New retail formats, unique service offerings and differentiated products will drive growth at retail in 2010. And as consumers continue to bunker in-home, a greater focus on eating right will lead to healthy results.

Food departments outperformed non-food, health and beauty and general merchandise departments as Americans returned to cooking and eating at home—boosting grocery channel shopping trips in the process.

An aging population will completely alter the marketplace for consumer products in the near and distant future. Marketing strategies that account for shifts in household size and demographic make-up will be most successful.

Tapping expert knowledge across the media, consumer goods, advertising, telecom, entertainment, online and sports sectors, Nielsen offers what’s likely in store for 2010.

The consumer has entered an age of enlightenment with expanded options for devices, content, and schedules. What does the next 3-5 years have in store? Five key trends will have a significant impact.

Rather than Americans replacing TV with the Internet or a mobile device, they are just consuming more—often simultaneously. Despite the availability of video content on the Internet, TV viewing is up by about 20% over the last decade.

Meet the mini media moguls who are dictating electronic sales and media utilization patterns in American homes: kids. TV still dominates with children of all ages, but older children gravitate toward the Internet and younger kids hang on to DVDs.

With projected weak holiday sales this season and deal-seeking activities rampant, online retailers have an opportunity to gain share through their own web sites and social media outlets.

When news of the H1N1 flu pandemic hit, concerned consumers turned to the Internet to get educated and raced to the stores to buy preventative, treatment, and sanitizing products at increased rates. The demand is far from over.

The pathway to Internet profitability for marketers will be determined by the ability to integrate mobile, TV, Internet traffic and advertising data into a holistic, effective multi-strand fabric that blankets the consumer in a traceable, measurable way.