Supercharging Creator and Gaming Commerce with Shopify's Jess Williams — Gen C Podcast Ep.66

you know, Mr. Beast has a Superbowl commercial almost every week, and I can attest that, yes, he absolutely does. And it is absolutely true that not only is there a, . Outsized impact every video that goes live, but that lives on the internet forever. Peace. Avery, back again, episode 66. I know you're not, not feeling a hundred percent. So we're going to get through this intro quick. Cause we actually have a guest waiting for us. Jess Williams, head of brand at Shopify. One of our good friends.

So excited to have her on and hear what they're doing over at Shopify. Such a, such a cool brand. But first I did happen to see you at the Superbowl. Not in person. I saw it on your socials. How was the big game? Did you see Taylor? Tell me everything. The Super Bowl was amazing. I was lucky enough to go this year and represent Vayner. We had a number of different things that we were doing both sort of for clients, which some include like, you know, TV spots and include on ground activation, so

me community management, some, you know, creator management, some little like events and whatnot. We had a ton of press for Gary, um, which was exciting. And we had a nice like team going from Vayner. So it was really, really fun. Um, got to see a bunch of things. And of course, you know, we take notes on what really stood out. And yeah, it was, it was an action packed weekend. That's probably why I'm sick now. I almost never get sick. Maybe this is my first sick day in like 10 years. So I'm pay

ing the price for it now, but Super Bowl was amazing. And if you'll Paying the price for Usher. Yes, and if you'll allow me, I'd love to share a couple of things that did stand out to Yeah, please. The first is a sphere. The sphere is amazing. And you know, even some of our biggest partners who decided not to do a spot this year, they didn't need to because they were everywhere else. Like Pepsi comes to mind. They did a really cool thing with Zach King. The sphere, my room actually overlooked it

and I was like transfixed by seeing it change all the time. It is iconic and it is something that you can shoot for social and people around the world still think like, wow, that's really cool. Second thing is that experiential is back and bigger than ever. This was the most watched game, it was the most attended game. And just like the buzz of Vegas. There's so many different things going on. People are craving that. I know you share that POV. The third thing was like, Power of the Female Doll

ar was on display. I know Jess has a lot of love for women's sports, so we'll ask her about that, but you know, it was the beauty bowl. There were three different beauty spots this year. There were a lot of female leaders. The Female Quotient did a great job bringing people together. Sort of female, like, sports groups doing things. It was like, wait, it is not a boys club anymore at the Super Bowl. Like that, that paradigm has really shifted. And, you know, it makes room for people like me, whi

ch I'm excited about. Yeah. that it's become such a, like an equal, uh, event for, for anyone to watch and you, you love the spectacle. I think frankly, Taylor Swift brought so much attention in that way that has changed the whole game for the future, right? Like, I just think there's an opportunity. Yeah. Like it was, it was dramatic and I think it was substantial in a really wonderful way, frankly. But I, I, I mean, I noticed when watching the game, how many spots. NYX had their spot, right?

And how many spots were focused for women, which I think was also just like a great thing. And frankly, I want to see the same thing the other way on things like the Oscars. Like I just think there's an opportunity for us not to think of gender as much in our big events. Just to say people love a spectacle and an experience no matter what it is. Well, more women watch the, watch the Super Bowl than the Grammys, the Oscars, and some other huge thing combined. So like the Super Bowl is like, it do

esn't matter what gender, what, you know, interest group, like it's, it's big, big, big, big, um, and that includes women. So it's really nice to see people waking up to that. Yeah. I also think, and this is like my hot take, but they should just have it in Vegas every year. It's like the perfect event for Vegas. Just stay It's like operationally set up. It's like we were literally driving and I was going with Gary and. It took us like 12 minutes to get there and he's like, we just got here like

an hour early because we were like, Oh, okay. I guess we're going really early to the tailgate now. Usually there's like a ton of traffic and the hotels are set up for it. Like the hospitality is set up for it. Like it was super easy. I almost like I feel bad for New Orleans next year. Well, New Orleans is also a fun town, but agreed. Um, I guess one story before our guest. Um, we didn't really get to talk about it, but what did you think of the Disney and Epic deal, right? Disney spent, I thin

k it's 1. 5 billion, um, which gets them something in the neighborhood of 5 percent of Epic. But the commitment I think to game powered experiences, both probably in park, but also then bringing the park into the game, feels like a big moment. And I know we're going to talk to Jess also about some in game stuff, but what are your thoughts on that deal and what it says for the game industry? I mean, Disney continues to make some, like, really big strides in this space, and it's interesting that

they continue to go sort of like partner 1st with it. Um, that's what sort of stands out to me. The most obviously time will tell. So I'm not reading. Too much into, into the headlines, but, um, yeah, it's, it's a big move. What do you, what do you think Sam? Yeah, I just think it's like, it's the two way opportunity. I think they see the future of experiential being immersive, which I think you and I both believe quite, quite a bit in. And so there's an opportunity there to really bring. Kind o

f game engine and game behavior thinking to the Disney parks. And really gamify that experience even more than they've done. But I, but then the other idea is like, Do they need to how could they possibly make more money on Disney parks? Like a water bottle is 18 dollars. If you see the price per head of the arc of the price per head from like 20 years ago to now, you've seen that they have gamified it more and more. And then that number keeps going up. I can only imagine when it actually feeds

points back into your avatar back in fortnight that this could be a big moment. But similarly, I can see. I mean, I also think you think the future of the immersive. Disney park could be online, and that's the other side of it, and especially putting on, you know, a headset or whatever it may be super immersive Disney I. P. As games. And then I think I heard another take, which I thought was interesting was fortnight. I. P. As movies and shows that that relationship also, I think, is a really in

teresting one just to think about as we, as we look into the future. I agree. All right, Avery, I'm not going to subject you to any more questions. We're going to get to Jess, after the break, Jess Williams, Shopify. Let's get into it. Consensus 2024. Global crypto regulation, the disruptive power of AI, the rise of tokenization. Consensus is the one event where experts convene to talk about the ideas shaping our digital future. Join developers, investors, founders, brands, policymakers, and ple

nty more in Austin, Texas from May 29th through the 31st. The 10th Annual Consensus is curated by Coindesk to feature the industry's most sought after speakers and provide unparalleled networking opportunities and unforgettable experiences. Take 15 percent off registration with the code GENC50. Register now at consensus. coindesk. com and I'll see you there. Today we have Jess Williams who is joining us from Shopify. I'm so excited to have Jess as a guest today. We have been chatting about her j

oining the show for quite some time. Jess, tell Gen C a little bit about you and a little bit about what you do at Shopify. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Um, just saw Avery a few days ago in a different environment, but, thanks for having me. Uh, Love Gen C, my, one of my favorites. So, excited. I am leading the brand team at Shopify. Uh, I have been here for about six months. I led the partnerships and I'm part of the brand team when I was at Coinbase for two

and a half years. And, before that very long time at Visa. So technology, technology, commerce, and technology. As I mentioned, have been there about six months. So a lot of what I'm going to talk about is my personal, um, and just what I know about Shopify thus far. Um, but a lot to learn on the commerce side, cause it's my first foray deep into the world of e com. Well, I feel like payments, e comm, there's a lot in common there. Um, and you've seen a lot of really interesting things, going fr

om Visa to Coinbase to now Shopify. How have you sort of seen the discipline evolve as people go more and more online, that discipline of brand building? How has that shifted over your career? Um, and how do you think that continues shifting? Yeah, I think the biggest ones, are. A lot of what you talked about, just moving into digital. I think there is such a massive digital transformation, not just, you know, moving into social, but like deep understanding of how to reach people online that we

just did not have before. and you know, whether it's deep SEO trends, I mean, now our teams are working on SEO and Tik TOK because that's where people are searching most often. I feel like one, you just have to be. So agile in the digital world and continue to optimize no matter where or what, um, the platform is. And then, you know, just really be incredibly data driven, on the brand side, it's hard. I mean, a lot of it is, you know, a little bit of art and a little bit of science, but I feel

like the science is getting more and more important as, you know, budgets get restrained and, CFOs want to see more return. Like while there's not a huge shift, I think solely into performance, I think the ability to measure what's most important on the brand side is getting more and more important and really a focus on that, you know, the storytelling and, um, where that storytelling happens. But influencer marketing, I mean, even just coming out of the Super Bowl and, you know, a lot of the st

uff we saw there so important now where I feel like, in my days of visa, like, we had Morgan Freeman as the voice that got there. And that was probably the most we had other than athletes in our spots. And now I feel like you can't do anything without, someone who has distribution, you know, it can't just be paid. It certainly can't just be organic. Yeah. The influencers and creators of the world are the distribution methods here. Um, those are the biggest things I've seen. I mean, coming from.

Visa, where everything was sort of partnership driven and sports driven and, um, big campaign driven now to Shopify where it's really always on all the time, you know, creators are, are. You know, media network, it certainly has been big shifts for me as a. Just also, thank you for coming on, I know we see each other all a lot socially, but we've been literally being like, when is she going to come on? So thank you for joining us. Very excited to have this conversation., I guess if I, if I loo

k at your career, there's like an interesting thesis, which is visa is empowering, obviously large orgs, but like down to the smallest business to sort of figure out how to build something with a toolkit. Coinbase in some respects was the A similar type approach of how do we create some self sovereign opportunities to own your own bank accounts to own your own financial rails. And also has a religion to it, if you will, right within crypto. And then Shopify, I feel like was so important in sayin

g, Hey, Amazon, not everyone has to work with you. , like, how do we figure out really flexible ways to plug in commerce and things that ways it can feel very organic. Um, but also I think the mentality of through like small business on up. It feels like there's a little bit of a commonality of distribution of kind of the rails of productivity, the rails of commerce, the ability to be successful on your own. Because that's frankly, like, just so much more important than an Apple being successfu

l. They have all of the tools at their disposal, but the small creators don't. Is that part of what inspires you is the idea of powering the individual almost as much, if not more, than powering the large organization? mean, you said it better than I could. I did have sort of a moment. I was with Keith Grossman at this event in Toronto, the other side, you know, web three event and had this moment where I was talking about my career and really realized that, um, a lot of where I have spent my ti

me is sort of the network of. Distribution or the platform that's in the middle of how people operate. I mean, Visa being the largest one in the world. Um, it is just a network that sits behind, you know, transactions. There's not actually a product other than the network, which is a fascinating business. And I know you guys have listened to the visa acquired episode. It's so good. It just is a fascinating business. That was so fun to work on, but a complex topic. Same thing with. Crypto, I mea

n, I think a lot of people, you know, vaguely understand what it is through, um, Bitcoin, but again, Coinbase being sort of the infrastructure that powers so much of the crypto ecosystem, whether it's through base, whether it's the wallet, whether it's, through, you know, the centralized, um, ecosystem. And that again, I feel like is a powerful piece because there are so many things that plug into being able to, um, move crypto around the world. And Shopify is really the same. I mean, it's real

ly just a platform, um, a very powerful one for, you know, businesses to be able to grow, um, in whatever way is important to them. I'm constantly. Just blown away by the ecosystem of businesses that make Shopify, um, that make money off of being a plugin for Shopify. And you know, there are hundreds of thousands of them, or agencies that solely operate on building for Shopify or, you know, SEO experts that solely build for, you know, Shopify businesses. So again, it's sort of being the central

ized place, where. Things can be built, and, the ecosystem that exists around it is very powerful. So, yes, that has been a through line on my career, and, um, I love that you actually put it into words a lot more eloquently than I have, so I wrote that down to be able to use it next time around. Sam has a way with words. And as do you, Jess. It's like, I mean, just hearing you talk about sort of the power of Coinbase and the power of Visa, the power of Shopify is really platforms that ultimate

ly take people to move and scale them. I think it's really powerful. And putting on sort of your brand marketer hat, you've also been involved with many of the biggest sort of games and the biggest activations and the biggest brand stunts, , you know, really ever, whether that's the Olympics or, recent, I think it was two years ago now, Coinbase is infamous, um, Superbowl spot. How do you think about those sort of? big moments. How do you think about the Olympics, the Super Bowl, those more tra

ditional spots? Is that 7 million still worth it? Is it underpriced? You know how Gary feels about this, but I'm so curious, like kind of your take. I mean, no question about it. It was worth it for Coinbase in that moment. It was such a powerful moment. And, you know, Kate is such an amazing CMO, like really understood the creative challenge there, and executed. Incredibly was the QR code heard around the world and it did exactly what we wanted it to, which was have a breakthrough creative mom

ent, but also, you know, have a performance objective, which was important to Brian to bring people to the page to download, or at least just learn about it. I think it really depends on what your goals are. I think it's so hard to say, is it worth it? I was just, you know, post Super Bowl this time, you know, I love sort of digging into the details and, everyone was saying they hated the Timu ad and yes. Like maybe the creative was not the best creative you've seen, but have Timu sustained sinc

e that day, 10 X has Timu been on the top downloaded apps since that day. Yes. So does team see that those three spots were worth it? I 100 percent guarantee they do. You know, again, I think some of its ego that, you know, you want to be there. I think a lot of it is, you know, to be part of the conversation for that sustained amount of time. But I think for some businesses, it's a real opportunity to drive interest awareness, which should be the things that Super Bowl commercials do. And then,

of course, product usage, which is hard. Yeah. But I think, you know, if you're a not so well known product. It's a great opportunity to do so. The Olympics is a bit tougher and, you know, Visa was so smart in the Olympics. I think if you're doing a big sponsorship like that, you better have a ROI on the Y and you know, the only card you can use to buy merch anywhere around the Olympics is a Visa card and you actually have to go to a reverse ATM and put your cash in and get a Visa card in order

to. Buy merchandise. So in that instance, definitely worth it for the revenue generation. But again, certainly there's only a few properties that hit everyone in the whole world. The Olympics and FIFA are the two and when your visa where you hit everybody in the whole world, like, yes, of course, it's worth it. So I don't know. I'm always like, is it hitting the goals that you intended it to? And how are you measuring those kind of person? But. Certainly for Coinbase, it was absolutely worth it

. And I'm so grateful to have been a part of it because it was such a moment in time. Yeah, shout out to Kate. She came on the show and talked about that a bunch of months ago and so smart. I also think like, and I think you captured it, which is attention is so fragmented now. It is literally everywhere, everywhere, all at once. It's really hard to make a moment. The Super Bowl is one of those few things that allows that to happen. The Grammys, I felt like had a little bit of that, of that rece

ntly as well. But like, yeah, I just think there's like an opportunity to leverage those. And I think at this point to spend is worth it because it's so hard to get that audience. Anywhere else. I guess one of the, one of my questions, I'm obsessed with the greater economy, , similarly to right. The S the Superbowl is the fact that like Shopify has worked with Mr. Beast and some of these other giant creators who, frankly can become or are becoming even bigger brands than most of the people who w

ould normally pay to be involved in their, their content. What is your approach on how do you, you activate them as their own retailers, as their own brands themselves, giving them the toolkits? What are like some lessons you've learned? I still think that people under index on the greater economy and how important it is today, especially at the brand level. Without a doubt under index. Okay. I have a lot of thoughts about this and, I have loved my time at Shopify. I came in here knowing that o

ne of my blind spots was working with creators. We had worked with very large athletes at Visa as sort of our influencers. Same thing with Coinbase. You know, we had a couple of athlete partnerships. And at some point we had sort of like affiliate programs with some large crypto voices, but not in the same way that, I mean. Shopify, in my opinion, has one of the most sophisticated creator influencer programs that's out there. And they've really cultivated this because, creators are the next ent

repreneurs, they are speaking to the next generation of entrepreneurs. And as a brand team, our goal is to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to default and love Shopify. And I absolutely love that brand goal. It is such a fun one to be able to tackle, really thinking about. Nine, 10 year olds, as they're thinking, you know, about the future as they get into high school and college, like having entrepreneurship being an option, which I never thought about. I was corporate America was w

here I was going, but to be able to think of, Oh, I have an option, you know, Mr. Meese does it, or Eric does it, or Hope Scope does it, or my favorite creator does it, I think it's such a powerful. Feeling and a very fun brand marketing challenge on the greater side. I saw a lot of internet, voices on Twitter talking about, , you know, Mr. Beast has a Superbowl commercial almost every week, and I can attest that, yes, he absolutely does. And. It is actually 1 of the stats that I used as we were

, you know, doing 1 of the retros on some of the work we've done with him. And it is absolutely true that not only is there a, . Outsized impact every video that goes live, but that lives on the internet forever. And so in 10 years, when, you know, my son is old enough to be watching Mr. B's videos, he's going to see Shopify mountain, which was, you know, his visit to Antarctica and he placed a Shopify flag at the top of the, you know, the Antarctica mountain and. That's still going to be return

ing on investment for us, where, you know, most Super Bowl commercials like fall into the ether and are never seen again because they don't exist anywhere. So, 1, I just think the lasting power of good, creative integrations into big YouTube creators is something that most brands do not understand and do not understand the impact of and then I think really, you know, a couple of the commercials that use creators in them, very big creators, they weren't using them the way that, you know, they sho

uld be like having the creator be part of the idea generation, a part of the, how is this going to work for us? Like, what is going to, what is my audience going to love most? What's going to hit, what's going to be the, if you know, you know, sort of impact. And I think they all sort of fell flat. So I'm hoping that next, you know, year, there's some better integrations on the. Creator side, but I mean, we've seen it, um, I'll shut up after this so you guys can jump in. But, um, you know, prime

is now, I don't know, with 500 million a year brand, um, you know, pacing at the same pace as some of the largest, energy drinks out there. Feastables has the ambition to be bigger than Hershey's and they are hiring and stacking the deck there with that ambition in mind. And the other creator products that I see coming out, I mean, there's nobody better to be a distribution method than a massive creator with a hundred million fans. Jess, you just said a lot of really insightful things there. U

m, but one massive hot take is you don't think anyone used creators well in this world? Okay, that's Not true. Zach King and Pepsi were amazing. That was my favorite one. I posted it in our internal slack and said like, what an amazing use of perspective. It was so good. I do not mean that. I mean in the actual commercials. No, no, I think it's a really good insight, though, because so many brands, I mean, we know, obviously, brands bring, creators out to the Super Bowl, bring them out to those

parties, but what I, what I'm hearing from you is it's still kind of like forced. It's like, we have this campaign. We're going to, invite you here to go experience our Super Bowl thing. It's not really necessarily on their own terms, which I think is really interesting and one that, I was just talking about, uh, yesterday with the CMO of Sabra. We were actually talking about an ad that we made for the Super Bowl like four years ago that featured Charli D'Amelio. She was like dancing and it h

ad a bunch of different talent in it. And we were like, we should actually run that spot this like again, because we have the rights for such a long time. And like, it would still hit. Cause it was like Megan Thee Stallion before she was big, , like all these like kind of funny people cause the whole message was around hummus is for everyone. We can all get behind that message. Um, it's just delicious, but I think it was like so authentic. And a lot of times when you're just hiring like a tale

nt, it's kind of just like, here's your script, go execute this. And they're not putting in what makes them Yes. I would also say, I don't think, and all present company excluded, I don't think most creative agencies know how to work with talent in the first place. Like the Verizon Beyonce commercial wasn't good. The Jason Momoa one was terrible. To me, like you're trying to fit them into old school advertising tropes where the world has sort of moved on in terms of what content strategy is not

that Beyonce is never not going to pull. She, of course, she's going to pull, but like, let her be Beyonce. Don't let her be the like, you know, the Verizon, like, you know, am I still, I still have a signal person like that to me is diminishing her power that you're already paying for when you do it. And I just think that's one of the challenges that people, especially in the creator world, they don't let them be themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Which often is so intimate. I was actually shocked we didn

't see like a Keith Lee commercial , at the Super Bowl because like that would have slayed it and you could let him be him and it would have been just, I think, just much more unexpected and the unexpected is what gets the attention at the Super Bowl versus the very tried and true. Keith Lee, like Buffalo Wild Wings or something. They better do it next year. Chipotle, obviously. I will say, , I agree. I mean, I am so in awe of all marketers and CMO, so I never want to like call it out, but you

know, the Addison Rae one, like such a small part where she just popped it in her mouth, there was so much opportunity there. And I actually think the product is so fun. So you could have, I mean, there was a lot of opportunity, missed opportunity, There's one that this wasn't ours, but I thought that they did a really nice job. And Adam came on a CMO podcast we did yesterday. Was CeraVe, like Michael Cera, the CeraVe thing, the staging in advance, the like paparazzi shots. It just like told the

story well on social and it was like so him and like the lo fi production. I thought all of that like really worked. I will also say even without Avery is, and I've been obsessed with this the last couple months, is Leveraging meme culture as an advertising strategy is exactly what CeraVe did, right? They took what was very easily a social meme and they made it a commercial. it on Reddit. That's the Right, exactly, yeah. So like that's a great insight. Just, I want to ask you one more thing tho

ugh before we move on, which is, cause you said something which I thought was really interesting, which is that TikTok, you said is such a big search engine these days, right? People don't recognize that YouTube is still like the number two search engine. Amazon is in the top five. Like people don't look at commerce. Through the lens of search. But I do wonder that the fact that Instagram, Tik TOK, Amazon, all these social platforms, , even still Twitter, et cetera, like people think of SEO and

they think of Google. They're not thinking of SEO as I think of every other platform where, which is where most of the people are spending their time. And I guess for both of you guys, like, how do you look at how to gamify those search algorithms to build business? I mean, there is definitely a team internally at Shopify that is much smarter than me at this, but there is a whole strategy now internally around how to get better rankings and tick tock search for Shopify and Shopify merchants, wh

ich, never until they brought this project to us, what I have thought about, but is. It's something everyone should be doing. I mean, I am searching in TikTok all the time and I'm on the older side of the TikTok world. So, , you have to be thinking about it in each different place and space now, are there plenty of, you know, bad actors in this space that are, really thinking about how to gamify and get their stuff to the top of. You know, the Amazon search, but, that's what I mean is that the

agility that is necessary in a lot of these functions is, I mean, it's just absolutely necessary to be able to understand the way that each of these platforms work and be, you know, sort of like a, maybe master of none, but, you know, experience of all so that you really can be in all of these places, understanding how to better show up in a digital world. , every platform is different, but I think the underlying, understanding of how important searches is probably the thing that threads them

all. Just understanding that it's absolutely necessary to be able to, you know, to work on your SEO and Tik TOK. Avery, do you guys focus on, on search at like our website analytics, we get more like hits on like one single post that we do on LinkedIn per day than we get on our website per day. So, I mean, our website, it's not the best. So that might be part of the problem. But no, I, when I think about it, like we just get so much better, like distribution. So much better awareness and much be

tter engagement. Like that's where our clients and our partners are seeing the work. They're not going to our website and looking at our reel. They do that once a year and that's just not how they like discover or keep up with agency news. So to me, I think that's always been kind of like, or social first, like Gary puts out a lot of stuff that he thinks about it. You know, if you search a lot of the topics that he talks about, we talk about, like they show up on social, they show up on the webs

ite too, for sure. But We invest way more of our resources in keeping that like up to date. And TikTok is a big one of those two. TikTok isn't necessarily like B2B play, so we're figuring that out. It's more like interested, like our best reels are like funny things, things about our culture. No one's like, yeah, let me talk about like media optimization on TikTok, but. We do have our head of media, um, who posts a lot and he actually has like his own little following where he talks about our st

rategies for media and for media buying. , so it can be interesting in that angle, but I want to hear from Jess, because Shopify has also done a lot when it comes to gaming and in game commerce. Can you share a little bit about like that strategy? I think Shopify has been such pioneers or I think you guys might even own a team or certainly sponsor and activate with many. So share a little bit. Um, I'm not sure if I'm be Yes, again, I'm still learning on the in game commerce space. So I'm sure

Avery, you actually have a lot of insight into this. I was talking to, your gaming lead. And he was blowing my mind with some of the things that they are thinking about. Shopify does own a team, the Shopify Rebellion. And, , this was a little bit of like a passion plus, you know, business project. Gaming may be having a moment in that, you know, it's going through a reset in the same way many, many industries did post COVID. But there is no doubt that, e sports is going to continue to be such a

large passion point for so many people and that the opportunities to drive, you know, the same kind of brand awareness, brand love, brand understanding, product usage that is done across the, you know, traditional e Sports world, which we've seen just increase, exponentially is the same in the gaming world. And you know, the audience is right for us. There are plenty of entrepreneurs that live and breathe in the gaming world, developers who we need to be developing things for Shopify and, you

know, owning a team is a bit of a, fun project around, is there a model here, where this can be both a great brand builder and a business, Red Bull is the best example who has figured this out. We're not going to be Red Bull, but, you know, there are certainly like big opportunities for the Shopify Rebellion to win world championships, to, you know, be a deep part of the ecosystem in the gaming world, to continue to grow it. We, you know, own as many women's teams as we do. You know, men's tea

ms. And so, you know, there's just a, I think a real opportunity to like show who the brand is, and it's certainly, you know, something that Toby cares about, but it's also deeply embedded in who the audiences we're trying to target and, the folks who we, you know, want to know and understand Shopify. And in the long run, there's plenty of opportunity for end game commerce that we're keeping our eyes on, I want to double tap on one thing because you just said you all sponsor, you know, sort of e

qually between women's and men's sports. And I know that's one of your passion. Areas as well. Like, you've always sort of loudly champion. This is sort of investing in women's sports. It being an underinvested area, sort of underpriced attention invader language. Can you share a little bit about like how you think about that? Yes. I mean, this grew out of, um, shout out to Kate Johnson, who leads all of the sports sponsorships at Google, but something that was just became a grain to my brain at

Visa. They were so passionate about making sure that we had equal investments in women's and men's sports. And, on the media side as well, it was something that became very, Central to their renegotiations, with the U. S. Women's soccer team and men's soccer team, and a pretty public place. I played basketball growing up. I'm a huge WNBA fan, probably 1 of the biggest there is out there. And, you know, I always talk about how I used to go to games and there was no 1 there there for the longest

time. It was like, literally me and probably the 30 other, women with their daughters who were there watching the Phoenix Mercury as we were growing up. And it just feels so amazing right now for women's sports to finally be having the moment that they deserve and people really paying attention. It is still wildly underpriced. So my, you know, recommendation is for anybody who wants to get into sports sponsorship as a, , brand test as a way to really think about it. Not that that's the right r

eason is because it's vastly underpriced, but because, you know, the more people that see this, that can then see the return on investment or the brand goals that you have really being done there. You know, the more investments that will come, but it's, , in comparison to things like the NFL or the NBA, there's so much opportunity to get in at a level that makes sense for even small brands and. Women are powerful. We have a lot of money to spend. We have a lot of passion points. There's certainl

y more categories that make sense. I mean, think about all the fashion and beauty and, you know, nails and women's products. There's a lot of opportunity more so than I think on the men's side. Last point is that, you know, again, women's sports, especially with NIL on the come up, it's just getting larger and larger. And I think we're going to see just an absolute explosion. For all categories, whether that's volleyball or basketball, or, I mean, tennis is already the one to be caught, but,

I have no doubt that women's sports will continue to grow exponentially and people will find that there is just a massive opportunity to get in on the, ground floor of something incredible. And Jess, I just want to get your quick take on something that Avery and I talk about a lot, which is in game commerce already is like a 50 billion industry for digital. Goods, primarily cosmetics, skins, things like that. You have an entire generation that's growing up spending more time in game worlds tha

n they are in, you know, they're not turning on TVs, they're, they're launching a video game when they get home, they're like playing with their friends, it's a social opportunity. So these 3d game engines that are then going to power experiences that they're having hours and hours a day should also be the future of where they shop for real world goods. And I think you actually hit it, which is like. If I'm a beauty brand and I'm designing outfits and skins and makeup looks, the ability to buy t

he same lipstick that my avatar wears and have that drop shipped to my house feels like a An easy, an easy one and even when Avery and I spoke to Pia from BMW a couple days ago, they spent a lot on their Fortnite experience and you can do all this customization. But like, to me, the fact that you can't book a test drive from within Fortnite, that you can't put a 1, 000 deposit to like book your car and customize it in the game for actual purchase, is just the area we need to get to. And I just w

onder, because I know, Roblox has talked a little bit about creating almost a Shopify for, uh, for Roblox, like how you guys think of just the real world aspect of plugging in purchase behavior for, for real goods in, into I mean, I think that's the biggest opportunity and, Avery probably knows a bit more under the hood on the roadblocks side. But, I know a lot of their desires to keep commerce within that ecosystem, but I mean, so much opportunity for, Shopify stores to be plugged in there. An

d, certainly we've done a lot with tick tock already. The TikTok shop is powered, you know, on a infrastructure by Shopify. And so, you know, can Roblox Commerce also be there? I sure hope so. But I agree with you. Like, I want to buy anything that I am, you know, working with, playing with, doing on, and the in game commerce aspect isn't just the skins that I think everybody thinks about. It's everything. Um, I was just talking to Paris, Paris Hilton's team yesterday at 11, 11. And, you know, s

he's, name, drop I didn't want to um, I was just chatting to Paris but I wasn't talking to me in Paris, for hanging. I mean, she's like the commerce queen, everything is a commerce moment. And I feel like that's how everyone should be thinking. We talked to Jimmy's team all the time. Like they, people should be able to buy everything that he is showing. Working on doing eating within the videos and they also think like that. So I think that is soon to come, but commerce in everywhere is like the

future. I mean, let's just call it what it is, which is like people want to buy what they're seeing and it should be an easy opportunity for everywhere. Um, not just in game, in video, in YouTube, live stream, wherever you want it. I love it. And Jess, I know you are a huge fan of all things Paris. Paris was also the metaverse queen, the queen of the metaverse. Now she's reinvented herself again, queen of commerce. She's perpetually doing that new new and staying ever relevant, um, which is why

we love her., speaking of sort of staying relevant, you have been very deep in the blockchain space, and I know Shopify has to, I think, back, you know, 23 years ago, very early adopters in the space. Um, can you speak a little bit to, you know, is that still a big part of the strategy? Is it something you guys are keeping an eye on? Like, where does that sort of fall in your priority list as as a head of brand? I'm still deeply in the space and love it deeply. I think Shopify has always been t

here and we have smart, very smart folks internally working on it. I wouldn't say it's the top priority right now. However, if merchants want to use it, like we'll be ready there for the tools that they need to use it. But you know, we'll continue to grow with the industry. I. Like my personal opinion, huge fan, love it. I know a lot of the leadership team at Shopify thinks the same. But right now, certainly a lot of other things like AI that are top of the list for how we can help our merchants

grow their business. Amazing. So Jess, last question, , you just mentioned AI. When we think of things like autonomous agents just making purchases on our behalf, when we think of like the Apple Vision Pro, everything can be a commerce opportunity. Like, what just gets you excited from a tech perspective of how consumers are going to be engaging with Shopify product, um, and therefore, your, your customer's product down the road. at least in our winter editions that just went live, a lot of the

things that are so exciting and inspirational to me is how we're empowering merchants to be able to use AI to help them build their business. I mean, there are such small things that are so, onerous on. Entrepreneurs and business owners to be able to do and to have so many AI driven plugins that allow them to really hand this over to an automated task and free them up to think about other things. Um, everything from like. Business name generator to, um, you know, being able to write product de

scriptions for them to generating the right photos or, you know, cleaning up their photos for them. I just think like the talent inside at Shopify that is thinking about how AI can fix the very onerous world of business building is. So awesome. And, super inspirational for me as a consumer on that side. I definitely can't wait to get my hands on the Apple vision pro. I think building creative experiences in there and thinking about how the future of commerce like lives there, obviously, hopefull

y people aren't walking around with those things on all the time, but I do think like the future of experiences is going to live in there and, you know, to be able to really innovate commerce alongside of it. Something that I'm super excited about. All right, Jess, thank you for being such an exceptional guest. Also, really nice to hear you say so many positive things about Shopify. This whole conversation, like it's not every day when a guest is so complimentary of their company. It seems like

you really love it. You think your team there is brilliant. So congrats on the new role. Congrats on all the exciting things you are building there. And thank you for joining us on Thanks for having me. Love you guys. Thank you, Jess. Um, Uh, Avery, we love Jess Williams, such a good friend of the show, such a great supporter of the show, but also just a brilliant mind that I'm so glad we were able to get on. Any hot takes from the interview? I mean, the hottest take was she thinks nobody got c

reators right at the Super Bowl, which is, which is a perspective. And I think it's one that's probably grounded in, she sees like what really best in class looks like at Shopify where their business is built on creators. So that is one thing that stood out to me. And just seeing sort of the commonality of like, you know, that through line of the companies where she's worked really being these platforms to empower others and using these big moments to. You know, drive that commerce, but also dri

ve that engagement and buzz. I thought it was really interesting just to see that from three different angles. How about you? Same. It makes me think of the fact that there are still so many people who run brands who we don't know who they are. And that's like to be mid sized to large brands, like. You know, Gary is like the perfect example of someone who just put himself out there from the very beginning to say, I also want to be the brand as much as anything else. And I think you're doing a fa

ntastic job with that as well as the rest of the team. Like, I do think that, the brands aren't trying these tools enough. I was listening to an interview this past, I think it was yesterday about how many of the folks who went to join Twitter in the last days before Elon Musk bought it, that so many of those people sort of use it as a point of pride that they didn't actually use Twitter. Right. that was just like a really interesting insight of like, you hire these people. They're happy to be t

here based on an old ethos, but they're not looking at the product themselves. And they're not also like out there championing the product. Like you are, and my, like we're always out on these channels. Sorry, to make sure I'm understanding this correctly, they didn't use Twitter, but they got hired there. It was, yeah, it was, it was from this week's pivot. And they said, uh, they're talking to some folks who are, one of them who's writing a book on Twitter and said. In the last eight last year

s of Jack Dorsey, that the, a lot of the folks hired to work at Twitter were not actually actively on the product. That's true. It's so many platforms, Sam. Like, I just did a dinner last night with, a platform and like, a lot of the people who work there don't use it or don't use it like, often, which is so interesting to me. Obviously, there's the like, outside in perspective. And that might have some merit, but I can say at Vayner, we just deeply believe in like practitionership, like we do t

his podcast, like we're in it, we're trying new things, we're getting hands on , at least for me, that is always how I can like really understand like what works and what doesn't. But, you know, I think outside in can certainly work in, in certain cases come in with a totally fresh perspective, I guess. But going back to Jess, like, like imagine being someone who was in a brand that's dealing with e com who is not so deeply ingrained in how the Shopify experience works, the Amazon shopping exper

ience, like all that stuff is the only way you can get there to understand what's that last mile to get someone over the line from a commerce perspective. And I think that to me is like the biggest takeaway of like, they're, they're actually a great brand that has thought through that experience of how do we make someone's life easier. And how do we sort of give them a toolkit that says, we'll just take this away. And that is where, where she ended, like AI has the opportunity to hypercharge tha

t. So that I think is a, is a, is a great insight that I, I just was inspired to see, but also I think is a big, like, it's a big red flag for brands that they have to really be playing in these, in these toolkits and comfortable at a senior leadership level. That this stuff is what's changing the world. You guys say brands live on social. If those leaders aren't on social, they're not going to know that. Totally. I couldn't agree more. And Jess was the perfect person who like, lives and breathe

s it, which we love. Alright, Avery, gonna let you go. Thank you for everything. Happy Valentine's Day. I know this will air after it, but you deserve all the love. And we'll see you soon, Gen C. Happy Valentine's season, Gen C! Peace.