A Smarter AI-Fridge, Skydance Drowns In Debt, Conversational Commerce Disrupts Choice: 3 Media What-Ifs | Behind the Numbers

Marcus Johnson (0:00)

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Hey, gang, it's Friday, October 16th. Suzy, Marisa, Sarah and listeners, welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER Podcast, made possible by Atmosphere TV. I'm Marcus. Join me for today's conversation. We have living in New York VP of content, head of the retail desk, reimagining retail host, Suzy Davidkhanian.

Suzy Davidkhanian (0:40)

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (0:42)

Of course. Now calling Boston home, newsletter analyst Marisa Jones joins the show.

Marisa Jones (0:47)

Hi.

Marcus Johnson (0:47)

Happy to be here. Also based out of New York VP and principal analyst, covering all things commerce media, Sarah Marzano.

Sarah Marzano (0:54)

Hi, Marcus. Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (0:56)

Yes, indeed. Thank you for being here. Today's fact.

Where is the world's largest independent bookshop? You each get one very quick guess, and I'll give you a hint because the world is a big place. It's in America.

Suzy Davidkhanian (1:14)

Oh.

Sarah Marzano (1:15)

Seattle. No.

Suzy Davidkhanian (1:17)

New York.

Marcus Johnson (1:18)

Portland. City.

Sarah Marzano (1:18)

Oregon.

Marisa Jones (1:22)

Los Angeles. I don't know. I was going to say New York, but someone else already did.

Suzy Davidkhanian (1:26)

Boston could be one.

Sarah Marzano (1:27)

I think it's Powell's. Is it Powell's?

Marcus Johnson (1:29)

It is. Yeah.

Sarah Marzano (1:29)

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (1:30)

Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon takes up an entire city block, school store in Portland's Pearl District. It boasts very nice four floors, nine color coded rooms and houses a massive collection of, it's disputable, but at the very least, over half a million books goes up to close to a million, some sources say.

Suzy Davidkhanian (1:53)

Is that half a million individual titles, like unique titles?

Marcus Johnson (1:59)

It just says book, so I don't imagine so. No, that would be no.

Suzy Davidkhanian (2:04)

Maybe that's the controversy, inventory versus?

Sarah Marzano (2:08)

Breath versus depth.

Marcus Johnson (2:09)

Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

I'm not going to get into it. What do I get? You get nothing. You get to hear the story of, it's a fascinating story about how it started. So usually it's the parent inspiring the kid.

This is the reverse, a unique story of the kid inspiring the parent. In 1970, Michael Powell opened a successful used bookstore as a graduate student in Chicago. His father, Walter, spent a summer working in his son's Chicago shop, loved it. And so retired as a painting contractor, returned to Portland, Oregon, and opened his own used bookstore in 1971 Eight years later in 79, Michael, the son, moved to Portland to join his father, bringing the innovative idea of shelving new and used books side by side. They buy back a ton. I think it's like thousands a day of old books and put them alongside the new ones. The store remains a family operation currently led by Walter's granddaughter, Emily Powell, who took over management in 2010

Sarah Marzano (3:08)

I love that.

Marcus Johnson (3:09)

Beautiful. It's a real topic.

We make some more what if predictions. Okay, here's how this episode works. Suzy goes first. She gets 45 seconds to pitch. She goes first just because it turned out that way. Not because it's like you knew what I was thinking. She was the best or whatever. That's not true. Suzy goes first completely by chance. She gets 45 seconds to pitch a what if prediction she thinks is unlikely, but could happen in the next 12 months or so. We discuss, Marisa goes next, then Sarah.

Suzy Davidkhanian (3:43)

Suzy, go. What if your fridge knew you had dinner reservations one day of the week, saw that your lettuce was about to wilt, and so decided to ping you to tell you to eat at home? What I think is going to happen is that there will be a major fridge brand, probably Samsung with Google, who is going to do what they already have, Smart Fridges, and it was talked about at CES, and it's called the Family Hub Fridge. So all the technology is there, it's already out in the market, it's not a pilot. So it was at the beginning of the year, in May, I think they fully launched it.

And my prediction is that it's going to connect to Gmail, most likely Gmail Outlook calendars, whatever, some sort of way that it becomes your personal assistant driven by food. And this would not be new because Google used to have a personal assistant, but it was a bit creepy, I think. So they took it down like 10 years ago, but now I think the tech is ready. Consumers are going to accept this quote unquote intrusion if it works in their favour. And in this case, I think it'll help them save money, waste less food, be more interconnected.