June 2014

The release this month of the 2014 edition of the annual Ownership and Trend Report from The Home Technology Monitor™ (HTM) marks my 20th year directing this service. It has certainly given me a unique vantage point to watch the ebb and flow of the ever-changing media world. We're going to take …

Canada’s booming Asian population is transforming the country’s culture – and its consumer marketplace. And some marketers are finding creative ways to respond to this opportunity. No longer overlooked by major CPG manufacturers and retailers, Canada’s Asian consumers are seeing their wants and …

For England, the World Cup dream is over for another four years before it truly got started. Luis Suarez and the Uruguayan team was consigned England to a second defeat and an early flight home. But while England was losing in São Paulo, streaming radio apps sealed a win as people took to their …

Putting the customer at the heart of an organisation is no mean feat, and even with advances in technology and the digital user experience, the aspiration to become customer centric is alive but still illusive for most brands. Consumer research from GfK suggests that customer experiences across …

Communication in our society is increasingly visual – driven, in part, by the rapid rise of connected devices such as smartphones and tablets. More than half of consumers today are equipped with smartphones -- and thus with increasingly high-resolution cameras, and readily available access to …

Despite an encouraging performance, England got their World Cup campaign under way on Saturday night in the way many expected – with a defeat to Italy. However, what was perhaps unexpected was the lack of uplift in mobile activity seen during the match, with many anticipating 2014 World Cup to …

Consumer goods brands can make effective use of the conversations people have on the web in their New Product Development and communication strategies. GfK’s Social Media Intelligence (SMI) team has helped many brands optimize concept and product development and creative messages by listening …

If you’re already tired of people talking about mobile, you may have to wait a long time for relief. We are in a once-in-a-generation technology inflection point, as both smartphones and tablets accelerate their growth. These devices have made mobile Internet and media use easy, maintaining …

We don’t have to tell you that the Internet has revolutionized the travel industry, with online research, planning and bookings rendering printed brochures and traditional travel agency formats all but obsolete. But now there’s a new twist to the online revolution, and you may even be holding …

Millennials, as marketers have come to discover, are a tough collective nut to crack. However, niche opportunities exist, and one of these is the YPC segment, aka Young Professional Consumers. We define YPCs as Americans age 35 and under with college education and a household income of $100,000 …

A GfK study revealed that overall, some 61 percent of consumers in France have a favorable overall opinion of electric vehicles, but customers are polarized when it comes to actually considering a purchase, usually due to costs. Overall opinions Some 35 percent said they were somewhat or very …

For gambling app and site developers, the FIFA World Cup 2014 in Brazil looks to be a very big win. To accommodate anytime, anywhere digital access that football fans have come to embrace, World Cup action can viewed by millions of people on their mobile devices – big names such as FIFA and …