Digital Marketing

In this era of social media and mobile consumers, successful sales and marketing requires collaborative technology to make an impact. Themed around the coveted IT/Marketing Alliance, the 2014 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit united sales, marketing and IT trailblazers to explore and compare strategies and lessons learned in their journey toward true alignment.

The consumer packaged goods company has never really known its shopper. Today, it can. Shopper and customer data is available in near real time through the different technologies. While it sounds enticing, it is hard work.

The new Director, Global Social Media & Digital Marketing will focus on social media, web and mobile strategies as one channel to tell a story.

Despite the e-commerce boom, brick-and-mortar stores should still account for approximately 85 percent of U.S. retail sales in 2025. But that doesn't mean your company should stand still. Here, McKinsey & Company identifies five trends will most impact on the industry, from demographic changes to emerging retail business models.

Today's digital channels have and will continue to fundamentally transform the consumer experience, creating a new class of more informed and more demanding shoppers. As a result, we are also now seeing a blurring of the traditional lines between trading partners, where the "war for the consumer" may actually be yielding to a truer form of collaboration than we've ever seen.

The similarities between Inkiru and @WalmartLabs are said to be uncanny, with both having an innovative spirit and the ability to leverage big data to improve the customer experience.

Sales and marketing trailblazers from Mondelez, Unilever, J&J and Kellogg joined more than 225 consumer goods executives in NYC this week for the 2013 Consumer Goods Sales & Marketing Summit. This year, New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur since birth Gary Vaynerchuk kicked things off with a provocative presentation on the need for consumer goods companies to adapt in the Internet era. Get a recap of the event here.

The acquisition of Acquity Group will expand Accenture's capabilities in key areas of digital marketing and e-commerce, complementing its strengths in strategy, analytics, scaled technology enablement and marketing operations.