At the DLD NYC conference, L2 Founder Scott Galloway called out winners and losers of the digital age based on 5,000 data points across 11 biggest markets. Galloway said since the U.S. GDP is growing at a rate of 2%, for any company growing at a higher rate another is slowing down.
In social, Galloway said the transition from images to text will drive growth for most communities. Humans have been communicating with words for thousands of years, with text for hundreds of years, and with images for millions of years. Therefore, they process visuals 40x faster than words. He said Instagram and WeChat are the winners in social, while former winner Sina Weibo and Pinterest are losers. Twitter is paying the price for being late to the visual.
In retail, Galloway said Amazon is a winner because it is ahead in what consumers want most: same day delivery, being able to look at products on their smartphones, and pull up their loyalty program in the store. 75% of Amazon’s costs is fulfillment and technology, a guide for where retailers should spend their money.
Globally, Galloway said the emerging market middle class is winning. The population of abject poor has been cut in half in the past 20 years, and in their place is a middle class with disposable income to buy. The middle class in developed countries is losing as those countries move towards a winner-take-all ecosystem.