Kennyate Nelson, Co-op’s Chief Membership and Customer Officer, believes that the industry needs to get away from its obsession with the “next big thing”, whatever that may be.

He elaborated by saying: “A few years ago was personalisation, right? Everybody wants to do personalization. Now it’s Artificial Intelligence. The reality is the vast majority of the people that we serve are not really thinking about these things in their day-to-day lives but we get obsessed with them, because we like shiny new stuff.”

Nelson argued that good brands and businesses are useful if they deliver real value to customers. “If you're not useful, you're useless”. Therefore, the question is, if you're focusing on something new and innovative, that's fine but ask yourself: is it creating value for the customer you serve? Now and in the future? If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is, ‘we're doing it because it's new and the next thing’, maybe give it a bit more consideration.”

In the short interview, Nelson also talked about Co-op’s priorities in the social and influencer space and how, across such a portfolio as large as theirs, it’s difficult to execute well, and how Co-op are riding the storm of inflation by creating real value for their customers. 

Watch his short interview here. 

‘MAD//Fest Moments’ is a series, in partnership with THE FIFTH, in which prominent industry leaders share emerging trends, challenges and opportunities. We’ll be covering these interviews over the rest of the Summer and Autumn in MAD//Insight.