Lupine Skelly, Retail Research Leader at Deloitte, joins Phillip and Alicia to dissect the stark reality behind this year's holiday shopping forecast. Consumer spending is projected to drop by 10%, and economic pessimism has reached its highest level since the Great Recession. As a result, retailers are facing a season where communicating value is key. This conversation explores the enduring vitality of Black Friday, the quiet revolution of private label brands, and how cultural rituals, AI integration, and brand loyalty are being fundamentally rewired.

• Shoppers expect to spend $1,595 this season as economic concerns peak
• 57% expect the economy to weaken, the most pessimistic outlook recorded since 1997
• Black Friday remains vital despite two decades of obituaries
• 24% of budgets are spent by October due to the Prime Day effect
• Private label gains ground as brand loyalty fundamentally shifts

• [00:02:10.14] Lupine Skelly: "57% of people are saying they expect the economy to weaken in the year ahead, and that's the highest we've seen since we started tracking that question in 1997. To put that in context, 2008 was probably the next highest at 54%—that was around the Great Recession. So [there’s] a lot of uncertainty out there."
• [00:04:42.72] Lupine Skelly: "I feel like people have been trying to kill off Black Friday for 20 years. Is Black Friday dead? It's not dead."
• [00:13:17.91] Lupine Skelly: "In our study, 42% of consumers are saying they're going to use gen AI to find the perfect gift. And even more are saying they're going to use it to find the best deals."
• [00:25:49.24] Lupine Skelly: "Retail is always battling for share of wallet, but I think we're at a very different time period. Gaming, gambling—there's some big juggernauts taking what might have been the money you used to go to the mall years ago."

• Dig deeper into Deloitte data and insights here
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Oleksii (Alex) Lunkov joins Alicia Esposito to unpack how meaningful constraints fuel creativity in an age of algorithmic abundance. From Saint Sophia's 9 million glass cubes to the digitization of Berry Bros. & Rudd's 300-year heritage, this conversation navigates the tension between AI efficiency and human authenticity. Discover why 95% of AI pilots fail, how brands become cultural ambassadors, and what fractional leadership means for tomorrow's commerce teams.

• Meaningful constraints drive better creative outcomes. Removing all friction from digital experiences leaves us wondering why we don't feel anything.
• AI dramatically increases individual productivity, but human oversight remains essential for tone preservation, fact-checking, and maintaining brand authenticity.
• Successful brands act as cultural ambassadors, translating something unique through their channels while balancing best practices with distinctive identity.
• The fractional work revolution emerges at the intersection of AI-enhanced productivity, volatile job markets, and businesses seeking expertise without long-term commitment.
• Most AI implementations fail because teams don't understand the technology's actual capabilities and limitations before deploying it.
• [00:06:14] "We removed all the friction, and we wonder why we don't feel anything." - Oleksii, quoting Phillip Jackson
• [00:11:40] "In order to build a personal brand, you need a person to be behind that brand." - Oleksii
• [00:28:48] "AI adoption is this huge spike on the top and then very long tail afterwards." - Oleksii

• Read Oleskii on Insiders
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Following the release of his work, The War of the Worlds Did Not Take Place, Nick Susi joins the pod to unravel the real War of the Worlds myth: not alien panic, but a battle between newspapers and radio that manufactured mass hysteria. Phillip, Brian, and Nick explore how narrative form shapes collective memory, why brands weaponize conflict for attention, and what happens when everything becomes participatory fan fiction.

• Structured narratives outlast formless truth in collective memory.
• Brands now weaponize conflict and controversy for attention economics.
• Everything is becoming participatory, co-created, and infinite fan fiction.
• "The War of the Worlds is not actually a war between humans and aliens. It's really this war between mediums." — Nick Susi
• "We've entered the phase of the attention economy where the game is attention at any and all costs." — Nick Susi
• "People don't want to share the thing. They want to share their experience of the thing." — W. David Marx (referenced)
• "Awareness does not decrease manipulation necessarily." –– Brian
• "We've become much more aware of the act of storytelling as a culture, like we see the artifice of storytelling and we appreciate the act of it itself." –– Phillip

• The War of the Worlds performance piece and publication by Nick Susi
• Order The War of the Worlds Did Not Take Place on Metalabel
• Blank Space by W. David Marx
• Insiders #196: Time After Time by Brian Lange

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• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
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