5G, AR and Frictionless Commerce; Nielsen Illuminates Future of Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods

ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2019 -- Nielsen (NYSE: NLSN) today announced its predictions for 2020 and the decade ahead from Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo. Built on the most holistic and predictive view of consumer purchasing habits, Nielsen anticipates that 2020 will represent an inflection point for trust and transparency, 5G and time to purchase in the U.S. retail and consumer landscape.

Nielsen's forward-looking vision is fueled by the open, cloud-based Nielsen Connect platform, which helps CPG manufacturers and retailers more easily spot emerging trends and diagnose performance gaps. Leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) retailers and brands, including P&G, are successfully leveraging Nielsen's tech-driven, cloud-based approach to delivering insights. As noted by John Myers, Director, North America Analytics and Insights, P&G, "We see Nielsen's data and cloud-based technology as important levers that will benefit P&G US as we develop breakthrough Analytics & Insights to help us better serve billions of consumers around the world."

High-level predictions include the following:

    1. Privacy concerns and misinformation will threaten brand credibility.
       Trust in today's society is at a low point--yet consumers still expect
       that brands know them and cater to them. Privacy legislation would not
       solve every issue of truth and transparency. Big brands will have to
       confront and counteract the consequences of social network attacks, such
       as activists using deepfake to destroy the credibility of a brand. Trust
       underpins the privacy, misinformation tug of war, and the torch must be
       carried by both businesses and consumers.
    2. Transparency will be tomorrow's brand currency. Brands across all
       industries will have an opportunity to deliver on the "Healthy for Me &
       Healthy for We" expectations consumers have. Interest in what was
       previously considered 'behind-the-scenes' information about a company's
       operational footprint will become mainstream topics of conversation. This
       will tee up opportunities for companies across industries to grow trust
       and authenticity while delivering on the need for urgent action on
       climate change.
    3. Manufacturers will produce locally to win globally. With the winds of
       protectionism, trade wars, slower overall growth and increasing
       effects--and awareness--of climate change, we're entering a new era in
       consumerism. With the duel impetus of tariffs and consumer alignment with
       locally sourced products and waste reduction, manufacturers will face
       increased pressure to produce locally, import fewer goods and search for
       economic differentiation. Supply chains will continue to be reimagined to
       deliver on consumers' increasing desire for sustainable products.
    4. Smart supply chains will anticipate and react to consumer demands. As
       retailers increasingly focus on owning the supply chain from start to
       finish and further blur the line with manufacturers as they grow their
       private label brands, the industry will gradually shift to more granular,
       end-to-end supply chain analytics. Brands and retailers who win the 2020s
       will succeed not based on their front-end pricing and promotion
       analytics, but the granularity and end-to-end depth of their data
       science.
    5. 5G will revolutionize the Internet of Things for retail. With 5G, the
       Internet of Things finally becomes a mainstream reality, providing end
       consumers with access to more data at their fingertips with virtually no
       response delay--so they're less limited in their ability to come to an
       informed decision on the retailers and brands they want to work with.
       Meanwhile, 5G will transform smart packaging and delivery, through
       applications like smart sensors that can collect real-time data to ensure
       viable internal package conditions for food and medications.
    6. Time and trust will dictate consumer relationships with retail.
       Increasingly frictionless commerce in both a click and brick world will
       change the game for retail. From pop-up shops with cashier-less payment
       to automated warehouses in urban centers, fusing the overall consumer
       experience with smarter, intuitive tech is the future, as consumers
       require zero resistance from discovery to assessment to shopping to
       payment to fulfillment. Speed and convenience will drive behavior--and
       every millisecond reduced is a battle won.
    7. Try-before-you-buy will come into consumer homes. There's a push-and-pull
       between the in-store experience and the convenience of shopping at home.
       Augmented reality (AR) technologies will improve, and 5G will indirectly
       reduce barriers to entry, based on the shift to cloud and enablement of
       smartphones to be AR devices. Yet AR can also improve the
       brick-and-mortar experience with special in-store promotions accessible
       via smartphones. As such, mobile, AR-based buying will reach a critical
       mass--and up the ante for brick-and-mortar to keep consumers coming back
       with experiential benefits.

"The true value of today's emerging technologies has remained in the hype cycle for much of retail and CPG, but the dawn of a new decade will see a rapid acceleration in meaningful use cases," said Jeanne Danubio, President, Nielsen Connect, North America. "From the transformative effect of 5G to the increase in frictionless commerce--all underpinned by trust and transparency--the consumer landscape will become increasingly complex. We are eager to continue providing our clients with the data to decide, thereby shaping a smarter market for our clients, in 2020 and beyond."

For additional information on Nielsen's predictions for the future of retail, CPG and technology, please visit the Nielsen booth #808 at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo. Nielsen is cited in Gartner's March 2019 report, "Best Practices in Developing Retail Curbside Fulfillment." (1)

    1. Gartner, Best Practices in Developing Retail Curbside Fulfillment, Tom
       Enright, March 28, 2019.

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ABOUT NIELSEN
Nielsen Holdings plc (NYSE: NLSN) is a global measurement and data analytics company that provides the most complete and trusted view available of consumers and markets worldwide. Our approach marries proprietary Nielsen data with other data sources to help clients around the world understand what's happening now, what's happening next, and how to best act on this knowledge. For more than 90 years Nielsen has provided data and analytics based on scientific rigor and innovation, continually developing new ways to answer the most important questions facing the media, advertising, retail and fast-moving consumer goods industries. An S&P 500 company, Nielsen has operations in over 100 countries, covering more than 90% of the world's population. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

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SOURCE Nielsen