Pedro Porto Alegre: All right, I'm joined by Umar Guman. How's it going, man? Good, good. Finally great to have you on the pod, man. It's been ⁓ you've been somebody I've always wanted to have on. I think you're a man of ideas. So ⁓ thanks for coming on.

Umar Ghumman: You. Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited. You know, it's always good to bounce ideas just like we were talking about, like and explore stuff. Like we don't have an agenda here, so we'll talk about stuff.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. So I always say the spot is like can be a little bit nerdy, but ⁓ I think the audience appreciates that. So we'll get into the weeds of everything. But before we jump in, ⁓ give us a little bit of your ⁓ you know, background. Like how did you get to where you got today and ⁓ what are some of the things occupying your mind these days?

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. So I wanted to be an architect very early on. Like I was into art and I'm like, I wanna be an architect. And I didn't end up being an architect. I ended up doing a degree in economics, then I did my MBA and then I ended up working in Montreal at a fashion company, which was again Totally, totally not what I was expecting. But I really wanted to work in marketing and advertising. And so from Montreal, I moved to Toronto. And that's where majority of my career has been. I started up at a digital agency, then I went to a startup. And then I did the holding company. So I did I was at Publices and then I was at WPP for the last ⁓ decade. ⁓ And I was the chief experienced strategy officer at VML, what it became after all the mergers. And now

Pedro Porto Alegre: How many letters are in that name nowadays? I I can't even keep track anymore.

Umar Ghumman: And now I I work for myself. And I think in all of this, I think what's being consistent is people don't change. We have to sell more stuff and then we find ways to sell stuff. So, you know, we went through the when I joined the industry, we were the it's the social media shift. Like, ⁓ that's the thing that's shifting everything. Then we saw the mobile shift come and now we're in the big AI paradigm shift. So again. And I think my own practice, new brains, is kind of built on that. New is like the new stuff that's hitting us. And brains is this idea like people don't change. Like brains really don't change. We still have the same motivation, same stuff. So how can you drive business at the intersection of the new and the brains?

Pedro Porto Alegre: I love that. I think there was ⁓ there's a quote from Bill Barnbach that touches on that, right? Is humans like so you should be concerned the the communications person should be concerned with the unchanging man. ⁓ right? 'Cause we are we were the same a million years ago. We're probably gonna be the same a million years from now, right?

Umar Ghumman: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think Jeff Bezos said this similar to quote ⁓ around like, you know, people are obsessed with what's changing, I'm obsessed with what's not changing. And he's like, you know, two two decades from now, people are still gonna be asking, can I get it faster? Can I get it cheaper? You know, so he's like, I'm just building around that. So yes, I think that's the thing we should keep our eye on.

Pedro Porto Alegre: So you're somebody who then you were wrestling with ideas during the digital transition part of our existence over the past 20 years. what's similar like between what you were seeing back then to what you're seeing now? I mean, I I think I do see some similarities from what I read. I mean, when that was happening, I was a teenager, so I I wasn't working on it. But you know, I think you have an interesting POV on

Umar Ghumman: Mm-hmm. I think again, I'm not that old. I started in the social media era when you know Facebook was five and Twitter was five and it's it's that time. And I think ⁓ it's it's kinda like right now, it's like big promises, like mm, everything's gonna buy through social. And you know, I don't know if you remember, well, you're a teenager, but Facebook was pushing every brand to make just Facebook pages and abandon your website and Socializate and people want to have conversations and we're gonna have this open conversation. And did it pan out the way it did? No, I think social left us with huge problems that we talk about, like you know, especially look at the younger generation with mental health and all these other issues. So, what's similar is the hype, like Omicro change the world. ⁓ but at the same time, there's some reality to it as well. Like as a brand, as an organization, as a As a person building your skill set, you still need to align with it and you still need to go there. That's why Google is throwing money at it. That's why all of these are throwing money at it. So I think the similarity is the hype is there. and it is gonna become part of naturally integrated. Like it took social, like what, 15 years, 20 years to fully organizations to embrace, okay, we get it. We need to be on social media, we need to do that. And I think it's gonna. Do the same with AI. I think a lot of people are scaring us. Like we need to get on the bandwagon really, really quickly. And there is some truth to that. Like people who move fast, and you know, we work in marketing, like the first mover advantages and how you so we need to do that. So I think that's where the for me it is. It's it's a new channel, it's a new paradigm shift. And people are using it. So if we're selling stuff, we need to understand it to sell them more stuff.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, yeah. I've ⁓ heard somebody say that AI is more akin to the invention of like electricity than to social media because it's it's so pervasive, right? It's like it touches everything, whereas social media only touches communications, right? Like how how do you like do you see that too? Like, you know, electricity, I mean both of us weren't alive when electricity was invented. ⁓ But ⁓ but like how pervasive ⁓ you know, do you think AI is today versus where it could be?

Umar Ghumman: I think you're right. I think it is bigger than social. But social had its bigger moments as well. If you look at like it helped a lot of people in the world connect, you could see a lot of even political movements take advantage of social. That's a separate story that they got crushed and other organizations to control. But I think it it is bigger ⁓ than than social media. I think it's just appending business models. It's There's no checks and balances right now. Like all of this data that they have gobbled up with and and and made their own LMs without it, like no one sh checked them. So it is kind of a wild west. So it is like the gold rush or the invention of of of that. And I think we we need to survive and we need to thrive within it as well. And it is the whole thing about the game, the first mover advantage, what are you doing? This idea of a growth mindset, I think, you know, like It's coming, you know, and the change is here. So how do you how do you start adapt what's that quote like? The only thing constant is change and so that kind of vibe like. So just just adapt to it. So again

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, man. It's ⁓ I honestly when I when I look at AI and by the way, this this conversation is gonna expand beyond AI, but I think it just the way it started, it naturally led us there. But I honestly see AI as this thing that there was a few years ago where this documentary came out ⁓ on Netflix called ⁓ The Social Dilemma, I think it was called. And it was it was based on a book

Umar Ghumman: Mm-hmm. So the law, yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Called Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana, I forget her last name. But at the time, we were so concerned about privacy. ⁓ And that was really the biggest kind of call to action of the documentary. Is like, hey, social media, like privacy, we're just coming off of the heels of like some major privacy scandals and things like that. ⁓ But it seems now today people seem very comfortable with letting AI. enter into their entire lives, every nook and cranny of their lives and be like, hey, read my emails, read my calendar, check out my, you know, financials, ⁓ this, that and the other, and give me advice. It's like, what do you think change? Because humans, we're the same. We've been talking about this, but what do you think changed? I think it's a cultural thing, is it not?

Umar Ghumman: Change us in why are we talking so much to them and giving them all our information?

Pedro Porto Alegre: Why are we no longer concerned about privacy?

Umar Ghumman: ⁓ I think I think humans again, we were talking about it. I think they're not thinking as much. The regular day folk is not thinking like, hey, I'm telling my baby is sick. They're talking to it like, hey, what should I give it? It's four months old, blah blah blah. Because you know, that's the use case they have found it. I don't think they're thinking about privacy. I think sometimes, and I talk about it to the people that I work with, like. Sometimes we can live in a big bubble, like why aren't people thinking about it? But the average Jew on the street is not thinking about privacy. And if you look at, again, having spent two decades designing experiences, how many times do you read terms and conditions? You could be signing your soul to someone and you're not reading it. So I think human default to convenience. And that's why I keep talking about people are lazy, people are convenient. So I don't think it's a big shift. It's just it's the natural tendency of people to go, I have a thing. What's the best case use for this that I can make it? And I think that's what they're doing. They're solving a problem. They're not really thinking about privacy. I think we're gonna get to a level where privacy becomes enough of a debate when they go, ⁓ let's talk about it. It's the same with social. Like when first social came, like, and if you look at members of parliament here and across the border, like these people. are not in ⁓ moving at the same pace as the Silicon Valley is moving. So this, you know, the the tech companies are moving so fast and they're like, let's just keep going. By the time privacy catches up, a lot of problems have happened. And it's only now, even if you look at the social media stuff, they're like, ⁓ you know, bad Facebook, you shouldn't have done that. And we're gonna put you in trouble. And let's make the age for social media joining 16 years old. Like it took a while. So transject question, we're just convenient. So I think it's nothing There's no strange behavior, it's just yeah, I I people like convenience.

Pedro Porto Alegre: I think that is the the most fundamental human truth there is. Humans love convenience. We'll do we'll sign away our life for convenience. I think that is a that is a fact. So okay, so you did a lot of work in CX or customer experience. ⁓ but you also spend a lot of time in the digital world. So websites are a big part of your of your life. ⁓ t talk to me a little bit about how you see websites.

Umar Ghumman: No, no.

Pedro Porto Alegre: in the broader kind of ecosystem of brands, right? Like before before 2000 websites were nothing. And now they are the thing and it's super important, we all know. But tell me a little bit about how you see that in the world.

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. I think well websites have matured. I think the first website was launched in nineteen ninety one. So websites is not even that old of a of a channel itself. But I think we've come like you went through the Flash era, the brochure era, the D2C era, and I think the category itself, if you look at the website space, is is mature now. And I think we're moving to a place, especially with AI now, like the websites need to do a lot more. So the way I think about it is a website is like you know any other touch point within that that consumers are visiting or marketers have access to. The way I think about them is like it's a complete buying system. It's almost similar to what I talk about architecture. Like Pages are different rooms. Someone walks in. You're like, hey, what are you here for? What do you like? Do you want to see the best sellers? Or what do you want to shop for? You're like, come on in, come in the best seller section. And so it's like a modern retail experience, meets a salesman. And again, when I say what the buying systems, like you have to cover the full customer journey, like all the objections that someone wants to compare. So all that stuff, and then it's not just the checkout. Like, so then you're like, okay, walk them to the checkout and then say, Would you want to come back? There are some specials for you. So that's how I have always thought about websites. And now that we're entering the age of AI, like, like that's why if you ask ChatGBT, like, whoa, what should the website do now? And it's like You know, you your positioning and what you stand for is extremely important. And I've been talking about brand-rooted websites or websites rooted in the positioning is so important because the generic websites, they're done. Like the old SEO playbook, done. So again, the buying system that's very, very brand rooted. That's how I think about websites.

Pedro Porto Alegre: So, okay, I wanna get your reaction to this. So I've always seen websites as as like a brand's store. Almost like, let's say you're walking down, you know, Queen Street in Toronto and you see Warby Parker and it's there. Like to me, I've always felt that he was an element of physical availability, the same way that search is like physical availability, search it's like Queen Street, and then you know, you click on

Umar Ghumman: Yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Warby Parker and you're there. But but how do you see like do you see website playing a role in that? Like let's say in the ⁓ sharpism kind of world of mental and physical availability, does it fall into the physical availability bucket for you?

Umar Ghumman: Absolutely. Because it is like Byron Sharp talks about like, are you available at the time of like I need to buy something? I think back in the day you were limited. If Warby Parker existed 30 years ago, there's no way they could sell to someone in in the UK, no? Because they're a US brand, unless they open a physical store. But now you don't need physical stores everywhere. That's why with D2C the physical availability just increases. So much, right? So it is exactly that. But to your point, like Warbie Parker store looks like a Warbie Parker store. You know, it doesn't look like a generic eye-brained ⁓ optical store. And and I would argue in that it's also a bit of mental availability. Like it helps with mental availability. And why I say that is like, let's take your example of Warby Parker. Hey, come on in. Are you here for prescription or are you here for sunglasses? So suddenly you're like, ⁓ you're my category entry point, mental availabilities, prescription, and sunglasses. So if you're making a website, and ⁓ a simple trick that I tell people is that if you look at the navigation of any website, it can tell you if they have thought about all the category entry points, if they have thought about all the mental availability. So yes to your answer about physical availability, but how are you enabling or helping mental availability? That's more of an advertising and comms job, but it supports it in on on the website.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. You know, that makes a ton of sense. I think even when let's say you're on a like Nike's website and you find, you know, a pair of shoes that you want to buy, what I often see at the bottom of this of the page is, ⁓ this shoe will go well with this shirt and these pants and you know, this sunglasses, and it kind of shows the look and you know, go out in you know, ⁓ like for a day in the park, you know, and it's kinda like, Whoa, like now all of a sudden

Umar Ghumman: Mm-hmm.

Pedro Porto Alegre: You know, it expanded beyond what I originally came there from.

Umar Ghumman: Yep. And I especially now we were talking about FIFA earlier. Like right now, go to Nike, go to Adidas. That's the mental availability piece. Like, hey, you're thinking about FIFA, so are we. Here's some special collections or and I think I think again, these concepts extending to websites is still very new. Like people who are making websites and the classic UX discipline, I think. Byron Sharp hasn't reached them, or marketers haven't fully reached that that that spaces. So that's why I'm like, AI is kind of forcing them to go. You we can't have a generic website. Where's the brand? Because that's where the search engine is. The AI is going, what's different about this and this? So if I go, I don't know, hey AI, find me a running shoe under $200, bring it to me. It has to sift through the website, brand website, and find like, hey, this is. It's Hoka and Nike and Adidas, and that's why they're so even the website needs to know why you are unique and the whole idea of like, are you tied to your brand or are you a generic shoe?

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Yeah. You know, actually back to the Warby Park example. I think they obviously they started as a D to C company, but I think their first store, they were like, Where where is it that we should open a store that is most tightly aligned with our positioning? Right. And they're from Philadelphia and they're like, Well, honestly, it's not here. It's actually New York City in Soho specifically. ⁓ I think that was the neighborhood. 'Cause it was, you know, kind of like younger, more like, you know, forward fashion kind of neighborhood. And and then from there, you know, they kinda started opening in those areas that were aligned with their positioning. And they kind of pulled in elements of the the neighborhood, like the one in Toronto has a unique look, then the one in I don't know, like Cleveland and but they all have that underlying piece, which is this is who we are, or Borie Parker.

Umar Ghumman: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Right. And so I think in websites, how do how do you see positioning ⁓ showing up in websites? Like how do you see that when you're looking at one?

Umar Ghumman: I think that's a good question. I think so again, the similarities to architecture, like the building still needs a door, you still need handles, like you can't play around with a lot of the the stuff because you know I can't put navigation on the floor of a of a page. It still has to be there. So now, like, how do you express it? And right now a lot of brands Are just at the color stage. Like, okay, we're IKEA, we're blue. We're IBM, we're blue, we're cook, we're red. And so, example I will give you when I worked on Mazda and we were thinking about the the website. So the Mazda brand, it was all about the guest experience. They called it Omatanashi. Like that's the thing. And so we're like, okay, how do we take that? And how do we combine the joy of driving a Mazda, like the Mazda experience. So we brought them together and so that became what we call when we make up sites is the experience vision. Like the j it should feel like the joy of driving a Mazda. And so how it then started to manifest like what does the what does the content sound like? What does it does it short content? Is it long content? What does the copy sound like? So is it more visual? Is it not? So You know, we're trying our best to take that and that thread of the positioning and pull it through the website across content, across features. Not a lot of brands do it, but it's like, you know, if you take a different example, IKEA versus Wayfair, why do they look why do they look the same? Why can't, you know, what what is that IKEA has that little Allen key? I'm like, where's the Allen key on the website? Why do you want me to you get me to build the furniture myself when I bring it? Where is that aspect on the website? I think a good example is Lego. If you go on Lego's website, you can see that the Lego play is manifested on their brand. Like even the features, like start here, the play world. So they've not just gone like let's make it yellow and red and put the bricks. They've gone like, how do we manifest play? On our website again, Lago is a great brand, so they've extended it to the website. So that's how I see pulling the thing. But again, why is it not happening as much? Because sometimes marketers do not understand the website and the experience world as much. Like they're like, I don't really understand it. I'm gonna default to the product team or the UX team, and that team doesn't really understand. the brand piece. So I've personally taken on this mantle to bring the two worlds together, hence the whole idea of brand rooted CX or websites.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I mean I'll never forget the first time I visited an MBA store. ⁓ was the one on Fifth Avenue in New York and I was a kid and I entered that place. I felt like I was entering into the brand's world. Like there were real life size cutouts of Yao Ming and Shaquille O'Neal and, you know, Alan Iverson and you just I just felt so consumed by it and you know, there was basketball hoops. Now how can Like obviously the physical world is far more interactive than the digital world. How have you seen brands bringing that sort of immersion into the brand's positioning through their websites? Like is that even possible? How do you see that?

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. I think when people are coming to the website, again, they're coming with a need. I think the role of the store is much different. Like it's very immersive, like you're there. Can websites do that? Yes. But you also have to understand you're trying to provide utility and get them to do an action, but in a branded way. So you have to kind of like really balance it. And Sometimes we've tried like, let's try this cool idea, and users have rejected it. It was like, I just want to get to that point. I'll give you a small example. I was working with a utility company and we were doing the outage section where we know you report an outage like, I don't have electricity or I don't have power. And the team was like, you know, it's so simple. We should add a little, and we were really deep into testing. We're like, we should add a little visual at the top. It was as simple as like, you know, some visual because it was very text-based. And so great, we made option A with the visual because the creative team, design team thought like we need a visual. And the existing option was just text space. People didn't want the visual. Again, so it's like, ⁓ it was the whole the immersive and nice. And no, people are like, I just want to get the job done. So but that doesn't mean you cannot bring that aspect. To the website. Like again, I'll give you an example of play, like or Nike. When Nike was like, make your own little sneaker thing, that's interactive, that's putting your spin-out. So there are opportunities, but it goes back to the insight about like, ⁓ personalization. Yes, they want to personalize this. So let us give us them tool so they can make something. Like Coca-Cola did that in real life when they added those little names. And I don't know, I don't remember if they did that, but it would be nice on the websites, like make your custom can and So Pedro can, that's an Uber can. So there is opportunity that you can do that, but it has to be balanced with like people are here to buy stuff. How do we make it very easy for them to buy? Or if it's a B2B, like how do we make it easy for them to contact the company?

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. It's a very different mental state when you enter a website versus when you enter a physical store. ⁓ so it's your

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. But also in physical store, you could like you said the NBA store. But if I go at a loblaws or shoppers drug mart, I am not here to be immersed. I want to get the stuff and get out. You know what I'm saying? So when people are like, ⁓ the shopper experience needs to be this immersive, I'm like, I don't I don't think shoppers have time to immerse unless it's an NBA. That's a completely different headspace than target audience.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Not always. Huh?

Umar Ghumman: and brand so again you need to look at the brand if they're expecting immersiveness or they're just trying to shop.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, yeah. You so one of the fundamental kind of concepts of ⁓ like well-built websites you're talking about is them being aligned to your positioning. so positioning seems to be that very slippery concept in our world that people struggle to define. You ask five markers, they're gonna get 10 different definitions. How do you define positioning? I it doesn't have to be a sentence, but how do you see position?

Umar Ghumman: I think I I don't have one answer. So I have my I'll give you examples, expense. I think at the end of the day, positioning to me is the summary of you know what Michael Porter talked about, I don't know, four or three decades ago about like what are the choices that you are making to succeed in the market? So if you're like the positioning is a sum of like who's your target audience, what value do you provide to them? And it it manifests itself in a positioning statement so and you can write in many different ways as long as you're like this is who we are and this is who we this is who we sell to so for example I'll use our agency world as an example we're like we're a CRM agency don't you go that's your positioning you are a CRM is it the best positioning we're not debating that but we're still so when the client goes who's the who's the target audience it's the marketer so we are an agency for marketers looking for CRM solutions that drive growth CRM agency. So to me, that's simple. So if a CRM agency is now making a website, what do they need to tell them? Well, they need to tell them like they have some sort of expertise in CRM, like they have people who know CRM, they ⁓ they have case studies they do with CRM. So there's the proof behind the the CRM positioning, and then here's the work that we've done. So this is again how Roger Martin talks about the capabilities aspect of it. Like, ooh, can you back up the thing that you're talking about? It so I think it becomes so slippery because I think people make this thing, ⁓ my God, what is this positioning thing? I mean, you know, you've you've worked at the big cola brand. So I've worked on Coke and when I was working on it, you know, they had this like, you know, worked on the days when they were open happiness. So that's the thing. Coca-Cola is about open happiness. So how do you make things that tie to open happiness? Is that the positioning? That's not the positioning. That's the articulation of the position. But we're not getting into that debate of like the articulation of it. But you need to let it. So if you explain to people like, here's who we are, here's what we sell, and here's what we stand for. I think the problem becomes when people don't just don't get it. It's like I'm working with a I work with a tech company and Like, we have this amazing technology. I'm like, great, what's the benefit to the customer? I think they couldn't explain. Like, well, we made this thing that does this, but I'm like, what's in it for the customer? And they so again, marketing they say is like if marketing were easy, everyone could do it. It's not. I don't know that how's and again, I worked in fashion for a bit, and fashion was different. So an example would be the very one-wordy position. So if I look at something like ⁓

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Yeah. I ⁓

Umar Ghumman: I don't know, let's take ⁓ Dior. I'm like, what's Dior's positioning? It's not like our CLM agency could be like, well, Dior is known for Parisian femininity. That's who they are. That's it. So like they can't go and say, well, I'm like Jacques Mus of France. No, I am Parisian femininity. And so everything they make has to be rooted into Parisian femininity. So that has to be explained to the organization. And then it's easy to make a website or an ad campaign.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. You know, I've always found the the the the issue with positioning is that people will try to write, you know, a a paragraph. You know, it's like, you know, one of my favorite activities to do is whenever somebody, you know, brings me a position to review and it's a slide deck, ⁓ and then they get to the positioning slide, I say, turn off Turn off your screen. Like I don't want you to read off the screen. Can you tell me what the positioning is? You know, if you have to read like I think ⁓ and this often leads to overbloated brand books and you know, and it's like, damn, like, you know, the thing the consumer can think of all that, you know, like it's it's Parisian femininity. That's it. Like that's the extent of the space you can occupy. Like, that's it.

Umar Ghumman: And and again, if if I'm now a ⁓ someone who's buying something, I'm like, ⁓ this brand is all about Parisian femininity. But I'm like, you what I'm feeling? I'm feeling ⁓ Versace. Versace is Milan, it's Italian, it's loud, I wanna buy that. And I think my simple test is if someone has to call and say, Call Pedro, what are they saying? Like You know, he he's a guy who does blah. Like what is that test? So go to Dior because they make amazing Parisian feminine dresses. I think that's a quick test. I think that helps because then it's you don't need a paragraph.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, yeah. It's it's always to me as well, is like ⁓ p picking colognes. Like I think it's that's one where positioning can is so important, right? Because how do you convey smell ⁓ you know for a brand? Like people we can't smell your screen, right? So it's like I remember I I used to buy a lot of colognes growing up and people used to gift me colognes and stuff like that. ⁓ I wonder why they were giving me so many colognes, but ⁓ but you know, doching cabana. Right. To me. It's like fresh Mediterranean. That's it. That is it. And that was like that's what I want. Like, and I've been buying Dochu Gabana for years now because I I like that idea. Right. And it smells like that idea

Umar Ghumman: And now if you yeah if you my client you're like Umar, it's fresh Mediterranean, go make me a website that sells for I'm like, gotcha. Like I don't have to now think I'm like I know if what I can present you different ideas, I'm like it could be this, it could be this, it could be this, but it is the manifestation of that positioning on the website.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. ⁓ you know, and I I also have seen different manifestations of positioning out there around brand tenets or a brand mission or a brand purpose or you name it, right? ⁓ but I always go back to this example of Apple and I think Mark Ritson actually did a a video about this, which was like really illuminating to me, is that positioning doesn't have to be a statement, it can be just like, Hey, here are the three pillars. Apple is human, creative, and simple.

Umar Ghumman: Mm-hmm.

Pedro Porto Alegre: If it doesn't pass that bar, we don't do it. Like that is the bar. That is positioning, right? So when you're thinking then about positioning, and you've talked about websites being growth engines and websites converting, how do you see positioning playing a role in converting people on a website? Or is that still not the purpose of positioning in a website?

Umar Ghumman: No, I think like I said earlier, like the brand has to live the positioning and the website is the place where you live it. Let's take your Warby Parker example again. Like, you know, they were the first ones to go to add the try-on feature. Because no one would have thought you could try on the thing on the website and it was so Warby Parker because they were like, Why does it cost five hundred dollars for a frame? It should cost two hundred dollars. We're millennials, D2C, and this prop and so they So now they not only solved a big conversion problem, people like, how does it gonna look on me? You don't know. But they're like, Well, we'll make the technology, we'll do it, but it's also rooted in their brand. How do we make good frames accessible and modern to the people? So to answer your question, like it solved for both things in that little feature on the website, right? And and a a lot and now it's pretty standard. Like you go on any website that sells glasses, like try-on is a is a feature. Why aren't people doing it? I think it goes back to lack of clarity of like what the positioning is. ⁓ it's also an organization problem. I was one of my favorite websites is Yeti, the cooler maker. I was on their website just before this call and it's beautiful. They live the Yeti outdoorsy lifestyle. They're like We've coolers. We know outdoors. No one else knows outdoors. All their partnerships and everything and how the website is set up and all the content is rooted in Yeti coolers who owns fishing and everything to do with with the outdoor brand.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. I I love Yeti too. They've ⁓ they've been a recurring guest at the gathering. and they always come out and they talk like the way that they s they built that brand was fascinating. They really started with a niche and then they started expanding, you know, like I think it was fishermen at the beginning. ⁓ and now they have a a store here in Calgary. Like it's unreal. Their their Yeti store is beautiful, like a physical store, ⁓ which I never thought that they would do. But okay, so About websites, one more thing about websites. How do you measure success for a website?

Umar Ghumman: I think you have to Yeah, yeah, that's over. I think you have to first of all define it because the success for a B2B website, like an agency or Google Cloud, ⁓ would look very different from ⁓ an automotive website versus a D to C. So I think if if you're talking about it like if it's a C P G product, like most people still buy it in store.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Very open end.

Umar Ghumman: So the KPIs or the success could look very different. It could be like we want to collect first party data. So can we do stuff to collect and build more first party data? We want to drive more newsletter signups. ⁓ I'm working on a lot of D2C brand ⁓ projects right now. So at the end of the day, they're like, you know, there's a few key metrics like what is our overall revenue, what is the what is the overall convergence and how we maximizing ⁓ lifetime value? So the LTV and then cost per acquisition, CAC. So we have like these four things for a D2C. So again, success could look very different, but it goes back to like did you define your business objectives? Because the website ladders up to those things. Like I'm not making something new. So if you've defined those well those can be then translated onto the website depending on what category you are.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. So it then I think that is a huge, that's a big important point that you just made. Is that the website does the website doesn't do everything. Right? It doesn't carry the whole load. Like it needs to be very tightly pointed towards a set of objectives that ladder up to the business b objectives. Right. And so you have to start at that level, right?

Umar Ghumman: Yes. Yeah. But but for some businesses, for say Warby Parker, if you're D2C, that is the business. There's no physical store. That is the thing. So you can do all the advertising in the world and you drop someone on the website. You're like, okay, buy the thing yourself. And now you're like, should I get red or blue? I have a round face, an oval face. What should I get? So now the whole my earlier analogy of the full sales experience, the full buying journey, and you're like, welcome in, these are the best sellers. Do you want to test out what frames look good look on you? Or we have people that look like you who have bought these frames. So it's not just the conversion piece, it's the comparison, the learning, the social proof, what other people are wearing like you. Did GQ pick it up? So again, going by like the human mind, and we know now through behavioral economics, they're not making a rational decision. They're going like, ⁓ featured in GQ, that cool person is wearing it. Pray. And they have, I don't know. They have Clara now, so I can pay in four payments. So, yes, you dropped in them in, and the website has to do a bunch of stuff to convert it. If you look at the conversion rates on e-commerce, they're between one and four percent. So, out of 100 people, one person buys. I'm just saying that as an example. The 99, you still have to make an impression. We talk about the future demand piece, they might come back, and we've seen people come back. They've saved a product or emailed it to themselves or signed up for a newsletter. So we also are looking at like. like the macro conversions, but also the micro conversion. Did someone sign up for our our newsletter as well? So yes, the website has to do a lot of things because if it's clear where you're coming from, we can build targeted funnel that I would call it. But if we're like you're just Google something and you dropped on the home page, now I have to make sure that I provide you enough paths to do what you want to do.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. So you you touched on the customer journey. How do like do you make any sort of distinction between the customer journey and the customer experience map or whatever however you want to call it? Or do you see those like really tightly intertwined?

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. I think we Google nitpick, but to me, the customer journey is like how does the person buy? So, how does a regular person buy or think about buying a pair of glasses? And some people call it customer experience Mac, we call it customer journey. Let's keep it simple. It's it's the customer journey. And then what we also tend to look at is like, what is the experience that you're creating in response to that journey? Because If Warbie Parker is competing with any other brand, they both should be having a very similar customer journey. Because, like, we understood the the sunglasses buyer. This is how they shop. Both of them have access to the same thing. Now, what does the Warby Parker response to that experience look like? Then they create what we call like the the the brand rooted CX or the brand rooted ex experience as a result of that journey. So again it's interchangeable for me. Call it customer journey, call it customer experience. ⁓ yeah, that's how that's how I that's how I think about it.

Pedro Porto Alegre: I see it. Yep. You've ⁓ you recently read ⁓ wrote a really interesting article for work around this this topic of CX and AI. You know, I think both of our lane both lanes of this conversation are now converging. And ⁓ how do you see the role then of AI in creating this in playing into this customer journey and experience? Tell us a little bit about that.

Umar Ghumman: Well. Yeah. I think from a marketer's perspective, it's like going back like we are trying to sell something. So we have to create the ultimate buying experience for our customer. So if you're trying that you're coming from that place, like I said, like you can map out the first the journey. So you're like the research, the old school words. We do customer research, we understand the customer, we're like, here's how they shop. And there can be many segments in there. You know, we're going after the moms or we're going after families or whatever. So you understand that. Then the positioning exercise. What what's unique about us? Like what what are we selling? What are our business goals and all that stuff? So you you you do that. And in both of these, AI plays roles. You can do quick research now. Like the synthetic data and person like that can be done really quickly. The positioning exercise, and that's what the article was pointing out, but like the role of human versus AI at the different stages of crafting this this full thing. So now you're like, okay, that's the positioning. How do I Make a go-to market plan. I'm just shortening it. And you're like, okay, I need advertising, I need website, I need shopper, I need all these campaigns. Then there's like, where is the human input? Like, do I need humans to make the little banner ads and images from my product description PDP page? No. Yeah, I can do that. So it's again mapping out the full, I guess, marketers' journey, how they think about targeting or making a go-to-market plan for the customer. And then saying where can human play a really good role and where AI can bring speed and efficiency. And so ⁓ within that, you obviously need creativity and with all this slop, you need a good positioning and a good brand.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, no, I highly recommend everybody to to go read it. It's called A New Operating System for Brand Building in the Age of AI. ⁓ that Umar wrote. I it's it's fantastic. ⁓ highly recommend. Check it out. I think one of my biggest things there was like this element of consistency. You know, ⁓ we were talking about this before we went live. It's like humans are so inconsistent by nature, right? ⁓ as a matter of fact, even let's use like a very simple example, like sports, right? Like The best athletes are the ones who are consistent, right? Not the ones that have the huge ups and downs, you know, let's say basketball, they drop fifty points next day they they have a dud game with like eight points. No, it's like consistency. And so what role then you see AI playing in in in pulling through that consistency throughout this entire process?

Umar Ghumman: Mm. Yeah. I th so the way I look at it, yes we need consistency, like but we also need so the way I look at the humans is humans like consistency. So they like that Coca-Cola is red and the bottle looks like that. Like they've seen it for 200 years, they're like that's what it is. But if you keep showing them the same ad, the same thing with the bottle, they're gonna get bored. So you need a level of inconsistency. Right. So the brand needs to be like they need to be consistent in their branding, which is like, ⁓ we're coke, we're coke, we're coke. But then they're like, Coke on Christmas every year looks very different. But the consistency piece is Coke on Christmas, but the inconsistent, again, I'm not using it as a bad word, like the disruptor, whatever you want to call it, is when they're like, because we human needs that little pattern interrupt, like, boom, I'm gonna show you something different. So I think I think advertisers have known this for years, like. Be consistent if you work on Pepsi, be Pepsi, but show up in Super Bowl different every year. We're different. This year is this, this year is that, this year is that. So I think we need to consistently play. How does it show up on the website? I think the consistent patterns. So you know, the navigation is here, I drop down goes here. So there's the stuff that you don't want to mess with. And with the brand as well, Coke is red. This is what what they what they do. But then you bring in the inconsistency, which I'm using in a good way, is like how does their magic positioning now, like open what if the magic positioning is manifest itself on the website? So it's this constant balance of consistency versus inconsistency.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. I think Sarah Carter actually mentioned this one time. I think she coined it disguised repetition. Right where you use creativity to basically make something like your positioning ⁓ consistent, consistently you, but with enough variation that keeps people, you know, paying attention to you. And the way you do that is through your distinctive brain assets, playing with them and using them in different scenarios, category entry points, etcetera.

Umar Ghumman: Yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Making things interesting. Right. Yeah. ⁓ and so consistency, disguise repetition, websites, you've I think they all kind of lead towards this inevitable place of creating familiarity with your brand, familiarity with your brand and specific category entry points. and so you've also talked about in the past about how brands should become habits.

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. Yep.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Right. So what what does it mean for a brand to become a habit in your point of view?

Umar Ghumman: I think the way I look at it, I think when clients of brands are like, we want to be the loyalty, we wanna be the like we only think about our brand. I think you can do that. That's why it's like your brand needs to be happy. Like you need to become the default choice. And again, I'm gonna quote a cola example. Like, you know, Coca Cola look Coca-Cola, any cola's entry points, and I've spent time working on them. Like, you know, they're like ⁓ It's summer, you're thirsty? Coke. ⁓ it's mealtime. Are you thirsty? You want to go have a meal? Coke, drink. Look at us. ⁓ you're at university and there's a vending machine and you were the friend? Coke. So they are trying to become the default of every need, state, occasion, category, entry point. So if I'm their customer, which I am, like I'm like, okay, like

Pedro Porto Alegre: Simple.

Umar Ghumman: That becomes my default choice because every time I have a need or an occasion, they show up. ⁓ it's FIFA, it's NBA, it's Wing Stop, it's the So you have to do enough exercise to make sure that you show up across those category entry points because it's the battle of the mind. So if you're like, ⁓ I'm thirsty, it's summer, coke, and then the concept of physical availability, I need to buy it now. How easy it is for me to buy it, and that's where Coke's. I don't think they were D2C, but they're shopper marketing. ⁓ we need to be on the convenience store and we need to be on the big store and Walmart and Costco and all of that. So imagine if you are available at all the mental availability, you've covered the all category entry, and now you've covered all the physical availability. Guess what? You will be you will become a habit. You know, you're just like there's no other option, and you are constantly innovating to be present at all these category entry. points. And that's why I think probably does the same thing as well. Like, you know, the next generation into music, let's go sponsor all of this, the concert, the this. So if you do this, you make it a habit. And websites and platforms help in do that. If you're like, great, Coke right now, send me a coke, Uber c Uber Coke, Instacart Coke, you will eventually become a a habit.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Yeah, I I find the the Cola Wars one of the most fascinating, you know, case studies there is in our industry. But people forget, like both of these brands, Pepsi and Coke, have been around for I think over a century, building these habits, right? Actually, yeah. I actually recently brought a book ⁓ called Forgot Country and Coca Cola. It's like a five hundred page book about the the role of Coca Cola in American

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. I mean Yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: culture over the 20th century. It's like, okay, your brand now it's actually a staple in an entire country's culture. Right? Like this is this is not done overnight. It's time, consistency, building familiarity, habits, right?

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. And you know what's interesting? And this I talk about it is Coca-Cola is what 200, 200 plus old brand. Brands like Louis Vuitton is 250 years old. You look at Zendaya and do you go, hmm, she's wearing a 250-year-old brand? You don't. Because to your point earlier about the consistency of what they stand for, but they keep refreshing it with disguise stuff that you were talking about, with with the new things. And I think that's the beauty. of these brands who are doing a good job and making sure that they're physically available and they're using all sorts of digital touch points to make sure that they are they're relevant.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Yeah. You know, ⁓ I think there is also this ⁓ this buzzword in our industry called consumer centricity. I I wouldn't call it necessarily a buzzword, because it is an important term that people, you know, I think overuse it, let's say, without fully understanding it. ⁓ but you've you've mentioned before that c human-centered design or can produce homogeneity. Do you see humor centricity and Consumer centricity as being the same thing, am I mis am I confusing the two? But unpack that a little bit because I think you you ⁓ you talked about that.

Umar Ghumman: Yeah. So what I well, you know, if you worked in experience design, like human-centered design and is is a is an approach, the philosophy, which is basically saying let's understand the humans or be customer-centric and let's make stuff for them to solve their problems. My thing with that was as the industry has matured, you know, we absolutely need to be customer-centered. So there two thoughts here. We absolutely need to be customer-centric. But we don't need to listen to everything that the customer is saying. You know, that you know, remember that famous quote? I don't know if Henry Ford actually said it. If I would have listened to people, they wanted faster horses. I'm not saying so you have to be choiceful in what the customer is saying and really then articulating it. This is what it means, and this is the choice as a business I'm gonna make. So that's the part on the customer centricity piece. On the Human-centered design, and this is a lived experience. I'm not, this is not just philosophical for me. Like I worked on five banks and four automotive brands, and it starts the same. Let's map out, understand the customer. Let's do research. Here's the customer experience. Here's the journey. Let me take the mortgage example. Like, okay, people don't understand mortgages. Okay, what do we do? Let's give them a calculator. Great. Calculator is an idea. Let's make more content. Close versus open mortgage. Great. And all the things start to now look the same. Every bank's website is like the market section kind of looks the same. One's blue, one's green, one's yellow, whatever the colors are. And that's why my thing, like, you need to bring a little bit of positioning of your bank into that thing. So if you are the caring bank and there's a bank who was like, we do it for you, I'm like, okay. You shouldn't have a website section if you do it for me. I should just be calling you. I should not be learning about mortgages and stuff. So my thing is like if you do human centered design, you will end up with the same solutions that everybody else does. So instead do more brand centered design, which is the brand rooted idea, which is like be more worby parker. B more Lego, B more Harley Davidson, B more the brands that are really pulling through their positioning. I don't know if you there's a supplement, I'm working on two supplement brands right now. The supplement brand called Groons, G-R-U-N-S. And I think they just sold for four four billion dollars to Unilever or someone. And then if you look at it, just the website experience is you cannot mistake it for anybody else. For distinctive assets, the random everything is so so coming through. They didn't do a generic Shopify themed experience, they made it their experience.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. You know, that's actually a fascinating point because ⁓ human centric design, right? It's it it kind of has to come down to the lowest common denominator, which is some sort of human truth. Right. And human truths are universal, right? Meaning we all share them. And so if everybody's doing the the human truth without layering on their brand on top.

Umar Ghumman: Yes. Yep.

Pedro Porto Alegre: It's undifferentiated or or not it's not distinct enough to yeah. And so that's I think okay. So that's how it becomes homogeneous.

Umar Ghumman: Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So go after this call, go check out the free banking websites and you're like, ⁓ they do look all the same.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, you can really tell. Hey, like I think there's a lot of brands that kind of s look and sound all the same. I think we're seeing some of that now in sports betting. I think I'm seeing so much of that. It's just like I cannot tell who's who anymore. And and look, I'm a marketer, like I pay attention to this stuff to manage the consumer, right? okay, so the you know, we're kind coming up at time here, and I want to ask you ⁓ a question around.

Umar Ghumman: Yeah.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Developing taste and judgment. Okay, so obviously this stuff is harder develop. You know, taste, judgment is oftentimes one of the things that differentiates individual practitioners in the industry. How have you gone about developing taste and judgment in your work? And how do you teach that?

Umar Ghumman: ⁓ so I think even if you look at the Silicon Valley was like, well, it's all about taste now. You're vibe coding, do you have taste? And I think everyone's shortcut to yeah is gonna take me out, but I have taste. You don't. You know, and it's like, and you see, like, ⁓ I don't know, I think I saw a TikTok where someone's like, ⁓ just because you have a Pinterest mood board, you don't have taste. So I'm like, Yeah, that's a that's a very good point. So I actually made my own equation where I'm like, okay, this is the actual equation. So I call it I think to have taste, first you need to have some sort of experience. So like I've I've done something where I'm like, okay, you've done the thing. In my I'm like, do you have experience making websites? I'm like, okay, yeah, I do have experience making websites or doing CX work. ⁓ do you do you are you are you exposed to a lot of stuff? So you know, can just happen. Not that it's a website or CX a word show, but you're like, okay, like this is happening, this is what the industry is going. Then you've also gotten Feedback like ⁓ this doesn't work or this like I told you the example of like when we're putting that image of like I've seen in real life that stuff doesn't work so it's experience exposure feedback and finally what I'm calling judgment it could be any other word it's like what does the client want? So if I'm like this client is never gonna buy this thing, even if it's the most customer-centric solution. So paste equals EE FJ, that's my equation. How does someone develop it? Do the thing, put in the reps. I don't know, put in the reps, do them, do the work, learn the work, do more of it, and eventually you'll get taste. It's like a friend of mine is into movies. Like, you know, he's a filmmaker. He has taste. I don't. I'm like, he knows the directors and this and the style, and this is film. No, I this is and I'm like, you listen to them, like, yeah, they have credibility to do that. But it's not the Pinterest ⁓ mood board.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Well, that's very well said, man. We'll ⁓ we'll leave it at that. It was so great having you here. I feel like we have so much more to talk about, so ⁓ we're gonna have to do a part two.

Umar Ghumman: I would love that. Thank you for having me, Pedro.

Pedro Porto Alegre: Yeah, man. Talk to you later. Bye-bye.