A SWOT analysis provides a straightforward analytical framework that allows you to evaluate a business from all angles. A SWOT analysis looks at a company’s internal strengths and weaknesses as well as external opportunities and threats.

Your Movable Middles is the most important segment of category buyers for your brand you might not have heard of yet.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) FutureScape series provides clear predictions and expert insights to help technology suppliers, investors, IT professionals, and business executives strategize for the future.

Eight of these studies are highlighted below which cover a variety of areas undergoing transformative change including oil and gas, robotics, 3D printing, retail, connected vehicles, and more. Read on to learn about IDC’s 2017 predictions, and click to the report pages to access more detailed information.

Marketing effectively in a digital world requires innovative solutions and approaches. Today’s marketing professionals grapple with a wide variety of unique challenges, such as:

• Achieving scale in content marketing
• Capturing the interest of image-conscious consumers in the era of the "selfie"
• Marketing to the iGeneration (also known as Gen Z)

While we know it’s important to not judge a book by its cover, this idea disappears when it comes to everyday shopping and buying decisions. With the average supermarket in the US carrying more than 40,000 items, brand owners face a daunting task in attracting attention to their products. In addition, the majority of buying decisions are made in stores. These factors make attractive and distinctive packaging a key component in the marketing of retail products.

Today it seems like every brand is doing it: content marketing. Gone are the days of simply taking out an ad with a product as the hero image and some expressively, and expensively, crafted benefits copy to sell. Now brands need to tell stories about their products and what unique differences they offer to the customer. So content marketing has become the medium to deliver the message.

There’s been a lot of coverage in the popular press in recent years about how thinking comprises two different modes — one mode that is very conscious and slow, and another one that occurs quickly, without conscious attention (Kahneman, 2011). The idea of “two modes of thinking” is not really a new idea,[1] but it may actually be of critical importance for market researchers.

Why? Because if there are two modes of thinking, which one are consumers using when they participate in market research? And which ones are they using when they shop and purchase? And does it vary by category? If these modes really do affect how people think, market researchers who pay attention to them will be able to generate even more powerful insights into consumer behavior. 

Back in 1954 in the classic business book The Practice of Management, Peter Drucker wrote:

"Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two — and only two — basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business."

Yet how many businesses manage, staff, and budget their marketing departments as their ultimate competitive weapon? Are businesses failing to thrive because their marketing departments lack the proper “nutrition” in the form of market research to use to create innovative marketing strategies and tactics?

Affluent consumers in the U.S. have played a critical role in the world of luxury brands. With 11.53 million millionaires in the U.S. in 2013, the American luxury market is considered the largest across the globe. But, while these consumers may appear affluent, they don’t always feel that way.

In the past few years, affluent consumers have shifted their spending habits to align with how they feel about their wealth, and not what the numbers show on their income statements. American’s new attitudes toward wealth and affluence have disrupted the traditional model for luxury marketing in the U.S.

Where would Wheaties be without Michael Jordan? Taco Bell without Gidget, the talking Chihuahua? Or even the “Can you hear me now?” guy from Verizon Wireless? These spokespeople are iconic. They have helped brands personify themselves, leaving lasting and memorable impressions on their target consumers. So, what do a sports legend, a Spanish speaking dog and a tech nerd with glasses have in common? Likeability.