Walking the Walk: Upcoming Trade Shows

Walking the floors of a trade show can be a quick reference for emerging trends, up-and-comers, repositioning of brands in the market, new product launches and innovation, as well as stagnating or declining markets. Trade show participation has long been part of informing our perspective on the industries we serve—food, […]

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Go There: Data-Driven Marketing

Activity trackers have recently been making news with their data collection and aggregation capabilities—most notably, the heatmaps that fitness-tracking app Strava generated and published based on user data from around the world. While the conversation has largely been focused on tracking of military personnel and national security implications, the story […]

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Best Pet Marketing Agencies

Who are the best pet marketing agencies? Chances are good that you’re reading this because you searched for “best pet marketing agencies” or something close to it (“pet advertising,” e.g.). That would make perfect sense; though your situation is personal and specific, it’s much easier to start big and narrow […]

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2017: the Year of Unbranding?

The Guardian reports that the large UK bookstore chain Waterstones has opened three small branches without the chain’s branding. The three stores are individually named—Southwold Books, Harpenden Books, and The Rye Bookshop—located in small towns that previously lacked a bookstore, and have a smaller footprint than the typical branded store. […]

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Navigating the New Sugars Added Label Requirements

The FDA recently announced changes to the Nutrition Facts label, with more details about sugar. Starting in 2018[1], the FDA will require Nutrition Facts labels to distinguish between sugars found naturally in ingredients and sugars added, both in grams and a percentage of daily recommended value. The FDA is recommending […]

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Does Googling Count as Market Research?

Google vs Market Research As a college student circa 2005, I was brash enough with my newfound power of knowledge that I told my mother that Googling “didn’t count as research.” A few years later my mom asked me, somewhat pointedly, if that were still true, and though I had […]

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The Pet Marketing Agency

 The Pet Marketing Agency The pet industry as recession-proof Dogs increasingly anthropomorphized within the family Nutraceuticals making (and will continue to make) serious inroads into the pet food industry Pets with social media accounts Pet food labels mirroring human food labels, typically six to 12 months behind Cat videos The above list […]

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Three Things Food Startups Need to Know about the Food Industry

Although the food industry has historically been dominated by entrenched major brands, startups and venture capital have begun to move aggressively into food and beverage and agriculture, rightly perceiving the industry to be both exciting and profitable. High-profile food startups like KRAVE and Blue Bottle Coffee have found success bringing an entrepreneurial, […]

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Friends Beyond Benefits

From GMOs to FD&Cs, whole grain over multigrain, no brominates and definitely no aspartame, it’s getting harder for the average consumer to know what to think. This isn’t to say that cleaner labels aren’t good for our collective wellbeing—just that it’s a lot to keep straight. You could forgive consumers, […]

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Five Heirloom Tomatoes You Need to Try

My love of garden-grown, heirloom tomatoes is well documented. However, since it’s late summer, prime tomato-harvest season, I’m not the only one with tomatoes on the mind—recipes are being published aplenty, and the Washington Post recently ran a fascinating history of the “tumatle from Themistitan” (for an explanation of that […]

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Challenger Food Brands and the Business-card-sized Poster

I can remember my first encounter with marketing materials from our local independent hardware shop. While still a student at the nearby university, I glanced at a campus bulletin board on the third floor of an anonymous campus office and saw, tacked among the posters for campus theatre productions, a […]

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