Earlier this week at eTail Palm Springs, the conversation kept circling back to the fundamentals, what it really means to build a strong brand, connect marketing to ecommerce, and drive growth in a sustainable way.

“It was all about how to think about the core of retail,” said our analyst Suzy Davidkhanian, who moderated several sessions during the event.

Get it together: That focus on the “core” showed up repeatedly in discussions about how organizations are structured and how budgets are allocated. One of the major themes was the need for performance marketing and brand marketing to work in lockstep rather than in silos.

“There’s been more discussion around brand and performance marketing needing to work together,” said Davidkhanian. “Everything we do, from an advertising or marketing perspective, is also about brand building and brand love, all of that is critical.”

This melding of performance and brand reflects a broader recalibration happening across retail organizations, where short-term efficiency is being weighed against long-term brand equity.

“Marketers need to acknowledge that every ad dollar spent may not equal to an exact dollar gained,” said Davidkhanian.

Avani Oswal, VP of Digital for luxury footwear brand Elizée, spoke about how everything the ecommerce team does has to be tied together with marketing. For her team, content and commerce are deeply intertwined.

• For example, an article from an outside publication featuring an image of one of their shoes was transformed into a brand asset, repurposed across their website and product page copy.
• What began as editorial storytelling evolved into on-site creative, reinforcing the brand while supporting conversion.

Moving beyond recognition: There’s also been discussion about brand awareness versus brand relevancy. For most brands, familiarity alone isn’t enough in a landscape driven by culture and constant change.

“A company may be known and loved by consumers, but if they’re not leaning into the right cultural moments or part of the latest trends on social media, they’re not going to win.”

This is particularly important for reaching younger consumers, who may be less likely to stay brand loyal when presented with something new or buzzy.

Personalization was another topic that emerged as a consistent theme of the event.

“We all talk about personalization in a lot of different ways," said Davidkhanian. "Is it that you know my birthday? Is it that you just put 'Hey Suzy' on the front of the email? That’s all part of personalization. At the end of the day, brands don’t just need to show consumers they know them, but that they understand them.”

One example of personalization came from digital experience platform Optimizely’s booth at the event, which provided attendees with personalized fragrance samples.

“It’s all about how you can go one layer deeper, not one-to-one necessarily, but it's so much more dynamic and much more personal, without it being creepy,” she said.

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