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Phillip and Brian are back to talking about deep fakes (and cheap fakes), Instagram may be having a massive influence on purchasing decisions, and is the term direct-to-consumer no longer relevant? Listen now!

Show Notes:

Main Takeaways:

• There's deep fakes, cheap fakes, and shallow fakes, and it's all getting a little ridiculous.

• Should Anna Delvin (aka Anna Sorokin) become the next CMO of Victoria Secret?

• Everyone should probably start sending Brian hate mail.

• The Instagram aesthetic is no longer a thing; brands should get on board.

• Are we going back to advertising on billboards?

Cheap Fakes And Deep Fakes And Shallow Fakes Oh My:

• There's been a lot of talk about deep fakes: the grand phenomenon that brought us all Steve Buscemi's face on Jennifer's Lawrence's body, and it's getting worse.

• Future Commerce has been talking about deep fakes for a while (and shallow fakes), but now cheap fakes are a thing, and it's less than impressive.

• For example, here's a "cheap fake" of the Speak of The House Nancy Pelosi, in which she appears to be drunk, it's low quality, and ridiculous and yet it went viral,

• Having fun yet? Here's what Phillip's calling the worst deep fake/voiceover of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, telling us all how happy he is to own all of our data.

• Brian says everything is a swirl of confusion right now.

• On the commerce side, this kind of AI is getting easier to implement this into media, and really what deep-fakes are a tool for convincing viewers that the content being played is real.

• Is the future of deep fakes having all our brains being scanned into robots?

We Don't Need Deep-Fakes: We're Being Deep Faked All The Time:

• But if the point of deep-fakes is to convince a viewer, then do we need them at all? Especially because as Phillip points out: , we're being convinced all day, every day on social media platforms.

• Phillip blames Instagram (again) for turning him into a sneakerhead.

• Brian says that there is going to be a place for deep fakes in advertising that is going to allow brands to leverage different personalities and people at a much larger scale than they do now.

• We're seeing similar uses being used in body data, where services Allure Systems can use models body data at mass to create diverse catalogs.

Spoiler Commerce, Clever Marketing, and Bigger Better Brands:

• So here's an actual question: Is the fact that brands are using Instagram to promote a false (or misleading, don't sue us) narrative about their business ruining social media?

• Phillip thinks that fake socialite Anna Sorokin should be made Chief Marketing Officer of Victoria Secret when she gets out of prison.

• Considering how terrible Victoria Secret is, she couldn't do a worse job, and we know she understands modern marketing.

• Going back to Instagram, it seems that according to Taylor Lorenz of the Atlantic, that GenZ is over the Instagram aesthetic, the very thing that made Instagramble brands famous.

• The irony is that GenZ is over it, modern advertising seems to be over it, but many brands are doubling down on it.

Digitally Native or Direct-To-Consumer: Is Anything Real Anymore?

• Direct-to-consumer or D2C has long been a term used to describe brands that are sold directly to the customer, usually with an e-commerce slant.

• The question is: Does the title still fit the entire marketplace? According to Hillary Milnes writing for Modern Retail, D2C is a misnomer and should be replaced by the term digitally native, and for a good reason.

• The D2C landscape has changed, and there's plenty of evidence of that, Bonobos is owned by Walmart, Unilever acquired dollar Shave Club, and Casper is being sold in [Target} everyone's favorite more expensive Walmart.

• Hilary's response to all the changes in the D2C landscape is that we start referring to the brands as digitally native instead.

• Phillip makes a prediction: "Over the next two years, we're going to see content marketing platforms evolve to more psychographic-based customer segmentation to do direct selling.

We love hearing from our listeners. So, do you think we're at the pinnacle of a new way of advertising? Is the Instagram aesthetic over, and should brands get on board with that?

Let us know in the content section on Futurecommerce.fm, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin.
Any questions, comments or inquiries, can be emailed to , and if you want to send Brian hatemail, you can do so at .