Connected Commerce: AI Can Scale Everything Except Authenticity

Hai Mag 00:08

Welcome everyone. Welcome back to the Connected Commerce Show. And here is your host, Hi Meg, the CEO and co-founder of Eva Commerce. And today I have Chris Marano as my guest. So, Chris, welcome to the show.

Chris Morrano 00:25

Awesome. Hi, thank you very much for having me. Excited to be here.

Hai Mag 00:29

Thanks a lot for coming and tell us more about yourself and your company. I think there's a lot of exciting things to share.

Chris Morrano 00:37

Awesome. Yeah. So my name is Chris Morano. I'm the founder of Blue Water Marketing. we're an agency since 2017 focused on e-commerce and D2C growth, based here in beautiful, sunny, actually now cloudy South Florida, because we have one of our afternoon thunderstorms rolling in. prior to that, I was working at large agencies in the Northeast, you know, match.com, you know, seven, eight figure, nine-figure brands.

Chris Morrano 01:02

And decided back then to start my own agency. so we are primarily Facebook and creative agency and working with seven and eight figure Shopify D to C brands.

Hai Mag 01:13

That is very interesting because one of our board directors is a distinguished engineer in meta, although we are not like the the best meta guys or something, you

Chris Morrano 01:24

Okay.

Hai Mag 01:24

know, but that's what he does. And one of like, I mean, you said 2017, so you're talking about like almost eight years.

Chris Morrano 01:33

Yeah.

Hai Mag 01:33

we jump into that connected commerce stories, I also want to get your perspective, like how

Hai Mag 01:40

the whole meta meta thing is evolved over the last like, you know, eight, nine years. I'm

Chris Morrano 01:47

Sure.

Hai Mag 01:47

assuming now there is a lot of AI going on because it's more the interest level rather than the intent level that we work too much on the Amazon side. So it will

Chris Morrano 01:58

Right, right.

Hai Mag 01:59

be good to get your perspective on that.

Chris Morrano 02:02

Yeah, well, these gray hairs didn't come from nowhere, right? So

Hai Mag 02:05

Yeah.

Chris Morrano 02:06

I I I most of these came from meta. I would say the last really last two years have been immensely different than what it used to be. and we suffered through that and then we came out prevalent on the other side of it. really as a media buyer myself trained like

Chris Morrano 02:21

Back then it was really just narrowing down on these very sub-interest levels that you were able to target and really get phenomenal results. Nowadays, the pivot in my agency and and friends of mine who own large agencies, it's been just creative and getting back, I would say, more to the marketing, like the psychology of marketing and what drives people to make a purchase. Whereas

Chris Morrano 02:44

Eight nine years ago, it was primarily like how good could you be in navigating these very weird subsets of people to purchase your products? And so that's been the massive change. And and luckily, we honestly have AI nowadays where smaller brands can create great creative with different verbiage and different hooks to drive purchases. Cause I think if we didn't have that, there'd be a lot of small brands.

Chris Morrano 03:10

Just would not be able to compete in the meta ecosystem these days.

Hai Mag 03:14

Very interesting because it kind of kind of evolves into maybe our first story because we talk about connected commerce, not only just Amazon, Shopify, Meta or something, but also AI and Meta or Creatives and Meta. I mean that's all kind of there is some connections. Now you're you're talking about like creatives becoming again the most important and a small brand.

Hai Mag 03:40

can create creatives almost at the same quality as a big brand without spending thousands of dollars, you know, for each creative. but tell us a bit more about that. Like so how how you see

Chris Morrano 03:52

Yeah.

Hai Mag 03:53

that story evolving with AI?

Chris Morrano 03:55

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, everybody has access to the same tools, right? I think there's been a leveling of the playing field, whereas, you know, I'll never forget like Dr. Squatch, when they came

Hai Mag 04:05

Right.

Chris Morrano 04:06

out with their whole cr you know, commercial round and and that creative was probably hundreds of thousands of dollars to get all of that made. Nowadays you need a Higgs field subscription for forty-nine dollars a month. And if you're good enough in understanding who your customers truly are.

Chris Morrano 04:22

You can create some remarkable static ads on Higgs Field, even video. so over the last two years, we have spent just insane amounts of time and resources understanding how we can get the product that is in someone's hand to look identical in an AI image to the point where you wouldn't be able to tell. And I think that bridge there.

Chris Morrano 04:44

I mean, we're we're able to put out five times the amount of creative nowadays than we were even last year before the latest model image models came out. So I think for the average person or average brand owner, you know, they are able to now tinker with whatever's going on in their mind to get something made instead of hiring photographers and and renting out a studio and doing all these shoots.

Chris Morrano 05:07

You can literally spend an evening in Higgs field and get something really remarkable.

Hai Mag 05:11

That is really crazy. Like what can be done with that Higgins, I think we use that one. There is also what something called f a l dot AI. I mean, it's like

Chris Morrano 05:20

Yeah. Yep.

Hai Mag 05:22

we do programmatic approach, like even commanding to that, like to get the return, but Higgins seems to have like better quality. What about the video side of the things? Like, do you get the similar type of experience with video as well?

Chris Morrano 05:37

So I think video is still a little bit maybe the next model comes out. And I know C Dance just came out with a new model. I think video you can still tell is AI, right? And so I think as long as you're leaning into the fact that this is AI and you're not trying to pretend like this UGC person is a real person, and instead you're able to get creative with the video models.

Chris Morrano 06:00

you can still make remarkable ads. I think the key is trying to not persuade the viewer to believe that this is a real person. and if you're able to spin that correctly, I think some of these models are just, I mean, cling, they're they're remarkable. and I I think if people aren't at least trying, you're, you're probably going, you're missing out.

Hai Mag 06:19

Absolutely right. This cling is the other one like we really like to test the few things. by the way, I mean kind of our use case as we are not int too much into that meta b deal, but mostly the tic tac shop. And on the tic tac shop now it's almost like you just create a hundreds of AI videos and it's kind of the same.

Hai Mag 06:44

Person, you know, doing similar things with some of the products, whether it's a beauty product or a CPG product. So it kind of works. And that's why that's the reason why you mentioned like Seedance, which is the the same, like the parent company of TikTok. Well, obviously right now in China, not in US anymore, at least.

Chris Morrano 07:02

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Hai Mag 07:04

But I mean it's kind of like I was like

Hai Mag 07:06

I met with a Chinese brand who was telling me about ten minutes videos that they are generating by some of the available models in China, which are not available to us, with that

Chris Morrano 07:19

Right.

Hai Mag 07:19

ten minutes video. It's like a soap opera, and people watch that all the thing. It's like a series, like it's a real movie if it's a story. And this is like the new trend in China. And I'm like, you know, we are

Hai Mag 07:32

We are not there yet, you know, but maybe in a in a few years video will be the dominant you know, the media instead of the pictures. Everybody just watches some level of video. Look,

Chris Morrano 07:41

Sure. Yeah.

Hai Mag 07:43

I kind of like jump into this, but the idea was to ask you about like what like your story of connected commerce. Happy to listen that, you know, from you.

Chris Morrano 07:53

Yeah, I mean quickly to your point on the ten minute videos, I was I have a couple of team members in Brazil who are telling me that right now in Brazil what's really exploding is they're essentially making short form episodes

Hai Mag 08:07

Okay.

Chris Morrano 08:07

one through nine that tell the story, which hooks the viewer in because they want to watch all of them. But episode ten is a paywall.

Chris Morrano 08:15

And so you're hooking people in through these very elaborate episodes, 60 second, two minute videos, they watch all eight or nine of them. And then the last one is a paywall. Like, so I think what's happening with the AI videos is it's people are understanding it's all about the storytelling. And if you're

Hai Mag 08:32

Right.

Chris Morrano 08:32

able to tell the story of how great the product is or how great the brand story is, whatever that is, people engage with it. And I think that's the unlock that we're all seeing with

Chris Morrano 08:42

images or videos or organic content, it all comes back to like the marketing, the psychology, the story that we're telling, and AI is just really unlocking that for us.

Hai Mag 08:53

Exactly.

Chris Morrano 08:53

to answer your question about, you know, the connected commerce, I think, you know, staying on the lane, I I've been head down deep in the world of AI, the whole company has been over the last two years. And as an agency that is always trying to make sure we're delivering on the results for our clients, like what we've been able to integrate into our client dashboards, whether it's inventory management, forecasting.

Chris Morrano 09:17

Understanding budgets against forecasts with inventory to help our clients be able to understand, hey, we are 60 days out. We need a new, you know, you need to start ordering the next round of product and units based on the scale of these accounts. Those have been the unlocks. It's like, yes, Facebook ads has become very much you know, AI enabled on our side of things. Creative is AI enabled, but

Chris Morrano 09:43

Thinking outside of the box of meta or you know marketing, it's we've been able to unlock insane dashboards and and cogs and in fulfillment costs, all these different financials that previously would have taken an entire team. That those have been the unlocks that we've really had those aha moments with our clients to be like, man, this is so helpful.

Chris Morrano 10:07

That's been a huge game changer for us.

Hai Mag 10:09

That's amazing. Of course, like in the Amazon world, it's a little bit more connected, still

Chris Morrano 10:14

Sure.

Hai Mag 10:15

still disconnected, but more connected

Chris Morrano 10:17

Yeah.

Hai Mag 10:18

in a way that at least, for example, like there are tools. Like we built a software that Eva is also a software company. Like in that sense, we were we are able to understand what is going on with FPA, because like the inventory.

Hai Mag 10:33

is in two places in FBA or in the whatever the inventory is like either in the manufacturing place, maybe they are their own 3PL. But once you're in the Shopify world, it's already like you know kind of like completely disconnected. I'm just thinking now, I'm I don't know, but you know better than me. What if like you are pushing the ads, meta ads, spending thousands of dollars and maybe you're even getting a great draw, but

Hai Mag 11:01

The inventory is low. And if you know that inventory is low and there is no way to replenish, maybe, maybe you're gonna reduce the the the ad spent, right? Or maybe the other way around. You know that the inventory is coming, maybe you're gonna push more. And these were

Chris Morrano 11:15

Exactly.

Hai Mag 11:16

not the decisions available before, but the connected commerce AI, you know, building maybe that type of custom dashboards that probably

Hai Mag 11:25

enabled, you know, an inventory aware advertising.

Chris Morrano 11:28

Exactly. I mean, I think before either you needed to have somebody who was managing f you know, fulfillment tracking all of this, and then you'd have to have the the spreadsheet that said, Okay, here's the ads, here's inventory, and you need somebody who knew forecasting to be able to understand inventory levels based on units sold. Now it's truly connected, in which we're getting Slack alerts saying 75 days out.

Chris Morrano 11:52

We know that our clients usually, you know, from order to fulfillment ship to them 60 days. So we know it's time to alert to let them know, hey, it's time to place an order. Otherwise, we will have to turn this off and slow things down. so that's been a

Hai Mag 12:06

Exactly.

Chris Morrano 12:06

real unlock for us.

Hai Mag 12:08

Now I liked it very much. we tried to use it with the Amazon space for a long time, but now it's available to anyone else in the Shopify space. And then there is all the the the the blend like you know the holistic version like Amazon, Walmart, TikTok, Shopify, same inventory, different advertising

Hai Mag 12:27

platforms, channels, they all kind of use the same ideas. So I mean amazing to hear that as well. So I don't know if you have another story for us, Chris, also for the connected commerce.

Chris Morrano 12:41

Well, I mean, I have countless stories, right? You've been in business almost a decade. The stories always come through. I I I think the the bigger thing that I'm seeing across the the D to C landscape with AI is the connection back to founders and storytelling.

Chris Morrano 12:58

Right. So for anybody listening who's kind of running the wheel of creative, and now you have all these AIs and you're prompting every single night and you're dropping ads into ads manager. I've been seeing across a number of accounts of just the brand the back to the basics of when social media kind of first started and you'd randomly get on your camera and you'd make a video and that is actually coming back around.

Chris Morrano 13:23

We're calling them quote unquote yapper style videos, where it's literally just somebody getting on their phone yapping about why they started the business or why their product was made, how it helped solve their problems. Those are the things that human connection almost seems to be coming back around with this evolution of AI, in which those types of videos are are just absolutely delivering phenomenal results.

Chris Morrano 13:48

And I don't know if it's the landscape of AI's good, AI's bad, that you know, whatever it may be, I'm just seeing a massive resurgence in the owner getting on his iPhone, recording a selfie video, showing the product, kind of more like a TikTok shop style, but being founder-led, and that being a driver of just phenomenal results right now.

Hai Mag 14:12

Giving me an idea that maybe you and I should do that too, right? You know, maybe

Chris Morrano 14:16

Yeah.

Hai Mag 14:17

you're already doing it, but I like that idea of Yaper style videos. What I am thinking, you know, I work in the AI space for the last 20 years. It's just 20 years ago, it was only available at the enterprise level, and now it's available to everybody in the world. but the thing is, AI just discovers what is already available, it's not.

Hai Mag 14:39

Creative, it's not authentic. But I mean, as a human, you don't know everything, but it's already available. Now AI brings it back to you. If you're lucky, it doesn't hallucinate. So you have a proper picture, but sometimes

Chris Morrano 14:50

Yeah. Yep.

Hai Mag 14:53

it hallucinates too. That's why maybe you know I'm just thinking that the authenticity is becoming more and more important because everybody can create that most beautiful, the best fit.

Hai Mag 15:06

person or whatever, but you

Chris Morrano 15:08

Yeah.

Hai Mag 15:08

know, authenticity with its imperfectionism maybe is a better way to do marketing and everybody is now looking for that because everything is becoming more and more perfect.

Chris Morrano 15:21

Exactly.

Chris Morrano 15:21

You know, it's like you can get the the I don't know what the five o'clock shots with the sunset going no matter what time of day on any of the AI miles. But if you show somebody with a messy desk and you're like, hey, that's what my desk looks like as well. I understand why he

Hai Mag 15:35

Ha ha ha.

Chris Morrano 15:37

made this product. Like you get that buy-in a little bit more. I think to your point, like authenticity, where everything these days is almost AI generated. If you get just a normal person on a phone, that seems to be what

Chris Morrano 15:49

What is really driving some great results for us right now.

Hai Mag 15:52

Exactly. One of the things, you know, I think these are all good, great stories, like the inventory management and advertising. Also, the we talked about the creative design, we talked about the authenticity. I mean, where is it going from your perspective? Like, especially meta is a little bit different to me because it's very much about like meta is meta guys. I mean, they are trying to build that.

Hai Mag 16:18

black box which is like this is my product and okay we're gonna give you t two rowas something like that you know like that's kind of an end goal when I look into that it's almost impossible with Amazon at least it is to some extent possible but not fully because it's not an interest or it it's

Chris Morrano 16:38

Sure.

Hai Mag 16:38

not the top of the funnel. But with meta I'm kind of thinking that that's what

Hai Mag 16:43

Meta is trying to achieve, but maybe I am wrong. Like what is the role of the

Chris Morrano 16:47

No, I mean

Hai Mag 16:47

agency in the next couple of years for the meta?

Chris Morrano 16:50

For sure. I I mean, I think you hit the nail on the head in terms of like a what a lot of myself and and my colleagues who own meta agencies is meta really does seem to be pushing to hey, you input your information and we're gonna get you the results in kind of cutting out this middleman. I think no matter what, the complexities of running an ad account at a million dollars a month and spend, I don't think

Chris Morrano 17:13

People are at that trust level with Meta to say, sure, Meta, here's a million dollars, you know, take it and do with it as you will. So I think there's that buffer right now that we have as this these AIs improve. I think the other thing is right now, Meta is throwing so much of these AI enhancements at everybody where they're literally changing an image ad to have different text on it than what we deliver. is

Chris Morrano 17:38

Breaking some of that trust that is going to buy us some time. You know, and in the meantime, being in AI, being in the online space, I mean, I have a school community, my YouTube channel, I have all these other areas where I want to be able to help people understand and navigate this world. five years from now, I don't know what a meta agency will look like. I mean, I think we've seen what two years of real AI enhancements have done.

Chris Morrano 18:03

I don't know. I'm just hedging my bets right now on on a few different ventures.

Hai Mag 18:07

Right. What I'm seeing is

Hai Mag 18:10

I don't think like so far AI replaced the people, but it definitely reduced the number of people required, number one. Number two is

Chris Morrano 18:18

Correct. No question.

Hai Mag 18:20

if you don't know your business really good, like if you are the guy who can use AI, now you are two times better. Now

Chris Morrano 18:28

Correct.

Hai Mag 18:29

you don't need that other guy who doesn't use, you know, like that's

Chris Morrano 18:33

Exactly.

Hai Mag 18:33

That's kind of like what I'm seeing right now. Will it change in the future because AI will become even more powerful? Probably it will be, but I mean, maybe like then AI will change the CEOs, right? So we don't need the CEOs. I mean, just AI

Chris Morrano 18:46

Right. Yeah.

Hai Mag 18:49

will manage the people. That's also possible. Like AI can change anything. I mean, we will see. We will see. But as you said, there is still the creativity, the current AI algorithm is not.

Hai Mag 19:00

creative. It will not create iPhone, even anything else. It's new soap. So, you know, I think that there is a lot to do as the human beings. We are creative and we can do a lot. But I mean yeah.

Chris Morrano 19:13

I think right now, right now

Chris Morrano 19:14

we it it allows people to who know what they're doing, expertise in the field, right, to be a force multiplier. I don't think it's able to just act autonomously right now. I mean, we have meta agents running behind the scenes. Those agents are not making decisions. The

Hai Mag 19:30

Right.

Chris Morrano 19:30

people who know who have been doing this for five, ten years, they are making the decisions based on the analysis being provided to them. And I think that's the gap still that

Chris Morrano 19:41

You still are hiring experts. AI is just assisting and allowing us to do way more than what we were able to do. I just said to my team last week, we were on a call and I said at the end of the day, even if anthropic and open AI all of these were to get unplugged, nothing about anything would change other than it would take more time again to do things. But we built all of this because we're experts in the field.

Chris Morrano 20:05

This is just helping. We could unplug and the agency would not suffer, right? Cause it's only been around for two, three years. We've been around with our processes and SOPs for almost a decade. So I think that's the difference right now is we're just able to do more with less, still built on, you know, expert level foundation.

Hai Mag 20:22

Exactly. I mean, it's a wonderful conversation. So thank you very much for being our guest, Chris on

Chris Morrano 20:29

Course.

Hai Mag 20:29

the Connected Commerce show. And you know, I wish you a great rest of your day and we'll be in

Chris Morrano 20:35

A yeah.

Hai Mag 20:36

touch. So thank you for being our guest.

Chris Morrano 20:38

Beautiful. Thank you very much for having me.

Hai Mag 20:39

Thank you.