Now more than ever, brands are “taking stands”—challenging the status quo, and their competitors. It’s a popular phrase, and an evolving idea in today’s social and political moment, not to mention over the past decade as corporate responsibility and sustainability has risen in prominence to the C-suite and beyond.

As we analyze key takeaways from Nielsen’s past two years of sponsorship valuation data and research around fan behavior and preferences, it’s evident that esports stakeholders have a lot to look forward to in the coming months.

There are many problems and challenges ahead of us. We also have many possibilities and options to wade through as we navigate the right way forward. It’s up to us to leverage the opportunities by adopting better strategies for using data and technology.

Online grocery, which currently accounts for 3%-4% of total grocery sales in New Zealand, continues to drive growth, and we expect that growth to accelerate in 2019 as retailers meet rising consumer demand with the continued rollout of their e-commerce programmes.

Some companies take the world's long-term sustainability to heart and build their entire brands around it. But even if your company isn’t ready to dive into the deep end of sustainability, it’s important to take steps in the right direction.

As companies look to break into new markets, they must understand that each market demands its own approach. In burgeoning sustainability markets, however, natural and organic are paving the way for more detailed and specific claims.

Choosing the right marketing mix modeling vendor has a huge impact on your overall marketing effectiveness and business growth. To help you avoid regretting your decision, get the answers to these five questions before taking the plunge.

Modern marketers have a number of tools to drive growth in the competitive environment which are supported by data to make confident decisions—like pricing, promotion, assortment and media. But when we talk to marketers about growth, no lever is cited more often than innovation.

It’s rational that shoppers would be willing to pay more for a product that is of a higher demonstrated quality or value, but there is also a more subjective component that factors into many shoppers’ ideas of what premium means.

Christmas is an important time of year for the alcohol industry in the U.K., as off-trade alcohol sales over the 12 weeks of Christmas account for around a sixth of all Christmas fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales and a third of total annual off-trade alcohol sales.

As 2018 starts to wind down, economic and consumer spending trends for a majority of markets around the world are in better standing than they were earlier in the year.

Confidence on a global scale ended the third quarter two points higher than in the previous period and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sales in many countries are trending upward as a result.

One of the biggest is that small start-ups are generating 53% of the growth and cutting into the share of established manufacturers. And so FMCG manufacturers of all sizes are looking to the successful start-ups for inspiration on how to be more agile, but is it that simple?

Here’s a look at some of the major shifts we’re tracking to help our clients stay in prime position to capitalize on the opportunities they’ll present in the coming years.

To do it right, companies need to invest in truly understanding their consumers and embed sustainability into their brand’s foundation. Authenticity comes through the end-to-end integration of sustainability into your processes and complete transparency with consumers along the way.

As manufacturers and retailers seek to capitalize on the opportunity of e-commerce, they need to understand consumers’ online usage, behaviour and habits, as well as what’s driving e-commerce adoption.

In today’s crowded car market, auto advertisers are hard-pressed to connect with consumers, encourage new sales, and do it all under shrinking budgets. It’s a steep challenge, and one that can only be met with a full understanding of how consumers shop for cars and how they react to automotive advertising.

Seasonality has a huge impact on OTC sales performance, and although it varies by category, 60% of sales are subject to this. We, of course, associate summer with hay fever and allergies; however, lots of other categories also enjoy the seasonal uplifts that come with summer.

It’s undisputed that internet accessibility, mobile technology and digital innovations are redefining consumers every interaction and will continue to enable and disrupt many aspects of consumers’ lifestyle well into the future.

Looking for a better lifestyle, consumers are searching for options that are healthier for them and for their homes. The good news is that companies can be benevolent and bankable if they understand the intricacies of these forces and react accordingly.

Even after the buzz of new product innovation wears off, growth is still possible. Here’s how a refined approach to price and promotion can amplify your brand proposition.

A new era of sustainability is rising and it’s touching every corner of the world. Consumers in markets big and small are increasingly motivated to be more environmentally conscious and are exercising their power and voice through the products they buy. But why do these shifts feel so urgent?

It’s well known across the media landscape that consumers in the U.S. are connecting with more content across more devices than ever before. But as an industry, we have not tapped into the truly unique opportunities presented by this increased consumption at the same pace as consumers.

Data is everywhere. As our individual behaviors leave an ever-expanding data footprint, we are faced with the challenge of making sense of all of this data and extrapolating meaningful insights to drive performance.

Agile market research can help manufacturers prototype ideas in a safe environment and identify the best possible version of each prototype before they invest in more expensive execution steps.

One of the key talking points within the FMCG and retail industry has been the threat of emerging channels and parallel imported products to their businesses. But just how serious is this threat? To obtain a credible answer to this question is like finding a needle in the haystack, as there are an increasing number of distributors and retailers competing in both the bricks & mortar and online operations across Hong Kong, not to mention the complexity of selling to both local consumers as well as the mainland Chinese tourists.

There’s been a lot of buzz around small brands right now. Smaller brands want to be the next best thing and big brands want the growth of small brands.

While they often don’t receive the same level of attention as men’s sports, a new Nielsen Sports research project highlights untapped potential and new commercial opportunities for rights holders, brands and media.

The rate of change in women’s sports is one of the most exciting trends in the sports industry right now. For rights holders, brands and the media, this represents a chance to develop a new commercial proposition and engage fans in a different way.

With rising consumer uptake across e-commerce categories, online FMCG growth is accelerating across the globe. In fact, we estimate that online FMCG growth will accelerate four times faster growth than offline sales in the next five years.

The marketing and advertising landscape in Latin America is becoming more fast paced and complex. To grow in this environment, companies must meet consumer demand for convenience and personalization and leverage digital strategies and innovation.

This report looks at the changing FMCG e-commerce landscape in eight markets (Colombia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates), influenced by 10 key drivers, along with deep insights for each of these markets.

Generally speaking, global conditions for the FMCG industry remained positive in second-quarter 2018. Some regions showed significant growth promise, while others showed a slight pullback from gains earlier in the year. With many markets experiencing notable increases in GDP growth, conditions were favorable for manufacturers and retailers.

A slight drop in consumer sentiment in the second quarter was reflected in a slight pullback in spending in certain markets, as skepticism about the future had some consumers feeling as though their free cash would be better served in savings rather than on discretionary purchases.

In recent years, companies have bowed down to big data and hailed it as the next game-changer. But even as big data keeps getting bigger, its promises somehow seem smaller.

As a business concept, agile has migrated well outside of the tech world, touting the benefits and buzz once grounded in the software space to an array of new industries and sectors. In the process, however, the meaning behind the term has frequently been misinterpreted.

Consumers have more snack choices than ever these days, and it’s changing the way they think about snacking. Premium snacks are just one sub-category that’s emerged in recent years.

If you think it’s hard to develop a marketing budget, you’re in good company. Most marketers today must do more with less. Faced with steep competition, B2C marketers need to spend every penny wisely.

Marketers often think about how important it is to communicate all of a product’s key benefits to their consumers directly on the pack—using images, colors, logos, words, typography, etc. But very often, this overload of information makes the design extremely complex and difficult to understand.

Convenience isn’t just about store formats, products or packaging. And it means more than the latest technologies or new engagement strategies. Rather, it’s about every encounter, interaction and action that can help fulfill consumers’ growing demand for efficiency.

Shortcuts and automation are top of mind as consumer chase ways to overcome everyday obstacles to effortless living. For FMCG companies, the task at hand involves adapting and enhancing their solutions to do more than keep pace—they’ll need to stay ahead of the pace.

How prepared would you be if inflation took hold again? In some ways, it has already started. Learn how to build price and promotion strategies for a fast-paced economy.

For many large, multinational global brands, other companies don’t become competition until they’re operating at the same scale and in similar markets. As a result, global companies often don’t pay much attention to the small brands that operate well outside of their global peripheral vision.

Consumers under age 30 in China are of particular interest to sports properties and brands due to their wide range of interests, international sports fandom and receptiveness to sponsorship.

For years, confectionery, crisps and soft drinks were the most popular go-to snack choices for the British consumer. But over the last five years, we’ve seen a dramatic shift in the world of snacking.

Aligning your organization toward common goals is challenging, especially when the goals change. That’s because it’s common for marketing teams to operate in silos. Most marketing organizations are split between marketing and media, and the split is compounded by multiple layers up and down the org chart.

If you can’t see it, it must not be there, right? In the FMCG market, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. That’s because every category has a certain concentration of brands that aren’t top of mind for many, but they have the ability to shift the overall landscape if conditions are right.

With the growth of streaming apps available through the TV glass come new opportunities for advertisers to connect with consumers in the living room. In the past year alone, we've seen an almost 10% increase in the number of people who have access to a connected TV device.

Decade ago, Japanese music, movies and video games were all the rage. Japanese products were widely popular and followed by Hong Kong consumers. As time goes by, this prevailing pop culture has shifted, from Japan to Korea.

The renminbi is well on its way to internationalization. This is no pipe dream, but is fast becoming a reality, and that is no truer than in Hong Kong, the world’s largest off-shore renminbi market.

From a global perspective, prospects for the remainder of the year appear largely positive. In Q1, confidence grew across Western Europe, the economic recovery in Latin America looks promising in a number of markets, dollar sales of FMCG in North America performed well, and growing disposable incomes across Asia-Pacific are having an effect well beyond the immediate region.

For the last decade or so, Millennials have been the generation that every brand has sought to engage as their spending power has grown. With this generation now past teenage years, however, digital advertisers are shifting their focus to the succeeding generation, Generation Z or Gen Z.

From a global perspective, conditions and prospects for the remainder of the year appear largely positive. In Q1, confidence grew across Western Europe, economic recovery in Latin America looks promising in key markets, FMCG sales in North America performed well, and growing disposable incomes across Asia-Pacific are having an effect beyond the immediate region.

There has never been a more dynamic and challenging time to be a marketer. Since the advent of the internet, fueled by available high-speed access and ignited by the proliferation of powerful new devices, marketers have more access to consumers than ever before.

Regardless of whether you call it football or soccer, it’s a sport with massive global appeal and fan interest. In fact, more than 40% of people 16 or older in major population centers around the world consider themselves interested or very interested in following football, more so than any other sport.

It is commonly believed that young people, especially those of Generation Z, are more attached to the online world than those in other age groups because they were born in an era of unparalleled technological progress. While there is a grain of truth in this, when you consider their overall behaviour that conclusion is rather simplistic.

The global reach of football, or soccer, is unequalled among sports in terms of value to media and sponsors. With the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 upon us, Nielsen offers a snapshot of the vast collection of data and insights surrounding the world’s most popular sport.

The DMP serves as the nervous system for your organization’s digital ecosystem helping you unify, make sense of and unlock the value of disparate streams of data, uncover and build valuable consumer audiences, and reach those high-value audiences with personalized messaging in real-time across the digital ad ecosystem.

Today, access to information is unprecedented, consumers are empowered to make smarter buying decisions and marketers have amassed immense quantities of data about consumers. Technology has transformed many industries permanently, but perhaps none as much as marketing.

Looking across thousands of product launches using Nielsen BASES' rich database, we’ve observed three common causes of innovation failure that often don’t get the attention they deserve.

We expect lifestyle, the “little and often” trend, technology and location to be four of the key influencers on shopper’s behaviour in 2018, which, if executed well, will be true foot traffic drivers for c-store retailers.

With digital now a critical channel for brands, it’s no surprise that they’re actively looking to better understand and measure returns in the space. They’re also actively looking to social media and sponsorships as a way to amplify their digital returns.

One FMCG category that is seeing significant growth, and is indicative of shifting spending in emerging markets, is beer. So what can beer tell us?

Now in place, the minimum pricing of alcohol regulation in Scotland means that a single unit of alcohol cannot be sold for less than 50p. And as a result, the stronger the drink, the more expensive it will be. So what effect might that have on consumption?

According to the Nielsen Media Index 2017 Year End Report, smartphone penetration in Hong Kong rose 5% (from 4.7 to 4.9 million users) compared with what it was in 2016.

We are at a time of unprecedented commercial opportunity in global sports. Barriers to entry have never been lower. More markets around the world than ever before are receptive to the power of sports. It’s never been easier to reach millions—even billions—of fans.

When it comes to growth, it’s hard to ignore what we’re seeing in emerging markets. In fact, they’re currently generating two-to four-times the FMCG growth of developed markets. But just because the big picture boasts big opportunity doesn’t mean capitalizing on the right opportunities is easy.

Marketers need to think more strategically beyond cheap tricks, making things pink, or adding female icons to labels to reach women.

When consumers’ self-claimed state of health is compared with their body mass index it appears that their perceptions about their state of health often do not accurately reflect the probable true state of affairs.

The only metric that never changes is sales, which begs the question: Will we eventually see an industrywide guarantee on sales?

2017 was a good year for global consumers, with consumer confidence ending the year at a near-record level. Notably, 51 markets finished the year with higher confidence than they did in 2016, and the gains were bigger than 2 points in 46 markets.

Navigating the FMCG landscape has become difficult. It’s not just the consumer path-to-purchase that’s grown in complexity. The playing field for manufacturers and retailers has evolved as well.

Given today’s competitive landscape, brands that leverage proven go-to-market strategies will likely be more successful than those that simply move forward without careful thought and preparation.

Mobile wallets are becoming increasingly popular in Hong Kong. The first market player entered the market in 2015, and since then more than 10 different brands have emerged. The emerging mar-ket as a whole is expected to grow substantially in the near future.

One consumer product category that shows promise is snack foods. A rare global growth story, snacks are satisfying consumer cravings around the world—in fact, the snacking business grew US$3.4 billion globally in 2017.

More than any other consumer industry, beauty and personal care are driven by trends. New trending ingredients, formulations, colors and brands come around every season. Walk into your average retail store and you’ll see this reflected on shelves.

There’s a new retail revolution underway, and it’s going to affect the global food industry in ways the market hasn’t seen before. The revolution comes at the hand of store-branded products, which continue to gain share across all major geographies.

While sales of fast-moving consumer goods in some traditionally successful markets like the U.S. saw signs of softness in early 2017, opportunities for growth are still readily available if you know where to look.

Financial organizations need to be digitally smart if they are to attract and keep customers

There’s a new retail revolution underway, and it’s going to affect the global food industry in ways the market hasn’t seen before. The revolution comes at the hand of store-branded products, which continue to gain share across all major geographies around the globe.

The Hong Kong economy ended 2017 with positive momentum, and this is expected to continue this year. With that positive outlook, as many as 38% surveyed advertisers said they expected the Hong Kong economy to pick up in 2018, a level of confidence greater even than that related to the global economy.

For a decade, emerging markets have ignited the global economy, contributing more than 80% to its economic expansion. Today, these markets consistently perform a remarkable three to four times better than their developed market counterparts in the FMCG industry.

Five years ago, mainstream alcohol segments drove the majority of the alcohol sales growth in New Zealand. More recently, niche products have emerged, and Kiwis are increasingly opting for more premium and unique beverage offerings.

Compared with the everyday consumer products we buy frequently, like paper towels and boxed cereal, durables have a much longer shelf life. Items like electric razors, coffee makers and irons fall into this category, and they play key roles in the everyday lives of consumers—yet in much different ways than fast-moving consumer goods do.

In the face of rapidly evolving business and economic landscapes around the world, the importance of organizational intelligence and foresight thinking as a tool to unearth early indicators of change and unlock growth has never been greater.

What do dental chews for pets, adult incontinence undergarments and sweetened light beer have in common? On the surface, absolutely nothing. A closer look, however, reveals that each solved a specific "job to be done."

The esports industry is growing quickly, with new leagues, teams and distribution channels. And this growth is attracting new high-profile esports investment from brands, media organizations and traditional sports rightsholders.

Bringing attention to the importance of assortment is easy. It’s getting it right that is highly challenging. Here are the top six hurdles companies face in building an optimal assortment.

The “input button,” an often misunderstood piece of remote control real estate, unlocks a wide range of content for consumers with an array of devices, and it’s no longer invisible to audience measurement.

The world is changing. Fast. The way we work. The way we travel. The way we watch videos and shows. The way we simply interact with each other. And because the pace of change is happening so incredibly fast, it can be hard to understand what, and just how much, change has happened over a week, month or year.

The demand for baby and mothercare products has seen a surge in the past decade with the market size in Hong Kong almost tripling as compared to 2007.

As marketers seek greater accountability in today’s increasingly omnichannel shopper landscape, demand for outcome-based ROI measurement has become more important than ever across the media, retail and FMCG industries.

Backed by rising consumer confidence and optimism, many of the world’s economies are experiencing degrees of positive momentum. In some cases, that momentum is strong; in others, it’s subtle, but still worth noting.

When identifying how valuable sponsorships and brand activation can be in esports, it’s worth exploring the issue from the perspectives of the many stakeholders involved: leagues, franchisees and teams.

Neuroscience shows us that, when used correctly, music can put viewers and listeners in a more positive mood, leading to a greater reliance on intuition and a reduction in both critical thought and focus on detail.

Saying that driverless cars will have a huge impact on the automotive industry in the next decade is a truism. Saying that driverless cars could also have an equal impact on retail, however, is not.

Thanks to globalization and connectivity, consumers around the world have access to a wider array of products than ever. So how much weight does the “made in” moniker carry when it comes to purchase motivation?

We’ve been talking about health and wellness for years. There are two critical forces at play that are shifting this topic from niche to mainstream: increasingly complex needs and massive digital engagement.

How can manufacturers and retailers win on price in a changing FMCG industry? Here are five opportunities to help drive profitability despite today’s challenging marketplace.

This year, a range of ad execs have said digital advertising is broken and in need of repair. While they’re right to insist for better performance, their focus has been on surface issues related to the ad experience, while a larger problem lies beneath.