Retail & Ecommerce

Consumer shopping habits have changed significantly in the past year. Having the right data to monitor these changes (and being flexible) will be key for most brands, according to Andrew Kandel, head of sales for North America at Waze.

eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Debra Aho Williamson discusses TikTok's future: Can it keep operating in the US? If so, what will user growth and engagement look like going forward? She then talks about marketers' attitudes toward influencer marketing, major social media trends of 2021, and the prospects of live shopping on social media in the US.

Contactless menus boosted smartphone scanning in 2020: Hygienic concerns during the pandemic sped up adoption of QR code menus, which in turn led to a rapid increase US smartphone barcode scanners last year. That number will decelerate but still grow this year.

Consumers in Europe increasingly see brands in a much broader context. The public is becoming more alert to the ways companies and brands go beyond advertising and marketing to make other positive contributions—or not. The converse also applies: Brands that don’t step up to the plate, or are linked with counterproductive actions, can easily lose consumer approval.