Leading players in CPG are turning to Living Services as a way to engage with key customers and win their loyalty. Our first post on this topic explored how these intuitive, agile solutions delight consumers by giving them greater control over their day-to-day needs - from better UV protection to the optimum morning workout.

More and more retailers are recognizing that a one-size-fits-all approach does not work the same across developed environments. Urban shoppers will have vastly different needs than suburban shoppers and vice versa. Just like individual shoppers, not all stores are created equal and not all geographic locations can receive the same treatment.

CPG companies produce an estimated 20,000 new products each year to keep up with increasing consumer demands. Growth requires a constant stream of new ideas, product updates and whole new category innovations. Without input from the market, it's nearly impossible to ideate, test, and manufacture winning products at the speed that's needed to stay competitive in the cutthroat retail environment. As a result, CPG companies need to turn to market research to better understand, incorporate and meet the interests of consumers to help them make smart decisions about the product development process. Here are a few ways you can incorporate …

Most brands don't have physical stores. As a result, they have little control over several factors that influence customers' experiences with, and opinions about, their products. They rarely meet their customers. They're absent at the point of sale, and can't always put their branded touch on other intangibles, like a smile from a cashier, or even a thoughtful recommendation from a sales associate.

I had the privilege of being one of the speakers at the BAA (Brand Activation Association) conference last week. One session I particularly enjoyed was from Aaron Newhouse, director of shopper marketing at ACH Food Companies, discussing how challenger brands cut through the clutter with retailers to compete with the big dogs. Newhouse noted that, many times, innovation comes from the brands that have the smaller budgets, so they have to be creative in their marketing approach, even though they face similar challenges with shopper marketing.

I remember being annoyed by the tagline a bank of mine once used, "Leading The Way." The suggestion, or at least my perception of the claim, was the bank wanted me to believe it was leading me. I resented the claim and what I believed was the bank's arrogance and overblown sense of its role in my life.

It's a typical Tuesday evening at Jackie's house in Madison, Wisc. Jackie, 36, is watching her daughter, Lucy, 6 ,and son, James, 5, push their dinner around their plates. "Why aren't you eating? Jackie asks. "Because you make the same thing all the time. Can't we have something different for dinner?" Lucy asks.

Virtually every brand we work with is trying to win Millennials and it's not surprising why. Eighty million shoppers with one trillion dollars in buying power are hard to ignore. But equally hard to ignore are recent stats that show when it comes to shopper marketing, Millennials know what they want.

Packaging used to serve a purely functional role-it stated its purpose, carried the brand logo, product name and instructions on how to use. However, the internet has created a marketplace for the unique; for artisan and products with personalities to cater to our individual needs. We increasingly expect something to be more than just one dimensional, to be dual purpose or to tell a larger story. As a result, we now see packaging taking on an additional role and being used to connect with consumers in a novel way that delivers that the depth and value we have come to …