The consumer electronics (CE) market is no longer a slow-moving, product-first industry. Insights from guests on the BRAVE COMMERCE podcast reveal that success today hinges on a unified, agile approach that transforms every touchpoint into a commerce opportunity. CE brands must fully embrace eCommerce enablement to drive brand profitability and satisfy modern consumer preferences.
Here are the ten most critical best practices for CE brands to achieve eCommerce enablement that drives sustained growth.
1. Unify Media Strategy for Commerce Media
CE brands must move beyond siloed marketing and sales budgets to embrace a unified media strategy. Energizer epitomizes this shift, moving from a "bolt-on" to a "built-together" approach by consolidating national media, shopper marketing, and content development under a single leader. This structure drives greater efficiency by forcing the organization to view media allocation holistically from a "consumer lens" rather than separating A&P from trade budgets.
2. Define the Right Problem Statement
A critical first step in any commercial turnaround is to objectively assess and align the entire organization on a single, correct problem statement. Brands often misidentify the root issue, such as mistaking a technology roadmap problem for a go-to-market problem or vice versa. Dell, for instance, rallied the company around the fact that Dell.com was no longer on the list of top B2C eCommerce sites, turning a frustrating reality into the decisive problem statement that required fixing.
3. Prioritize Contextual Creative
Effective marketing in CE relies on developing creative that directly matches the consumer's mindset and journey. Energizer segments its portfolio based on buying behavior: "clicky" for impulse products like batteries, and "scrolly" for considered products like auto care. Contextual creative is tailored accordingly, with auto care requiring more focus on social media to facilitate "discovery behavior.” This approach ensures the right message reaches the right person at the right time in the purchase funnel.
4. Focus on Benefit-Led Messaging
Brands must stop talking in technical jargon and start communicating "what's in it for the consumer.” Samsung changed its entire marketing approach to become benefit-led, moving away from technical terms like "quantum dots" and "OLED." Instead, they use simple language like "three reasons that make this TV awesome" or "here's why you should buy Samsung". This clear messaging is crucial for engaging consumers and is a key outcome of aligning the organization's voice.
5. Operationalize Content at Scale
Winning in the marketplace requires testing and optimizing content at a massive scale that traditional marketing could never achieve. Bose uses an AI engine and specialized partners to create and test hundreds of pieces of creative and shoppable content. This automated, dynamic process allows them to optimize for platform, audience, and product (e.g., content for TikTok versus YouTube) to find the best-performing combinations. The result? Reliable commerce insights.
6. Implement Rigorous Change Management
Driving successful turnarounds and long-term momentum requires implementing a rigorous Business Management System (BMS). Dell found that enforcing the BMS was vital for managing change, as it established regular decision-making cadences, forced crossfunctional members to be regularly visible, and ensured accountability. Philips, through the eCommerce Excellence team, reinforces their BMS by having documented frameworks for KPIs and fostering empathy and listening among stakeholders to overcome complexity and drive consistency.
7. Embrace Consumer-Driven Fandom
The most successful CE brands generate demand by solving problems that consumers haven't even articulated yet, leading to powerful earned media and virality. SharkNinja operates with a North Star of being a "consumer problem-solving engine". This focus led to them creating the home slushy machine market, resulting in 175,000 consumers on a waitlist. This organic interest and user-generated content validate the product and generate disproportionate demand.
8. Gain Advanced Commerce Insights
Winning brands leverage sophisticated eCommerce analytics to gain deep commerce insights. Samsung relies on specialized digital shelf analytics to track both brand health metrics and conversion/sales data. Philips started its eCommerce Excellence journey by focusing on the Digital Shelf, tracking availability, content, ratings, and reviews, and visibility as foundational KPIs. This focus is essential for capturing real-time consumer intent.
9. Integrate Product & Marketing
In a technology-driven industry, the relationship between marketing and product development is crucial. Bose highlights that a strong relationship between the two teams allows for real-time market insights from the commerce media initiatives to be funneled back into opportunities to develop product or UX. Philips' ideal "blue sky" commercial model would burn the divide between sales and marketing, recognizing that both functions are ultimately working toward the same goal of category growth.
10. Leverage Shoppable Media Solutions
CE brands must capitalize on the shift to shoppable media by creating shoppable content that converts demand immediately. The integration of commerce into channels like CTV is accelerating, necessitating the use of where to buy solutions. SharkNinja views the retailer's platforms, including their retail media networks, as partners in amplifying the demand they've already generated, focusing on complementing their viral shoppable social media efforts.
The Mandate for Modern CE Brands
The journey of the Consumer Electronics brand today is one of strategic evolution, demanding courage and precision. The key takeaway from these industry leaders is that simply building a great product is no longer enough; success is guaranteed only by achieving eCommerce enablement through total commercial alignment. From unifying commerce media to operationalizing shoppable content, the mandate is clear: be market-led, be agile, and be brave. By embracing the rigor of the Business Management System (BMS) and channeling customer insights directly into innovation, CE brands can move from simply reacting to the market to defining its future, ensuring brand profitability and loyalty among modern consumers.
