BetaBoston visits with Chip Terry, Boston's Senior Vice President of Engineering and Global Product Director, to learn more about how the Boston start-up BzzAgent is working with global marketing and advertising company, dunnhumby. dunnhumby is centralizing its advertising media technology operations around the BuzzAgent's data-driven marketing work in Boston, making the South End office its development center. 

58% of consumers in the U.S. who belong to loyalty programs are actually inactive members, literally ghosts that thought it was a good idea at one time to join and soon fell out of love with the idea or the brand or both. That said, there will be an estimated 26% increase in the number of loyalty program members in the U.S. alone in 2015, rising from an already staggering 2.6 billion to 3.3 billion.

Digital strategy - and the wealth of data and customer insights that result - must be the cornerstone of any successful company's go-to-market strategy. Customers are no longer limiting interactions with a brand or company solely through the traditional forms of media, explains Joy Armitage, dunnhumby's social media and innovation coordinator. 

GNC's CEO Michael Archbold and dunnhumby Senior Vice President Peter Miles-Prouten, will be co-presenting at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2015 Consumer & Retail Conference on March 3, 2015 at the New York Palace hotel. 

A rapidly growing sector for consumer research, coupled with boom in construction and redevelopment, is renewing interest in Cincinnati's downtown. With a special focus on dunnhumbyUSA and its new headquarters currently under its last months of construction, Stuart Aitken dunnhumbyUSA's chief executive, explains the company's incredible growth and calling Cincinnati home. "We see applications for our work across so many industries. Big data really has no barriers. We have 35 or 40 job openings right now we are trying to fill. We couldn't be in a better place than in this city."

Looking at factors including purchase patterns, paths to purchase and degrees of loyalty for a variety of products, dunnhumby's latest study - The Multichannel Movement: How the Rise of Multichannel Grocery Shopping is Changing the Way Consumers Buy," explores online grocery's high potential for growth. The report takes a look at markets around the world, including the U.S. where the country has well-developed Internet usage and penetration, online grocery is underdeveloped. 

Despite the fact that multichannel grocery shopping is surging across the globe, the U.S. lags far behind in this category, according to dunnhumby's global study. The convenience of "click and deliver" grocery services is now entering the market in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, but the online grocery market in the U.S. is far behing markets such as France, South Korea and the UK. 

Multi-channel grocery shopping is surging across the globe, with the birth of a new child being one of the main drivers of an increased propensity to buy, according to a major new study by dunnhumby, which analysed the shopping habits of seven million people across 14 countries. 

Globally, growth has been strong in multi-channel grocery shopping. According to the report, emerging and 'nascent' markets saw usage grow by 97% and 89% respectively, while developed markets grew by 30% year over year. Most of that growth has been concentrated in goods like frozen meat, baby food and baby care products, which on average grew by 21%, suggesting that households with newborn kids are a key demographic for online shopping. 

"Across the globe, there's a marked increase in multichannel grocery shopping, particularly among time and sleep starved parents who benefit most from being able to shop any time, without leaving home. Baby food and baby care products not only appeaer in the top three categories, but these are clearly important gateway products for new online shoppers," reports Julian Highley, Global Director of Customer Knowledge. 

The grocery sector is beginning to see significant growth in customers engaging with stores across offline and online channels. Frozen meat, baby food and care, and canned food have the highest share of online sales, according to a survey of seven million people across 14 countires. 

Multichannel grocery shopping is surging across the globe, with the birth of a new child being a primary driver of an increased propensity to buy online. Emerging and nascent markets are seeing the most growth with 97% and 89% year-on-year, respectively. 

Rachael Hadaway, Vice President, Client Services, addresses how consumers are actively curating their own shopping journey. They expect brands to use all data at their disposal to personalize every interaction; as such, delivering the right messages at the right time is more important - and difficult - than ever before. 

Mumbai, 13 February, 2015 — dunnhumby India Managing Director, Dr. Rex Davis has received the Retail Leadership Award at the Asia Retail Congress 2015. The Asia Retail Congress is Asia’s single most important global platform to promote world-class retail practices. The focus of the two day Congress was to discuss and influence the issues for change.

Joy Armitage, Social Media & Innovation Director speaks to Mobile Marketing about the Twitter-Google partnership and its implications for advertisers:

Twitter has reached an agreement with Google to make its users’ updates more easily searchable, with tweets reappearing in Google’s search results within the first half of this year after a four year absence.

Rebecca Hohe, Associate Director, explains how to keep the enthusiasm and awareness for a new product last beyond the launch phase. 

dunnhumbyUSA is eliminating traditional desk phones at their new Cincinnati HQ which will open this spring. Employees will instead use headsets connceted to laptops for calls.

Marketing is seeking control of the tech budget, but will they succeed in getting it? Maxine-Laurie Marshall investigates

Nishat Mehta, Executive Vice President, Global Partnerships explains how brick-and-mortar retailers can better collect data analogues of the online behavior eCommerce retailers track. In-store technologies such as cameras, wifi and beacons, alongside users' mobile devices, will help retailers significantly improve assortment, merchandising and space planning.

dunnhumby's investment arm, dunnhumby Ventures joined PayPal as part of a $1.2M investment for Pulsate, a startup with a platform to deliver content for brands based on a user's location and preferences. 

dunnhumby India's Head of HR, Puja Kapoor speaks to Anumeha Chaturvedi at Econmonic Times 

dunnhumby's recent Food Trends study found that a third of consumers first spot a trending food or flavor on the shelves at mainstream grocery stores. This compared with 8% of consumers who stated a restaurant was the source of initial trial. Anna Saffer, Director of New Product Development, says "this gives retailers the opportunity to capitalize on these trends early and use that as an opportunity to connect with consumers."

dunnhumby's Food Service Customer Centricity Index report, finding that "experience matters as much as the food," was featured as an example of why putting customers at the center of every strategy and business process is essentiatl for acquisition, retention and competitive differentiation in 2015.

Six spaces in the 1,000-spot dunnhumby Centre Garage are now reserved for electric cars. This is the first public garage in downtown Cincinnati to have electric vehicle charging stations. 

In the year ahead, consumer preference and purchases will be influencd more than ever by specifics relating to how food is produced and packaged. 

Vice President of Client Solutions, Candace Lee, helps businesses plan for earned media. She suggests that closely observing how consumers travel along the pah to purchase, with a specific focus on what role peer influence plays along that journey is important. Brand and media tems also need to work with the customer relationship management (CRM) programs to understand segmentation and the impact those segments can have on informing earned media strategy and investment choices. 

Adriano Araujo, CEO of dunnhumby Brazil, presented customer focused business strategies and examples at The NRF BIG SHOW 2015. Joined with Edson Kawabata, Director of Strategy at Grupo Pao de Acucar (GPA) the two detailed the creation of the Club Extra program, highlighting the importance of putting the customer at the center of decisions on price and promotions, assortment, and personalized communications. 

Our data-driven science study aimed at informing the consumer packaged goods industry and revealing and predicting the future needs of consumers, has just relaeased findings on consumers food preferences. The report analyzes emerging trends, as well as verifies the validity and accuracy of the 2014 findings.

Nishat Mehta, Executive Vice President of Global Partnerships, presents an argument for the creation of a financial market for data. Such a system will allow customers to put a price on their data and determine if that price is worth the benefits, helping customers maintain control over where they choose to monetize their data. 

New Solutions Unveiled at NRF Conference Provide Faster, Easier Access to Customer Insights and KPIs, Enabling Smart Decision Making and Improved Performance

Emilie Kroner, Director of Organization Enagagement, explains a key theme that every retailer and business leader can use as a building block for success in 2015: customer centricity.