Our monthly newsletter is a collection of the latest market insight articles covering brands, products, media, consumers, consumer experience, and social media.

If you have any suggestions for the newsletter, please email me at emilio@ea-advising.com.

Thanks for taking the time!

Emilio Abdala, PhD

Research Advisor

Consumer Insights

National Customer Rage Survey finds growing frustration with product, service problems

Do you feel you've been dealing with more product and service problems than ever before? You're you are not alone.

Consumers care about sustainability—and back it up with their wallets

A joint study from McKinsey and NielsenIQ examines sales growth for products that claim to be environmentally and socially responsible.

Should Beauty Products For Black Consumers Be ONLY For Black Consumers?

In a major win for diversity, there’s been an increased awareness of Black beauty founders and their brands in recent years. This is thanks in part to growing opportunities to mass-produce their products, market their brands and sell them on sites like Amazon or in stores like Target. As a result, more and more consumers now have access to these products — and they’re not all Black.

The Impact On Supply Chains By Direct-To-Consumer Brands

The need for consumer-goods suppliers to sell directly to consumers at the start of the pandemic has forced them to manage complex retail supply chains and exacerbated an already strained global supply chain. How has the rise of direct-to-consumer brands and the broader rise of e-commerce affected the global supply chain?

Driving growth in consumer goods through programmatic M&A

Companies that take a programmatic approach to M&A deals outperform their peers, but this strategy requires differentiated capabilities and effective execution.

Consumer / User Experience

How To Make 2023 A Year Of Remarkable Customer Experiences

Three years on from the pandemic, customers have changed forever. We live in a different world, in which consumers expect a smooth, instant and frictionless experience.

Executives Need to Invest in Understanding the Customer Experience

Delivering superior customer experience (CX) is a mandate that now extends well beyond the bounds of customer service, support, sales, or IT departments. It requires a cultural shift that emphasizes pervasive information sharing and intent analysis across the enterprise. Executives not fully immersed in CX leave their organizations open to churn and reduced market presence. Executives across all domains need to step up and lead their organizations’ CX efforts in order to survive.

It’s Time To Stop Blaming The Pandemic For Poor Customer Experience

As we move through the post-pandemic period, it’s been comforting to witness more signs of normalcy. Travel is rebounding, supply chains are recovering and people are back in the office. All good news! But as someone who has spent most of their career in customer experience, I’ve been disappointed in the caliber of customer service as the pandemic unwinds.

Why and How to Apply Customer-Behavior Analytics on Your Self-Storage Facility Website

Getting self-storage customers to your website is only half the battle. You also need them to interact with your pages. Understanding where users spend their time can help you improve your site and provide a more satisfying online experience. Behavior-analytics tools can deliver this insight. Find out how.

How Design Thinking and Improved User Experiences Contribute to Customer Success

In modern business software, a simple but fundamental equation still holds: delivering a positive customer experience leads to high levels of customer retention and upsell potential.

Our Digital World

13 Surprising Changes The Metaverse May Soon Bring To Businesses And Consumers

The metaverse, a virtual space for real-time interactions with digital representations of real people and objects, has become a hot topic in today’s tech circles.

The Digital Healthcare Consumer 2023

Digital healthcare usage was fast-tracked by the pandemic. But now, with so many tools in the market, providers and marketers must deliver differentiated experiences to stay competitive. They’ll need to know how and why patients use these tools—and how to resolve the pain points.

Four Ways Tech is Transforming Social Media

Social media has evolved beyond simply being a means of communication for businesses and consumers. Indeed, in the last few years, social media has helped to usher in completely new models of consumer engagement, entertainment, and digital commerce.

Why User-Generated Content Is Winning

Have you ever purchased a pair of sneakers from an Instagram store and posted a picture on your social media account or unboxed a new iPhone on a live stream? Whether or not you know it, both are examples of user-generated content, also known as UGC or consumer-generated content.

"Community" Must Be More Than a Brand Buzzword in 2023

Eight in ten consumers believe the term "community" is being overused by brands that aren't providing a real community experience. In its recent Big Online Brand Community Study, Vesta, the leader in Community Powered Marketing, uncovered trends in online community activity and what consumers want.

Brands In The News

Consumer engagement drives innovation at Frito-Lay

When it comes to new product innovation, few companies, if any, can match what Frito-Lay North America, a division of a part of PepsiCo, Purchase, NY, does on an annual basis.

HYUNDAI AND ITS FIRST BLACK AGENCY CONNECT TO CUSTOMERS WITH POSITIVITY

Hyundai enlists the help of its first Black marketing agency, Culture Brands, to connect with Black consumers through authentic, uplifting messages

Hormel Foods - The Makers of HORMEL® Pepperoni, Americas No.1 pepperoni brand* - Launch New HORMEL® Sliced Chorizo for Adventurous Foodies

Hormel Foods – a Fortune 500 global branded food company and the makers of HORMEL® pepperoni products, Americas No. 1 pepperoni brand* - have launched the new HORMEL® Sliced Chorizo. This new innovation has been specifically crafted to help consumers take their culinary game to the next level with flavors that are globally inspired and provide a slice of adventure to pizzas, paninis, tapas and more.

Northwestern Mutual's Pinterest Collaboration Connects Dreams to Financial Planning

Northwestern Mutual has teamed up with Pinterest to create an immersive experience that allows consumers to connect the dots from their dreams to the financial planning they need to accomplish those dreams.

Say goodbye to the old cap on McCormick spice bottles

McCormick, the top-selling maker of seasonings and spices, is giving its iconic red-cap bottles their first makeover in nearly 40 years.

FMR & Associates

FMR Associates is an international media research firm that specializes in strategic and marketing research for the communications industry and communications or media-related studies. In addition to media research, FMR has also served a wide range of clients, including advertising agencies, music syndicators, consumer companies, retail businesses, governmental agencies, educational institutions, healthcare providers and a wide range of media and marketing consultants.

Emilio Abdala, PhD - Research Advisor

For more than 20 years, I have applied a creative ability to connect business strategy to data & insights delivering high-impact local marketplace penetration plans for brands including the Chicago Fire of Major League Soccer, Verizon Wireless, Univision Television, Western Governors University, and my advising firm, EA Business Solutions. I hold an MBA from Roosevelt University and just recently earned my PhD in marketing from LIGS University.

Contact me: emilio@fmrassociates.com