The future of retail is certainly hot news at the moment, a constant stream of negative stories about retail brands collapsing or struggling in the face of the rising trend to online shopping, compounded by their failure to reinvent the shopper experience.

For a grown man in his early thirties, I’ve had toys on my mind a lot recently. Sure, I have a three year old son who can’t get enough of the plastic things and yes, a beloved retail chain from my childhood recently did go into administration, but that’s not what’s causing my mind to wander towards Funko bobbleheads and Paw Patrol action figures. No, I am trying to wrap my head around what must be the most mind-boggling YouTube sensation in years: unboxing.

Different industries have their own terms, abbreviations and acronyms. These may well make perfect sense to those within those industries, but can confuse and baffle those without.

Author: Greg Mills

“Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it’s digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules – not just for governments but for private companies.”

Author: Daniel Porter

What lies in store for the packaging industry in 2018? This is not an exhaustive list, but here are a few things we think you’ll be seeing more and more of as the year progresses:

Author: Imogen Woods

It’s official – Thursday, 14^th December was the busiest day of the year for Royal Mail according to the BBC, with 10 million letters and parcels to sort through across the country. And I can say that I am partially responsible for the added workload.

Author: Elinor Martin

Christmas is just around the corner and with that comes the excitement and anticipation of what presents will be waiting under the Christmas tree on Monday 25^th December. But when you’ve torn off the wrapping paper, what will the packaging underneath be like, and what does that packaging say about the brand?

Author: Louise Watson

This year I’ve again been sticking to my yearly tradition of watching The X Factor in the run-up to Christmas. If you’ve been following it too, chances are you will have noticed the glaringly obvious product placements. If however you haven’t been staying in every Saturday and Sunday night to watch it, let me explain – the lines the contestants deliver about a whole variety of brands, from airlines to mobile phone networks and even printers, are so blatant and frequent that they lack any subtlety whatsoever! Every time a brand is namedropped on the programme, I cringe at how unnatural and uncomfortable the contestants look using the product name in their everyday conversations.

Author: Tom Platt

Those of you following the news recently may have seen the story about reality TV star Marnie Simpson reportedly breaking the advertisement rules on Snapchat. The 25-year-old social media influencer has fallen foul of the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) rules against hidden advertising on social media.

Author: Michael Grass

Boy, what a difference four years make. It only feels like yesterday that I was blogging away on my keyboard about how my status as an avid book lover and closet Luddite had recently been threatened by the purchase of a Kindle Fire, only for me to realise by the end of said blog that it was indeed possible to have a deep appreciation for both digital and print media.

Author: Dan Porter

When Andrew Wilkinson, 39, of south-west London, boarded a flight from Heathrow to Cape Town back in July, he probably didn’t expect that in a few short weeks his name would be appearing in all the British tabloids, American news outlets such as the New York Post and USA Today and other media from Turkey to South Africa and from Hong Kong to New Zealand.

Author: Alexa Mills

There’s no doubt that video is one of the most powerful ways to engage an audience. However, despite a general awareness of this in the B2B space, I often hear comments such as, ‘The products/services we sell aren’t exciting enough for video’ or ‘Our products are part of a wider technology so you couldn’t see them on camera’ or ‘There’s just nothing sexy about what we sell’.