LTK Partners With The Bachelor to Launch Shoppable TV | Social Commerce Gets Real
LTK is teaming up with The Bachelor to turn binge-watching into shopping. In this episode, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, Infios, and ClearDemand, Chris and Anne break down how this partnership modernizes product placement with real-time affiliate links and seamless in-app shopping. Could this model reshape the future of commerce on TV—and are Bachelor fans ready to shop while they watch?
📺 Can reality TV drive real-time retail?
⏱️ Time Stamps:
0:00 – LTK and The Bachelor launch shoppable social commerce experience
0:34 – $5B in sales, 40M monthly shoppers on LTK
1:12 – Chris on product placement evolution & affiliate revenue aggregation
2:20 – Will fans actually shop?
2:56 – Strategic edge: no brand contracts required
4:02 – Endless catalog access and retroactive content monetization
4:43 – Potential long-term value and traffic funnel
5:02 – The looming question: LTK vs. Google Lens and evolving shopping habits
#thebachelor #ltk #socialcommerce #ShoppableTV #retailinnovation #affiliatemarketing #influencers #RealityTVShopping #RetailFastFive #omnitalk
For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/AUSpdi73JPk
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
LTK is partnering with the Bachelor franchise to launch a social commerce experience.
Speaker A:According to an LTK press release, the official Bachelor Nation, which Chris, you are a part of, I became a part of with Golden Bachelor.
Speaker A:The LTK channel is now available and introducing a new way for fans to engage with their favorite reality TV franchise.
Speaker A:The new channel allows fans to shop fashion, beauty, and home products that have that cast have worn and used through the LTK consumer app.
Speaker A:So, for background, for those of you who are not familiar with LTK, they claim they drive more than $5 billion in sales annually and reach 40 million monthly shoppers across its platform, and that nearly 40% of US adult Gen Z and millennial women use LTK today.
Speaker A:So, Chris, wow, you're claiming that you were once a devout bachelor fan.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But could you ever see shopping Bachelor wares via l.
Speaker B:Ever, ever?
Speaker A:Have you ever shopped ltk?
Speaker B:No, I hadn't.
Speaker B:And this is now you can.
Speaker B:This was kind of blowing my radar screen.
Speaker B:You were much more familiar with this than I would.
Speaker B:And that volume is pretty insane if that's the amount of volume they're pushing through it.
Speaker B:And yes, I.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I was a huge Bachelor fan.
Speaker B:Now I'm probably a lapsed bachelor fan.
Speaker B:And my good.
Speaker A:Did golden get you back on?
Speaker B:No, it didn't.
Speaker B:I need to give it another world, though.
Speaker B:I need to get back on the Bachelor bandwagon because those were great years in my life, actually.
Speaker B:You know, got the community going.
Speaker B:You know, I got into, like, Jen Zacharias, good friend of ours.
Speaker B:Like, she always talk about it, but.
Speaker B:But anyway, yeah, I love the show.
Speaker B:So, you know, but when I think about this story, I think the way I'd sum this up is I just think it's new age product placement, but with two big differences strategically.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:One is attribution.
Speaker B:You know, the second one is possibly traffic.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But product, that's the second.
Speaker B:That's a big if.
Speaker B:Is the traffic that you can get from this.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:So product placement's been around forever.
Speaker B:Like, you know, I think of the Snapple Seinfeld, where he opens the fridge, he's like, do you want a Snapple?
Speaker B:You know, it's like, come on.
Speaker B:And con.
Speaker B:And the content studios have been trying to attribute product placement in all sorts of ways.
Speaker B:You've had, like, shoppable video come into the fore.
Speaker B:You've had QR codes on screen, all of which just kind of leave something to be desired.
Speaker B:So this is.
Speaker B:This is better than that, in my opinion.
Speaker A:Okay, right.
Speaker B:I'm not going to go shop for.
Speaker B:To answer your question, I'm not going to go shop for bats or stuff because that's just not what I'm interested in.
Speaker B:But I think there probably potentially are people that would.
Speaker B:But the big question then becomes traffic.
Speaker B:How much traffic will this partnership bring to the Bachelor franchise via the LTK platform?
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, I think it's a good experiment because the volume that's accrued through the platform is all additive for the Bachelor and it gives them a way to conglomerate all their affiliate revenue in.
Speaker B:And here's the other part.
Speaker B:In one easy way, all in one place.
Speaker B:Like any item that they want to put through this platform, they can probably easily, easily attribute or I'm guessing that's what they're trying to do.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And so that's going to make it a much more easier proposition for them to reach consumers.
Speaker B:But the question is, will the consumers come?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's the.
Speaker B:If you build it, will they come, you know, conundrum and I don't know.
Speaker B:But if they've got that much traffic.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Ambassador fans are pretty rabid, like, right?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:It seems like a good idea.
Speaker B:This could be something in the long run.
Speaker B:Like, it makes me think about, huh, does this become a new shopping platform in general, especially with that type of revenue already?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I think it's such a no brainer experiment, Chris, because, you know, you, you think about the benefit here that's different than product placement in shows is that the Bachelor doesn't have to negotiate with any of the brands for these contracts.
Speaker A:They just let the money funnel in.
Speaker A:They're getting.
Speaker A:It's an entirely new revenue.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They just have to have approval for the affiliate links, right?
Speaker A:No, not even.
Speaker A:They just gotta set them up.
Speaker A:No, you can just go like the, the way that these work is like, you know, once you have a.
Speaker A:Once you're signed up for LTK or you're one of their people, access their catalog.
Speaker A:You get access to the catalog.
Speaker A:So all you do is drop in a link.
Speaker A:There's no bounds.
Speaker A:They can go back to the very first Bachelor season and if that pair of heels that the Bachelorette is wearing are still available, you can take that.
Speaker A:So there's endless amount of revenue to get here.
Speaker A:And you know, I can get Juan.
Speaker B:Pablo's sucker shorts in if they still exist.
Speaker B:Now we're talking.
Speaker A:Yes, you can.
Speaker A:Yes, you can.
Speaker A:So for me, I think it just makes sense.
Speaker A:It's one, one way for them to further the engagement with their fans to make products shoppable, to not have to deal with any brand negotiations, to just let the revenue come in as people are, are buying things.
Speaker A:They only get money when people buy things.
Speaker A:So it's, there's really no harm in this.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, the, the shopping experience, the LTK like user experience is pretty straightforward.
Speaker A:The only thing that I am wondering here, like, I think this makes sense right now.
Speaker A:There's no harm in trying it.
Speaker A:But will, as, as search continues to evolve and as people are using tools like Google Lens already to do this on any show that they want, like will, will that continue to be a pattern of behavior that people go to?
Speaker A:Will they go to the LTK app or will they just, you know, pull their phones out, take a picture of whatever they see on the show and then they're, they're going to Google to buy it?
Speaker A:But why not?
Speaker B:Well, LTK could still be in a good position in that strategy too that you're talking about.
Speaker B:Like if they're the ones that have the great search data that pops up on Google and then you end up on ltk, that's also a win, win there too.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's something to watch for sure.
Speaker B:It's really interesting.
