country of Origin

2022

Retailer B

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Deposits by Region: Penetration vs. Wallet Share

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49.1% Index:188

124 SOCIAL VULNERABILITY INDEX*

Community Involvement

11.7% Index:117

Perceived mental health is fair or poor

People know well enough to ask favour (none)

51.5%

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14.9%

Strategy: Acquisition

91

Wallet Share

Household Size -1 Person

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Index:235

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Develop New Strategies Close relatives (0-2)

Close relatives in same city (0-2)

34.7% Index:156

47.1% Index:110

Close friends (0-2)

33.4% Index:124

Close friends in same city (0-2)

29.9% Index:107

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