An overwhelmed customer is not a happy one. With thousands of retail sites and stores to choose from, plus social reviews and search ads, it’s tempting for retailers to put everything they can offer right upfront – leading to confusion, frustration, and cart abandonment. Leading retailers are addressing this “Paradox of Choice” through simplified customer experiences in both the physical and digital worlds.

Mobile, Social, and Video are converging in interesting and potentially profound ways. Understanding recent growth trends and the overlap in each area provides insight on how brands and retailers can prepare for and take advantage of this convergence.

With the annual Cannes advertising awards just wrapping up last week, it got us thinking about what it takes to build successful brands today. Advertising is still a hugely important part of marketing awareness and brand building – but this isn’t the age of Mad Men anymore. Below are the pillars of creating a successful modern brand.

We all aspire to find ways to break new ground. To help our companies innovate. We look for new paths to find that place no one in our industry has gone. Sometimes, innovating is the difference between thriving and barely surviving.

How can Financial Services firms prosper in a post-Fiduciary Rule world? Looking at the rule’s potential implications through a design thinking lens can provide insights on best practices for a customer-driven world, especially from experiences in digital channels.

Market tastes and product economics change quickly today, making it challenging for even well crafted digital experiences to stay relevant. A modern design and production process (ideation – design/build – testing) should be built on a foundation of prototyping. While in the past prototyping may have been considered an added expense, it’s now more affordable, approachable, and key to managing ongoing investments in digital.

The iPhone is 10 years old. The App Store, once the driving engine behind innovation, is now boring. And in that time, your company has gone mobile. It’s fiddled with an app of its own. It’s optimized checkout flows, gone all in on social, and remember toying with that wearables idea? The point is: tech is looking less like the Wild West, and more like settled business on some fronts. For now at least. Out there looming are technologies that could upend various sectors once again. New digital experience models could change how consumers and businesses discover, shop, and use products, and reshape the perception of products, themselves. Here are a few of the next-gen technologies to keep an eye on to stay on your toes.