In a world overflowing with dashboards, sales data, AI and trend reports, one thing is still surprisingly rare: real human understanding. In my experience brands can know a great deal about consumers on paper, yet still miss what truly drives choice, relevance and growth in everyday life. That is why a consumer closeness program matters so much. It helps teams move beyond assumptions and reconnect with the people behind the numbers.

By using predictive eye tracking, synthetic human in-depth interviews, and the expertise and creativity of our consultants, we are able to make highly targeted recommendations for the best choices and optimizations for OOH billboards in terms of visual simplicity, distinctive brand impact, and creative hierarchy. And we do so faster and more cost-efficiently. You will read exactly how this works later!

Recent reports show FMCG growth has been driven mainly by price increases, while real consumption remains weak. As inflation stabilizes, this dynamic is fading, and future growth will depend on increased usage, purchase frequency, and stronger category relevance. Meanwhile, consumer behaviour has shifted: shoppers are downtrading, buying smaller baskets, and adopting lasting value-seeking habits. Private labels and discounters continue to gain ground, reinforcing price-driven competition. For brands, this means growth can no longer rely on pricing alone but must come from genuine demand creation and better alignment with today’s shopping habits. Imagine that your brand tracker would show situational drivers of behaviour.

A product is never experienced through just one sense. Sight, touch, sound, smell and taste all come together into one multisensorial product experience. When all those sensory signals line up, the experience feels smooth, high-quality and memorable, like a true symphony of senses. However, when one of them misses the mark, the whole experience can feel off. Traditional questionnaires tell part of that story. Our video platform Try & Tell© helps us capture the rest. Through self-recorded consumer videos, we observe real product experiences at scale, as they happen, in a selected or deliberately not selected context, from first impressions to practical frustrations and delights.

As organisations enter planning season, category reviews play a central role in shaping next year’s priorities. Significant time and resources are invested to understand market dynamics, consumer behaviour and competitive positioning. However, the real challenge is not insight generation. It is decision-making.

At MIE 2026 we stood on stage twice with a simple belief. In a world that is rapidly digitising, speeding up and automating almost everything… you still win with people. Not dashboards. Not models. Not prompts. People. And yes — that includes digital people too.