It’s that time of year again! Whether you’re at the beginning of your planning process or putting the finishing touches on it, here are three things to consider as you move into 2020.

This week’s food business headlines were pretty typical: Can Big Food buy its way into healthy brands?, Consumers focusing on wellness, balance, Legacy veggie burgers fight to stay relevant.

These stories are all about who’s making money, who’s not, and what food companies think consumers will want to eat next. Reading all of these stories, you can't help but think about the real reason for food—sustenance. People need it to live. But amidst all these headlines, amidst our food affluence, we still see food insecurity all around us.

Everyone is talking about influencers and the words often aren't kind. This summer has been ripe with articles and reports about the d(evolution) of influencer marketing. Everything from Instagram removing "likes" to "fake follower fraud" and the dangers of influencer marketing.

Brands are rightly becoming increasingly concerned about issues of trust and credibility when it comes to influencer marketing—not to mention the value they are getting for their investment.

The Hartman Group's 2019 Health + Wellness study uncovered something fascinating about the latest in diet trends among American consumers: While more than half of U.S. consumers had tried a diet in the past three months, just 3% of consumers identified with a specific plan.

Anyone who has ever worked in marketing probably has a story about a client, boss or company with a bias toward only what is highly visible—a bias toward only what they can easily see. And consistently, that bias is maintained even when what is easily seen is less easily measured. This is one story—a cautionary tale in an increasingly cluttered and fraught marketplace.