Today, most FMCG categories (80%) are growing faster in rural as compared to urban India. This growing importance of rural India will also mean that competitors (both regional players and categories with a strong regional franchise) will influence marketing plans.

From still to sparkling, from flavored to fortified, there is something for every consumer of bottled water in Asia, catering to basic hydration as well as lifestyle needs.

After a year of solid economic growth, Filipino consumers entered 2011 on a high note: GDP in 2010 grew at the fastest rate in 34 years, unemployment declined and inflation rates were under control.

With inflation and the cost of food, fuel and other basic necessities taking a bigger share of Vietnamese consumers’ wallets, it might not seem to be the best time for the country’s banks to think about expanding.

The first quarter of 2011 started off slowly, with nominal value rising 2.3 percent across Europe, a slight decrease from the fourth quarter of 2010.

With 82 percent of Americans online, 93 percent owning mobile phones and 155 million using Facebook, access to digital technologies is officially pervasive, yet retailers still spend an estimated 60–70 percent of their marketing budget on printed ad circulars.

In a sign of how times are changing, one-quarter of household shoppers in Indonesia are now men, according to Nielsen.

Millions of dollars are spent developing and launching new products each year, but the reality is only 10 percent will succeed. While this has been the accepted norm and considered the “cost of doing business,” a new approach unveiled by Nielsen improves the likelihood of new product success to 75 percent.

The Chinese automotive market is on a roll: over the past five years, it has been the only car market globally to grow more than 20 percent, and in 2010 it posted an even-higher 30 percent growth. According to a new Nielsen study, nearly 94 percent of Chinese consumers say that they intend to buy a car at some point in the future.

Understanding purchasing and media habits of the rapidly growing multicultural market the next big challenge/opportunity facing marketers and brands today.