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The Daily: Very specific, but highly unlikely predictions 2025, part 2—Meta’s live shopping sequel, Party City’s fate, and Disney’s pivot

On today’s podcast episode, we discuss why now might be the exact right time for Meta to bring back live shopping, who would be the most likely candidate to buy Party City, and why Disney thinks that now is the right time to pull the trigger on a big change. Tune in to the discussion with Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, Vice President and Principal Analyst Jasmine Enberg, and Vice Presidents of Content Suzy Davidkhanian and Paul Verna.

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Episode Transcript:

Marcus Johnson (00:00):

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Suzy Davidkhanian (00:21):

If it's the exact same programming, it's not going to work, right? So you have to find the right channel that fits your product and brand and you can't just assume that each channel is equivalent, even within the meta products, right? So I think if all of the friction points are addressed, then it'll be a huge win for them.

Marcus Johnson (00:44):

Hey gang, it's Tuesday, December 17th. Suzy, Jasmine, Paul, and listeners, welcome to the Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast made possible by LiveRamp. I'm Marcus, today I'm joined by the same three folks who joined me yesterday. We have with us our vice president and principal analyst covering everything social media based in California. It's Jasmine Enberg.

Jasmine Enberg (01:02):

Hello. Hello.

Marcus Johnson (01:03):

Hello. They're also joined by one of our vice presidents of content who heads up our retail and e-commerce desk. She's based in New York City. It's Suzy Davidkhanian.

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:10):

Hello. Thanks for having me back.

Marcus Johnson (01:12):

Hello.

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:13):

Feel like I have to say that every time now.

Marcus Johnson (01:16):

Dial it down. And finally, we have one of our vice presidents of contents. He covers everything else and he's based in Maine, but he's currently back in the New York studio alongside Suzy. It's Paul Verna.

Paul Verna (01:28):

Great to be here on two consecutive days. Very exciting.

Marcus Johnson (01:30):

I know. Sorry about that. Okay, so what I have in store for you, three very specific but highly unlikely predictions. We have three yesterday, three more today for you. We start with the fact of the day. What is the most attended ticketed concerts ever? Yesterday we talked about largest concert, so no tickets required and it was millions of people attending a couple of different folks concerts. But today I've got ticketed. Any guesses?

Suzy Davidkhanian (01:58):

Taylor Swift.

Marcus Johnson (01:59):

P.S. I should have caveat this with you, you won't get it.

Jasmine Enberg (02:02):

Queen.

Marcus Johnson (02:03):

Live Aid.

Jasmine Enberg (02:04):

That's what I was thinking about. Queen at Live Aid.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:07):

Elton John.

Marcus Johnson (02:09):

These are fair guesses, which I would've thrown out there.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:12):

Oh, Gypsy Kings.

Marcus Johnson (02:13):

No. Number one is Vasco Rossi.

Suzy Davidkhanian (02:14):

I don't know.

Jasmine Enberg (02:18):

I don't know who that is.

Marcus Johnson (02:18):

Ever heard of him? No, no one does. I'm kidding. Apparently everyone does. Italian singer-songwriter and poet, and he performed in Modena Park in Italy in 2017, 225,000 people attended the show. That's about two and a half NFL sized stadiums. The second place was a Yugoslav rock band, Bijelo, which I'm probably pronouncing wrong, Bijelo Dugme, in Belgrade in 2005, they had slightly fewer folks. And third place was Japanese rock band GLAY in their home country with 200,000 people. It's not till you get to fourth place where you're getting some, I would argue familiar names, but maybe these guys are familiar just outside of the west, in fourth place, all of those folks had more attendance than Paul McCartney in fourth place with 184,000 folks saw him perform at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio. Tina Turner is right behind him in fifth, and Frank Sinatra was in sixth place.

Jasmine Enberg (03:17):

So you know what I'm curious about now is what the biggest stadium is, right?

Suzy Davidkhanian (03:21):

That's right.

Jasmine Enberg (03:21):

Because the first one you mentioned in Italy that was in a park.

Suzy Davidkhanian (03:25):

I'm with you.

Paul Verna (03:25):

I guess the Maracanã Stadium.

Marcus Johnson (03:28):

Yes. Maracanã Stadium, which actually Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Frank Sinatra all performed in for [inaudible 00:03:35].

Paul Verna (03:35):

I do have to say though, Queen should not keep singing We Are The Champions because they are very clearly not.

Marcus Johnson (03:41):

For Springsteen fans, he was an eighth place, his 1988 Berlin show. Anyway, today's real topic, some more very specific but highly unlikely predictions for 2025, shark tank style, of course, part two.

(03:59):

All right, how does this work? For folks who weren't listening yesterday, where the hell were you? But I'll get you up to speed. Each person-

Paul Verna (04:05):

They were at a concert.

Marcus Johnson (04:07):

Probably, everyone was, these kinds of numbers. Each person, Jasmine first today, will have 60 seconds to pitch their very specific but highly unlikely prediction for 2025. And then the rest of us, me, Suzy, and Paul and folks listening will decide if we're going to invest in the prediction. If we believe in it, then we move on to the next contestant. We have three predictions for you today. Let's do it. Jasmine, what is your first one for today?

Jasmine Enberg (04:26):

So my prediction follows up on the cliffhanger that I left listeners on yesterday, and it is that Meta will bring back live shopping. So quick background, Meta shut down its live commerce features on Facebook and Instagram in late 2022 and early 2023. And this was a big part of its pivot away from features, especially commerce features that it didn't deem as working well enough or bringing in enough revenue because its ad business was suffering at the time. But if you've been reading the news recently, you'll know that live shopping has been a really big boon for TikTok creators and businesses on TikTok, including on Black Friday, where creators and sellers hosted over 300 sessions according to TikTok. And there was over $100 million in US sales in one day alone according to the company.

(05:13):

So now might be the time for Meta to revisit live shopping because the TikTok ban, of course, is looming large. And one of the biggest worries that creators have is that no other platform is able to drive the kind of sales that they're seeing from TikTok. And Meta's been making a lot of other tweaks to Instagram and Facebook to make them more attractive to TikTok creators. What they really want is more ways to make money and bringing live shopping over to Meta's platforms again, could really encourage them to migrate over there as well.

Marcus Johnson (05:43):

So the why? You gave a few reasons there, but what's the number one? Is it that TikTok show them the way, is it that TikTok might get banned? Is it that they're working on some other kind of initiative to make this more appealing than the first time they did it?

Jasmine Enberg (05:54):

So all of the social platforms have been preparing for a TikTok ban, and a lot of that effort has been focused on video right now really kind of updating their services to be more TikTok-like and Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Snap, Facebook, but even LinkedIn now has a TikTok-like service. And so this would be another way for Meta to ensure that it is the place where TikTok creators and users and businesses would go if TikTok were to be banned. And it's doing a lot of this stuff proactively, right? I mean all of these moves really started, especially with things like aiding discovery for reels on Instagram many months ago as they were thinking about this possibility. And now of course it seems more real than ever before.

Suzy Davidkhanian (06:39):

I'm a yes, but... So my question to you is one of the things about Instagram and Facebook is that they don't own the inventory. So from a consumer lens it's a little bit of a difficult proposition, whereas TikTok Shop, usually the inventory is with TikTok, it's a seamless experience for the customer. There's a little bit of less scariness around will I get the right size? Will it be the right quality? Do I have control over my credit card information? I know there were some issues at point of sale for Instagram and even lots of conversations around do you send the person to the Macy's website or do you keep them on the Instagram website, has all that stuff... I don't feel like it's been solved for. So I think they'll need to solve for that in order for it to really take off.

(07:21):

But I am all in on live streaming as we know, even retailers are because when you shop from live stream, it also reduces returns. So people are buying more and they're returning less. So for them it's a win-win. It's just finding scale and making sure that the experience for the customer is good.

Jasmine Enberg (07:37):

And I agree with you on all of those points and you know that I am not all in on live streaming. And we've talked about this a lot actually. One of the things I say all the time about TikTok is that yes, it's been a boon for so many businesses, but building a sustainable business off of virality is very, very difficult. And TikTok still hasn't figured out how to make it a habit for people to come onto the platform to shop. And that's what I think about live streaming overall. It generates this FOMO excitement. It's really good for limited edition product launches, especially in specific categories, especially when it's driven by a fun creator. But it has to be combined with all different types of other sales channels.

(08:17):

And your point about inventory is great. They haven't solved for that. Meta has Meta checkout, it's had a lot of problems. They indicated that they were going to start making all merchants offer Meta checkout this year. I don't actually know if that happened. I think they may have delayed some of that rollout, but I could see them pushing that even further next year. I don't know. It's a good caveat.

Marcus Johnson (08:40):

Paul.

Jasmine Enberg (08:42):

That was quick.

Paul Verna (08:44):

I'm in as well. I always got the impression that when Meta backtracked on live shopping, it was as much about the difficult moment they were in late 22, 23 then an indictment of the experience. And I defer to my colleagues who are experts in social and commerce, which I'm not, but I do get the sense that there's a little bit more uptake in the concept of live shopping than there was in the US right now. And that could be true with or without a TikTok ban. So even if TikTok is not banned, I think there's rationale for other social platforms going in this direction.

Jasmine Enberg (09:22):

Yeah, I'm not saying that a lot of people are going to use it. I'm just going to say that Meta is going to bring it back.

Suzy Davidkhanian (09:28):

If that's the prediction, I'm all in. I don't know. It's not a one-to-one just because TikTok, whether it gets banned or not, even if it's the same influencers and creators doing things, if it's the exact same programming, it's not going to work. So you have to find the right channel that fits your product and brand and you can't just assume that each channel is equivalent even within the Meta products. So I think if all of the friction points are addressed, then it'll be a huge win for them. But will they try and redo it? Yeah, absolutely. I agree.

Paul Verna (09:57):

I'm also in, because I was told yesterday never to bet against Jasmine and I actually knew that 12 years ago when she started working with us. Is that the right timeframe, Jasmine or am I off?

Jasmine Enberg (10:07):

That is the right timeframe and you guys are all making me blush.

Marcus Johnson (10:12):

Three people all saying that they're in on Jasmine's prediction, a great start to the episode. Suzy, no pressure.

Suzy Davidkhanian (10:18):

Well ready for what is unlikely but very specific prediction. So there are a lot of retailers that are going through bankruptcies and I think what we forget is that bankruptcy is a mechanism to reorganize and restructure. The latest one in the super hot off the press is Party City. It's already gone through one bankruptcy. They came back to do exactly what they were already doing, but with new funding and reduce debt load. And I don't think that's going to work. That is why they are now proposing to go into bankruptcy again. What I think is going to happen is that they're going to file for bankruptcy and then a big box retailer, especially a one category one like a Home Depot or someone like a Costco that's not really strong and party supplies is going to either partner with them or outright purchase them. Although I never do well with the purchase ones' predictions, but there's going to be some sort of partnership.

(11:12):

And this came to me because when I was in Canada over the weekend, Party City has a whole pop-up partnership situation with Canadian Tire and it is so easy to shop, the signage is there. Party City is globally run. It's over stored in the US. They have too many skews. It's hard to be margin positive. There isn't a lot of reasons why you would go to a Party City unless you're doing a party. It's not a high traffic driver, but if you partner and you're at a Costco or at a Home Depot, then you're going to have that traffic and people are going to buy more impulse things. So I don't think the brand will ever go away. I just think that calling it bankrupt and trying again in the exact same business model is not going to work for them.

Marcus Johnson (11:53):

Is this a big box retailer that buys them and has mini Party City's within their store? Or how are you envisioning this?

Suzy Davidkhanian (12:01):

Yes.

Marcus Johnson (12:02):

Well, okay.

Suzy Davidkhanian (12:02):

I'm envisioning that they will go bankrupt, but before they're fully gone, I don't think someone will buy their brand. I think they're going to buy... Because Party City also is well known for its manufacturing capabilities and they have some secret sauce, plus they have a lot of brand love and they're the biggest party supply store and they already do pop-ups. I just think they don't do the pop-ups year round in the right spaces that already get a lot of traffic. And so if you think about a Home Depot where people are going and even Home Depot has more and more categories. Now they have Lysol and they have other sort of CPG things. It's not just home hardware stuff. So I think someone needs to find the right channel that is a big box.

Marcus Johnson (12:46):

Isn't the problem here though that people were just buying the things that they were selling, Party City was selling online? And so if a big box retailer buys them, aren't they going to think to themselves we can buy them. But the same problem is still true is that people are buying party supplies on the internet.

Suzy Davidkhanian (13:01):

So they're buying party supplies sometimes. I think it depends on what you're buying. Party City is really well known for the balloons, but I think from what I understand, the bigger part of their problem is that their sales aren't... They weren't able to recover from their COVID sales lump. So I don't think that the problem for Party City is that everybody's buying things online. I actually think that they have a lot of competition at the Target, Walmart's and also at the Dollar Store. It's not a repetitive activity.

(13:32):

You don't typically go to a Party City to be like, "Oh my God, I'm going to just throw a party, let me go." It's not something that's a habitual thing that you're doing. It's very occasion driven. And so they're more likely to get impulse purchases if you are in another big box. But the reason I didn't pick Target at Walmart, because they already have an extensive party collection, so Target, Walmart are not going to benefit from it. But if you think about a Costco, they don't really have a good party selection at all. And so for a partnership to work, it has to help both brands and in this case it'll be much better for... Party City couldn't figure it out, which is sad.

Jasmine Enberg (14:08):

I will admit that I don't know a lot about the space, but what you said just really resonated with me that people... These are impulse purchases from people who are browsing the stores. So question for you, would this be a year round pop-up within a big box or would this be a seasonal thing?

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:23):

It would be year round, similar to the Disney store in a JCPenney, but they would merchandise with seasonal things like Halloween and Christmas and birthdays or whatever it is Valentine's Day. It would just be sort of a shop in shop.

Paul Verna (14:38):

So the prediction is that they will declare bankruptcy but reorganize in that concept?

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:45):

Through some sort of big box partnership because to do what they're already doing now is not going to work.

Marcus Johnson (14:52):

I think I'm in Suzy.

Jasmine Enberg (14:53):

Yeah, I don't hate it. I'm in too.

Suzy Davidkhanian (14:55):

Stop.

Paul Verna (14:57):

As long as they've reorganized with the slogan, tonight we're going to party like it's 2029.

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:03):

I'll take that for a full point.

Marcus Johnson (15:07):

I was actually kidding. I'm only half in, but it's-

Paul Verna (15:10):

Party pooper.

Marcus Johnson (15:11):

Sorry.

Suzy Davidkhanian (15:13):

Marcus, you did that because... You didn't need to give me the pity points, but this is where you should give me the pity points of the full point.

Marcus Johnson (15:19):

Full point, not happening. But one full one from Paul, one from Jasmine, half from me. So not a bad second prediction there from Suzy. Paul is going to finish off the episode with his final prediction.

Paul Verna (15:30):

My prediction is that Disney will sell off its stakes in many of its broadcast TV and cable networks. This would likely include A&E, FX, History, Lifetime, National Geo and Vice, likely not included would be ESPN and the Disney branded channels like the Disney Channel and Disney Junior. The wild card is the ABC group because selling it off would mean Disney would basically exit the news business. But there could be rationale for this given that ABC News has been in the crosshairs of the incoming administration and for Disney to just unload it would probably be a relief in some ways. But I think regardless of whether ABC is part of it, selling the generally underperforming, mostly cable, some broadcast assets would be along the lines of what Comcast just did with some of the NBC Universal networks.

Marcus Johnson (16:28):

Yeah, surprised they haven't sold them off already?

Paul Verna (16:32):

I'm somewhat surprised because I think it was maybe three quarters ago in one of the investor calls, Bob Iger basically said they were on the table and at the time it looked like they were toast. He has since backtracked and in the last earnings call talked about not only that they're staying put with them, but also that they're not looking for a big acquisition target. So in terms of major M&A activity with Disney, right now, it doesn't seem likely, but I think with these networks, even though they've signaled that they're not actively shopping them, I think that in the next 6 to 12 months they're going to do something along those lines.

Jasmine Enberg (17:12):

I got to say, Paul, I'm in. You sold me. I mean just looking at the research in terms of how viewership habits have changed, I mean it makes sense in the broader scheme of things. I mean we just published a report about how social network users are going to overtake linear TV users for the first time next year. And then you've got social ad spending really starting to put pressure on linear TV ad spending. And Disney of course is Disney plus. And streaming services are of course where so many eyeballs are. So in that context for me, I'm in. One point for you.

Marcus Johnson (17:49):

Wow.

Paul Verna (17:50):

Thank you. I agree that well, I'll say that Disney has said consistently for a long time now that they see themselves as a streaming-first business and that's the direction they're going in. I will also say, Jasmine, to your point about social network usage and linear TV viewership, that next year is also the year that retail media ad spending will drastically surpass linear TV ad spending. And then those numbers are just going to keep diverging in favor of retail media.

Suzy Davidkhanian (18:22):

Me too, I'm in, but I'm in for the reason that I found that Disney has a lot of different properties that don't co-mingle very well together, so they can't scale some of their backend operations. And so as you're thinking about budgets and where you should be spent incremental dollars and where the value is, it seems very normal that they want to have standalone business units that are not weighing down other properties that are more successful.

Marcus Johnson (18:50):

Before I open up the wallet, Paul, really quickly, I understand their reason for wanting to sell them. Who's going to buy them?

Paul Verna (18:57):

Well, that question came up when Comcast made its announcement, what a month or two ago? I don't think there's a clear answer. I think private equity is one of the areas that gets mentioned the most. But I also think that with the more of these cable channels that are basically cut loose from their parent companies, the more there is a possibility that someone will buy them as a unit. So all of these channels together under one roof could actually start making a little bit of sense. I mean there's still the issue that viewership is declining and it's not the business that it once was, but if you do have enough scale and economies of scale, then maybe that makes sense. But it's a big question and I don't think there's a clear answer right now.

Marcus Johnson (19:45):

Yeah, half in. Very non-committal today. Just today? All the time. Very nice. So that's our three predictions for today. Jasmine saying Meta will bring back live shopping, Suzy says Party City will file for bankruptcy and Paul says that Disney will sell off most of its broadcast TV and cable networks. That's all we've got time for today's episode. Thank you so, so much to my guests for hanging out with me today and spending a bit of time with me yesterday as well. Thank you first to Jasmine.

Jasmine Enberg (20:09):

Thanks for having me. I'm about to go into a rabbit hole about the time that Disney almost acquired Twitter because of Paul's prediction now.

Marcus Johnson (20:18):

Yes, indeed. She's this week's winner of the episode. Congratulations to her. Thank you so much to Suzy as well.

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:24):

Thanks for having me.

Marcus Johnson (20:25):

Kidding. There's no winner, Suzy. Don't worry.

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:28):

I did everything I had to, but it was very well deserved and I am very grateful that you keep inviting me even though I don't get a lot of points.

Marcus Johnson (20:36):

Absolutely. And Paul, thank you so much for being on as well, sir.

Paul Verna (20:40):

Thanks for having me. And as I always say, it really doesn't matter whether you win or lose. It just matters whether you win.

Suzy Davidkhanian (20:46):

I like it. I thought that's what I said.

Marcus Johnson (20:52):

Thank you so much to Victoria who edits the show. Stuart runs the team. Sophie does our social media. And thanks everyone for listening into the Behind the Numbers Daily, an eMarketer podcast made possible by LiveRamp. Tomorrow, you can hang out with Sara Lebow as well as Suzy. Again Suzy Davidkhanian, as well as Blake Droesch and Sky Canaves, where they'll all be speaking about which retailers deserve our very highly coveted 2024 Retailer Awards.