Retail Sales Shifting to Direct Brands: IAB Study
That Winterberry report was a relatively long 35 pages, but it’s a greeting card compared with the 177 page behemoth the IAB just published on the 21st Century Brand Economy. Their central point is that brands will interact directly with consumers, removing many barriers that formerly protected market leaders from competition. IAB supports, or maybe undercuts, its argument by noting that non-store sales grew from under 4% of retail in 1992 to 9.4% in 2015. Success will require direct marketing skills, trust-building, smarter ad buys, and lots of data.