... a “think tank approach” to their findings, which were unveiled at the FMI's professional development conference in Olando Florida.

During the conference FMI president/ceo Leslie G Sarasin presented an overview of the FMI's future analysis in her address which posited a sobering reality - yet one poised for market possibilities, offering data analytics from interviews with CPG executives and retailers.

Although consumer demand has remained flat, which is modestly disproportionate to the population growth over the past 15-20 years, the industry has witnessed an explosion in its capacity.

Ms Sarasin suggested that retailers will be evaluating alternative ways to address consumers’ need for value, convenience and safe foods by focusing their growth strategies on the overall shopper experience.

Discussing the FMI report's future vision, Sarasin said: “The leaders in our industry kept coming back to three key words to describe the future food retail experience: Personal, Digital and Virtual.”

A broad range of key drivers will determine the success of instore marketing and merchandising programmes over the next decade. Today, price and convenience continue to trump other consumer trends in garnering shopper attention in store.

Outside of health and beauty care and pharmacy, health and wellness–based themes are the third most common platform for displays, behind price-only and snack/meal solutions.

Read the original unabridged Booz.com article.

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... strong demand in China to offset weak sales in Europe.

According to Trolin, teledining has become popular with people who don't want to lose time traveling between megacities to eat with friends or business colleagues.

Teledining enables one group eating at a restaurant in one city to connect with friends in a different city via teleconferencing.

Another trend, currently peculiat to China, is young people's preference for voice messages rather than texting or e-mailing.

Says Trolin: "A voice message is more lively than a text and can be listened to at the recipient's convenience, while a call could come at an inappropriate moment. He himself has become accustomed to using his phone primarily to send and receive voice messages.

He declined to say what BMW will do to tap into these trends, but history shows that the automaker is willing to cater to Chinese tastes. 

An example of which is the preference of Chinese customers for long-wheelbase versions of mid-sized and compact sedans.

"Not because they are chauffeur driven but to offer more legroom to their friends and family members as a sign of high respect," explains Gerhard Steinie, director of the Shanghai studio of BMW Group's DesignWorks subsidiary.

Read the original unabridged AdAge.com article. 

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... “fifty percent of all ad impressions are never seen.”

Bander, who recently won the Advertising Research Foundation’s Great Mind Award for helping to develop the innovative media tracking technology, cites the aphorism coined by William Lever, the founder of Unilever: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half."

“Now,” says Bander, “we know which half.”

Utilizing the webcams built into consumers' own computers and handheld devices, Bander says Sticky has already tracked ads actually seen, or not, among 350,000 consumers.

That figure approximates to 700,000 eyeballs, creating a new form of media currency that some of the biggest advertisers in the world - among them Procter & Gamble - have already begun to use.

Madison Avenue is pushing the online industry to adopt a new standard of “viewability” for advertising exposure, meaning an ad has to be viewable on a consumer’s screen -- not “below-the-fold” -- for at least one second to be credited as an ad exposure. Fifty percent of impressions are never seen.

“Viewability is nice, but viewability just means that an ad is within the viewable area of a screen,” notes Bander, adding: “It doesn’t mean a consumer is actually looking at your ad.”
 

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... the purchase or rental of video or audio content from an internet provider, such as cable television, video on demand or an IPTV video service like AT&T U-Verse.

OTTC specifically refers to content that arrives from a third party, for example Netflix, Hulu or MyTV, and is delivered to an end user device, leaving the internet service provider responsible solely for transporting IP packets.

Worldwide OTTC video revenue continues its sharp growth - with Netflix, Hulu, Apple, and Amazon driving the business.

According to ABI Research, the OTTC market - valued at $8 billion in 2012 - grew at a near 60% increase over the previous year. Continued rapid growth will push the market past $20 billion by 2015.

Much of this will occur as traditional entertainment content providers become more comfortable with new media distributors/platforms.

Comments ABI senior analyst Michael Inouye: “The shift to digital and OTT distribution is accelerating, particularly as content providers increasingly warm up to these channels.

ABI notes that the three biggest markets - North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific - enjoyed year-on-year growth in excess of 50% in 2012.

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... stand the test of time.

In his Huffington Post blog Mr Yuill writes: "My prediction is firmly guided by data. ComScore recently reported that Americans watched 11.3 billion video ads in December, setting a new peak, and a sharp 10% rise from November's 10.3 billion."

December 2012 ad views were twice as many as in January 2012, representing 59% year-on-year growth. Video ads accounted for 22.6% of all videos viewed in December, and 1.9% of time spent viewing video online. 

Now three months into 2013, I feel ever more confident [about my prediction] given the astronomical speed at which video advertising has grown in popularity. All signs point to the death of banner and static ads. Here's why:

1. Consumers love video; not just cat memes, but original content. And they watch a lot of video online. Nielsen says Americans spent more than 360 billion minutes online in December 2012 and streamed 24.6 billion videos.
    
2. Consumers watch video ads. After 60 years of television we have learned to watch the ads to get to the content. Yes, we know you want to get to your show, but often the ads are entertaining, visual and mercifully brief - and getting more interactive by the day.
    
3. Advertisers like video ads because consumers watch them. From August this year, market research company Nielsen will validate the astronomical shift to online video by including videos viewed on tablet and mobile devices in their ratings measures. This will provide advertisers with the data they need to shift their spend to online video in even greater numbers.
    
4. Consumers are buying (lots of) tablets. The global market for tablet computers surged 78.4% last year, according to research firm IDC, and sales are on schedule to pass PCs by 2017.
    
5. Tablets and smart phones make watching video easy in the bedroom, train, couch, park bench, and, ahem, bathroom.
    
6. Tablets make shopping easy and you can bet your last dollar that online retailers took notice last Thanksgiving and Christmas, so expect a monumental change in online sales strategies this year and increased consumer purchases via mobile and tablet.
    
7. If consumers are buying on their tablets, guess where advertisers will want to run their ads?
    
8. 4G will make watching video anywhere seamless. Did someone say "conversation killer?"
    
9. Banner ads do not work, but you already knew that.
    
10. Advertisers Can't Ignore The Numbers. As advertisers are beginning to embrace tablet advertising in virtually every case they want video in their ad units. Consumers are watching those video ads hundreds of times more than they are clicking on banner ads.

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... $75 billion, an increase of 14% over five years.

At the current rate, it will be some time before digital ad spending surpasses TV in the USA, though it's expected to grow at a much faster rate (18%) over the next five years.

Advertisers spent an estimated $37.3 billion on digital advertising this year, and are expected to invest $60.4 billion in 2017. (Ad revenues from digital outpaced TV ad revenues in the UK in 2009.) 

Of course, broadcast and cable networks, many of which have built out digital extensions of their own, will partake of some of that increase.

Spending on digital video ads is expected to reach $4.14 billion this year, more than double the amount invested in 2011.

Read the original unabridged Mashable.com article.

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... placing billboards, advertisements and even truck-sized products in consumers' favorite TV shows and movies.

According to Forbes.com: "The degree of realism that MirriAd is able to achieve makes possible a new reality of advertising and promotion that could be hard [for viewers] to get used to."

Forbes recalls the video in which the Coca-Cola logo that appears behind Tom Hanks in one of the bench scenes in Forest Gump.

Rhetorically Forbes asks: "Did that not seem a tad grotesque? Was the Special K cereal box a little bit too front and center in the Cosby family’s eat-in kitchen?"

But "product placement is not a cutting edge concept, of course", Forbes observes. "Sporting events have used this type of technology for a while now, we see billboards and ads on almost every avenue of any city, and we’re surrounded by marketing almost all the time.

"Just walk through the main thoroughfares of New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong or anywhere people congregate. What makes MirriAd’s technology so scary is that it’s quite possible we ain’t seen nothin’ yet".

Should it prove profitable, producers may feel more and more pressure to fill as much space in film and TV scenes with brands, ads and digitally rendered products, cluttering screens with logos and primary colors.

Speaking of which, might politics get into the act as well?

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... “how brands traditionally influence shoppers at the shelf.” 

Instead of clipping printed coupons or downloading a mobile app, Visible Brands displays discounts on a touch-screen device right in the store's aisles.

To activate a coupon, the shopper simply touches the screen, and the digital coupon is wirelessly connected to a cart or basket. The discount is then applied at checkout, showing up on the receipt.

According to the company, 70% of purchasing decisions are made in the grocery aisle, not whilst watching TV or reading a magazine.

Few marketers would disagree with Morton's contention that "connecting with shoppers at the time of purchase is critical".

The technology also enables retailers to send customised offers to high-value shoppers, using predictive analytics to determine discounts that might be worth displaying. This can result in more frequent shopping trips and increased profits for stores.

Visible Brands has also been working closely on the offering with technology partners Microsoft and HP. In a recent interview with the Windows Azure team, Morton offered a more detailed explanation of how the technology works.

Read the original unabridged GeekWire.com article.

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... (say) mass produced sushi into the finest such delicacy money can buy.

According to Oxford University experimental psychologist Charles Spence, the mere sight of exotic food or a fine cognac, when harnessed to a virtual reality headset, can simulate the experience of ingesting it - at a fraction of the cost of the real McCoy.

Among Mr Spence's bluechip clients are Unilever, McDonald's, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, BMW, Mars, Nestlé, Starbucks and LG Electronics.

The psychologist has just entered into a venture with WPP Group agency JWT and will act as that agency's head of sensory marketing, working with it's global clients.

Speaking at Advertising Week Europe in London, Spence discussed opportunities for marketers to use sensory marketing.

Manipulating the senses, and the way those senses communicate with each other, has long been used to enhance a product's appeal, but technology offers new ways for brands to interact with consumers.

Food and drink are naturally at the forefront of sensory marketing, but the focus is not just on taste and smell.

The crunch of Pringles is no accident – it is the product of nuanced research, where consumers were fitted with headphones and given a variety of "crunch" noises as they bite on chips. Their responses to the taste were affected by the sounds they heard as they munched.

Courvoisier cognac has developed a whole marketing program called 'Le Nez de Courvoisier' to exploit the various tastes and aromas of the brand.

An app and a website provide soundtracks to enhance the experience of drinking Courvoisier.

If you like the candied orange flavor, for example, you listen to a particular track to bring out that taste, and there are others for fans of crème brulée or ginger biscuits.

While for garment advertising, says Spence, "You can change the soundtrack according to what [clothing] you're trying on. Using winter music or sounds when you've got a coat, or sunnier sounds if you're trying on beachwear."

Read the original unabridged AdAge article.

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... low conversion rates driven by lack of timeliness and engagement. 

According to B2B blogger and marketing guru Paul Dunay, back in the mid-twentieth century new media such as radio, TV and film enabled brands and their ad agencies to dynamically demonstrate product benefits in ways unachievable by earlier static advertising.

Fundamentally, however, says Dunay: "The way we communicated never changed. We were always talking at consumers and never with them. For a long time, that was all we could do. It was all the technologies allowed. Fortunes were made by pushing ads into every conceivable media channel, trying to lure consumers into buying the advertised product. And it worked."

But with the advent of the internet era, and later the the mobile-to-app era, there is a fundamental a change in the relationship between brands and their audiences.

Almost overnight people are no longer tethered to a static terminal and consumers are empowered to interact with brands via advertising, products and packaging at the moment of their interest. No longer do they have to wait until they arrive home or log-in to the office computer. They can do it right here. Right now.

We have entered the 'Age of the Consumer', an era in which, avers Forrester Research, control has shifted from advertiser to consumer.

Behavioral studies show that when an individual seeks information about something and is able to act upon it, the conversion of that intent will be 70% more efficient than a classical push ad. It becomes even more so if marketers add the ability to engage the user in a conversation about a product in which he/she is interested or likes.

Innovative companies, like Vine and mobile marketing platform smartsy, have latched-on to this wave by creating apps and software that enable a dialogue between a brand and its audience, when and where the consumer wants.

Such technology opens a realm of near endless possibilities of content creation, while increasing conversion rates dramatically.

Evangelises blogger Dunay: "Audience participation isn’t just allowed; it’s encouraged. Hell, it’s necessary. By not only providing consumers with information in the moment of their interest, but also engaging them in conversation and empowering them to create their own content, we can drastically increase the relevancy of messaging and its authenticity."

Read the original unabridged Forbes.com article.

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