Everyone likes an underdog story. As consumers increasingly choose products and brands that are unique or differentiated, small brands can have a definitive advantage. Taking on the food giants that dominate the CPG landscape may once have seemed like a David and Goliath challenge, but that story doesn't ring true today as consumers of all demographics seek out brands that signify quality, uniqueness and choice.

Our industry is at a crossroads. E-commence innovations are launching faster than consumers can keep up with them. Amazon and Walmart are battling to get ahead and either acquiring or launching any retail offering you could dream up. Friction is being removed everywhere across the path to purchase. I can now order my groceries and either have them delivered to me in two hours or drive by and have them loaded into my car. Personalized and curated, subscription-based services continue to launch and grow for everything from clothes and cosmetics to complete meals, craft hot sauces and single-origin coffee beans.

Lidl, a German-based supermarket chain that's been around since the early 1970s, has announced that it will open its doors this summer on U.S. soil for the first time, launching an expected 20 stores in the Carolinas and Virginia, all of which are purposefully located close to the brand's U.S. headquarters (in Arlington, Va).

Despite claims that brand loyalty is dead among millennials, new research from Accenture, which explored the loyalty relationships between consumers and brands operating in the CPG industry, finds that 67% will, in fact, spend more with the brands they love, compared to older shoppers. But realizing that opportunity by earning and maintaining loyalty from younger consumers remains a challenge, as 70% regularly keep an eye out for better deals.

Great! You've established an online community of consumers. You've included them in sampling campaigns and maybe a few other engagement activities. But how do you ensure your community's long-term success beyond specific campaigns? How do you continually keep the community active, engaged and growing? How often should you reach out - what's not enough or, maybe worse, too much? And what kind of two-way interaction will your consumers welcome? What's the right cadence?

Social media has definitely changed the way all of us view food. Restaurants have evolved their lighting to better serve Instagram foodies. Millennials purchase tiny lights to illuminate their meals and desserts so they are camera ready. Pinterest, with its 15 billion pins, has reported an 86% increase in food engagement and a 25% increase in food pins over the prior year. A simple search of #food on Google will net you over 5 billion results. YouTube boasts over 71 million videos centered on food and Tasty videos have garnered over 2.7 million subscribers.

Fifty years ago this summer, Mike Nichols' "The Graduate" hit American movie theaters. The film's protagonist, Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, is provided with some career advice in a penultimate moment when his parents' smugly successful friend suggests - "One word: Plastics." The moment captured the disillusionment of Baby Boomers and the desire to drop out instead of embracing a steady paycheck - and a seemingly spiritless life in chemical manufacturing.

CPG brands have jumped on the influencer marketing bandwagon with everyone from cosmetic, food, diaper, paper towel and many other CPG brands all leveraging influencers to help tell their stories.

At a recent trade show, a major CPG company shared what it thought of as its customers' typical "path to purchase." It involved an offline ad, a friend mentioning the product on social media, consumers seeing the product in the store, engaging with a digital coupon in a digital ad, and then going to an online retailer to search for and buy the product online using that coupon.

Branding is one of the three essential advertising elements that lead to in-market success. As such, there are many variations of brand inclusion at the end of a TV ad, including package shots or simply showing the brand logo. Making the decision to include a package shot or brand logo at the end of an ad can require some additional consideration.