Across brick and mortar and ecommerce, the customer experience landscape has changed dramatically—and permanently—during the pandemic.

Over the past few years, amid a huge digital transformation, Pizza Hut has had to pivot from traditional restaurant service and carryout to ecommerce.

The availability and use of data has revolutionized advertising in recent decades. Shane McAndrew, chief data strategy officer at agency Mindshare, joins eMarketer principal analyst at Insider Intelligence Nicole Perrin to discuss the new Data Ethics Compass developed with GroupM and Unilever, what consumers expect from advertisers and their partners, and why experimentation is critical to attributing revenues to marketing touchpoints.

Sonika Malhotra, co-founder and global brand director of Love Beauty and Planet, speaks with eMarketer vice president of business development Marissa Coslov about the beauty brand’s marketing priorities, from building trust with its customers to making sustainability accessible.

Today’s sociopolitical events have lit a fire under brands to address social injustice and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in deeper ways than they have in the past. Companies are using marketing and advertising to respond to and support discussions about systemic racism and the Black Lives Matter protests, the fight for LGBTQ rights, the #MeToo movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, and issues of immigration reform, to name a few.

From the onset of the pandemic, US consumers shifted to ecommerce for essential goods and personal care products, which has kept CPG digital ad spending afloat. We expect the industry to increase its digital ad spending 5.2% to $19.40 billion this year.

The CPG industry will increase its investments in digital advertising this year as strong sales of essential goods and personal care products—particularly on ecommerce platforms—gave advertisers reasons to keep spending during the pandemic.

As more people cut the cord, viewers are increasingly tuning in to live digital video services.

CPGs are increasing their search budgets, but private-label competition and mergers and acquisitions activity is hampering overall ad spending growth.

Despite industrywide calls to combat fraud, fake followers are still a top concern among influencer marketers.

Direct-to-consumer brands are growing fast and disrupting the retail industry. How are these brands successfully reaching and converting customers, earning their loyalty, and capturing more of their online and offline spending?