With more users looking for content online (and recommendation engines suggesting things they might like), more programming is reaching faraway fans. As USA Today put it earlier this year, “TV viewers’ appetites are going global.” Almost 40% of YouTube’s U.S. audience is watching foreign content, according to an executive cited by the newspaper. And YouTube king Psy shows how readily global viewers are crossing borders with a mouse click. Increasingly, international programming or viewers, once the purview of startups like Viki.com, Crunchyroll.com and DramaFever.com, are becoming more significant for bigger players such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.

Hulu, for instance, offers English-subtitled episodes of Hatufim, the Israeli drama that inspired Homeland, and thanks to an agreement with Saturday Night Live’s production company, makes SNL available in Japan just hours after it airs in the U.S. (a subtitled version comes online a few days later). Among other shows, last year Netflix started offering subtitled versions of Spiral, a popular French crime drama, and later this year it will introduce the Ricky Gervais show Derek to U.S. audiences. Pilots of Amazon’s new original programming are open to anyone from the U.S., U.K. and Germany for free. U.S. cable provider Comcast recently launched an online portal for customers to stream content from Asia Pacific. And Isabel, a historical fiction series from Spain, recently became available via DramaFever, a site backed in part by AMC Networks and Bertelsmann.

DramaFever and other smaller players are raising their profiles. For instance, anime-focused Crunchyroll now has an app on Samsung Smart TVs and Sony PlayStations. The appeal of international programming will only grow as more viewers (and their recommendation engines) find commonalities among programs from a range of cultures. As Hulu interim CEO Andy Forssell told USA Today, Americans are becoming more willing to experiment, thinking, “‘I don’t care about accents. I just want great storytelling.’”

Image credit: DramaFever.com

What is SideTour’s 30-second elevator pitch?

SideTour is a platform that helps people host and discover unique experiences, whether it’s sledding down the U.S. luge track with a former Olympic medalist, learning the art of graffiti with an aerosol artist in Queens or dining with an investment banker-turned-monk in an East Village monastery. Our mission is to help people experience the amazing world and the remarkable people that surround all of us.

What do you see as the macro trends driving today’s peer-to-peer marketplace?

One obvious shift on the supply side is the trend around freelancing. In today’s market, more and more people are moving from traditional full-time jobs to freelancing based on their expertise and interests. SideTour builds on this trend by offering a platform for professionals and other individuals to monetize their expertise. In the same way that platforms such as Etsy enable artisans to build a digital storefront and market their goods, SideTour enables experts, whether they’re chefs or monks or musicians or Olympians, to share their abilities and make money while doing so.

Second, there’s been a huge increase in interest in knowing who’s making the stuff we’re buying. That’s what you see with Etsy, Kickstarter and many other peer-to-peer marketplaces. It’s driven by an interest in supporting local community, local artisans, and it’s focused on collaboration, mutual benefit, all of that. It’s a shift from the past few decades, which has been more about mass-market efficiency and low cost, towards smaller-batch and artisanal products. People want to know who’s creating the products they’re consuming and the stories behind them.

There’s a third trend, which is around traveling like a local. This trend has been there for a while, at least 10 years, but it’s accelerated quite a bit in the last five years. Airbnb, for instance, talks about how it’s an experience. It’s not just your accommodations—you’re doing it to travel like a local.

That’s what SideTour is playing on entirely. It’s born of desire for a connection across cultures, across classes. People have become much more interested in the idea, “How can I get an experience that’s more authentic rather than just prepackaged?” People are asking, “How do I really get to know a place and the people behind that place?”

This sounds like it’s tapping into more Old World behaviors or a countertrend to everything being packaged, pretty, polished-looking, as you were saying?

Yes. I feel like there’s a 20-year period, through much of the ’80s and ’90s, when life came in a more packaged form, everything from food to your vacation. There was an emphasis on what’s the easiest or most efficient. But people are willing to work harder to find those gems today. We’re definitely in a cycle of people looking for something more unique, more authentic, smaller batch, something they can memorialize and talk about. Now there’s actually a mechanism to do it at scale, and you can do it efficiently. A lot of the arguments for the prepackaged efficiency of the ’80s and ’90s disappear.

Are there any other travel trends relevant here?

There’s a shift from a “watch and tell” mindset to a “make and do” mindset. It’s part of the whole Maker revolution. It’s very participatory. Even Airbnb starts to feel like that—even though it’s just a place where you’re staying, it starts to feel like you’re more involved in the place. With our experiences on SideTour, that’s an underlying theme: You’re rolling up your sleeves. You’re getting your hands dirty. This is not for people who want to lean back. It’s a lean-forward experience. That’s a big trend in general and for sure affecting travel in a big way.

So many things are digital today, so I think people are longing to lean in, as you’re saying, get their hands dirty.

Travel is actually a forcing mechanism to look up from your screen and engage in the real world. We live so much of our lives with technology and on the Internet. I think you will see the pendulum swing back in a big way, because there are all these other repercussions for people related to sanity and happiness. They’re always on and over-stimulated. One way people solve this is travel, getting away and shutting down their phones for a week and recharging. People will look for more and more ways to do that, but not just for one week a year, because you need that on a more consistent basis.

I think the pendulum will swing back [from digital immersion]. So that you’re not constantly looking at a screen. You don’t jump every time your phone buzzes. People will look for more ways to be fully present and engaged in the real world. That’s something I see happening.

How is the peer-to-peer economy reshaping the way society approaches taking a vacation?

It’s already reshaped the way people think about where to stay. When you look at Airbnb, they’ve unlocked a lot of new potential, whether it’s enabling people to go to places they wouldn’t have otherwise or places they might not have been able to afford. I think the experience economy will have a similar impact. It will dramatically change the way people spend their leisure time, not just on vacation but also in their own cities.

If you think about travel or vacation, you’ve got three big legs of that stool: your flights or your transportation to get somewhere, your accommodations, and then your activities and experiences. On the transportation side, you’ve got some of these things happening with the Ubers and Lyfts of the world. When it comes to accommodations, that’s already reached the point where people think differently about where to stay. My last family trip, we went up to the Poconos. The starting point was Airbnb and HomeAway. And it wasn’t me who did the research, it was my brother-in-law, who’s a doctor—it’s definitely crossed the chasm into the mainstream.

The third bucket is activities and experiences. I think the peer economy will have a similar impact. We’re not there yet in the experience economy, but it will also reshape the way people think about what they’re going to do and how they spend their time when they’re on vacation.

If you can do all these cool things that aren’t cookie-cutter, why wouldn’t you do that instead of following in the footsteps of everybody else?

There are a lot of people who think, “I’m going to New York, I’m an art lover, I’m going to visit the Met or the MoMA.” Yes, you can just go there. You can walk in yourself, you can hire a docent to take you through it. Or you could go to SideTour and have a New York artist who has spent the last 30 years exploring the Met walk you through the museum from his perspective, through his aesthetic lens. It just changes the nature of the experience.

There will always be people who just want to go there and say, “I saw it.” That’s fine. But there’s a larger and larger community looking for those experiences that aren’t just cookie-cutter.

Which generation tends to be most attracted to the peer-to-peer marketplace?

It’s more of a psychographic. People who are curious, adventurous, open, free-spirited. That often translates to a slightly younger demographic, maybe ages 25 to 45, because many people naturally become less adventurous and curious as they get older. That said, we’ve had a ton of people in their 50s and 60s take SideTour experiences as well. Like I said, it’s more of a psychographic.

It’s also still the early days of a new market. If you took Airbnb as an example, when it first started, there are many people who would say, “Are you crazy? I would never do that myself, nor would I ever host something like that. That’s an insane idea.” We’ve crossed that chasm. Now people have heard about it and also have enough stories of friends who have done it that they would say, “You know, I might try that.”

It’s the same thing with the world of experiences. As it gains momentum, the number of people attracted to it will expand. Sure, there will always be people who just won’t find this stuff interesting, maybe ever. But again, it’s more of a mentality than it is a demographic.

The market needs to gain some trust and credibility before you get a lot of people in it.  

Reputation systems are a big part of this. They’re a big part of making these types of marketplaces work. When you have a lot of choices, and customers don’t know or recognize the names of your hosts, how do they decide? How does the platform help them with those choices and decisions? A big piece is reputation, feedback, reviews, endorsements—all these things help people navigate and gain trust.

Do consumers expect P2P services to be more affordable? Or simply more unique?

I don’t think customers think about services in terms of whether they’re “peer-to-peer” or not. That’s an industry term. Customers think about the nature of the experience and the quality of the experience. Whether it’s P2P or not.

You have to be able to compete on quality or there’s no incentive to use your service. Customers use SideTour because they’re looking for something interesting and more unique. The fact that sometimes it may also be more affordable is often just a byproduct of the fact that we’ve eliminated the middleman. You’re eating dinner at the home of a chef—there’s no high real estate cost, there’s not a large serving staff, no major branding and marketing expenses. It’s just you, the chef and the food. All of a sudden the experience becomes not only more personal and exciting but often more affordable.

People are coming for the interesting, the unique, the unusual. But that’s not always the primary motivation either. Take Airbnb. Yes, you can find some unusual stuff, but there’s a ton of mainstream stuff. Sometimes it’s affordable, sometimes it’s not. It really depends on what you’re looking for. What it does provide you with is choice. It provides you with a lot of interesting choice that goes way beyond what the traditional markets have provided.

How are consumers rethinking their relationship to their favorite travel brands because of the rise of the peer-to-peer economy?

First of all, peer-to-peer companies like Airbnb are becoming some of consumers’ favorite travel brands. Other, more traditional brands are also figuring out ways to incorporate these elements into their own products. We’re talking to a bunch of partners that want to bring our experiences to their customers because they know their customers will find our experiences compelling.

As we talked about earlier, there’s also this desire to understand the source and the process of the stuff you’re buying, whether they’re products or services or experiences. It goes back to that Maker mentality and supporting local communities, understanding who’s making this, who created it, what’s the source, what was the process. That’s an important piece. Frankly, traditional travel brands don’t need a peer-to-peer network to bring that mentality to what they do.

There’s also an interest in supporting sources and processes that are consistent with your personal values. Look at platforms like Kickstarter—people are willing to put money into all sorts of projects that fulfill their personal beliefs and values and what they’re excited about. It’s a different kind of relationship. If you think about a traditional travel brand, you’re often consuming a finished product, but how are these brands consistent with people’s personal values? How are they showing me a new place, and how are they investing in that place and the community that’s there? That’s a big piece.

And I can’t overemphasize the importance of the story. This is what we see with SideTour all the time. The stories of our hosts—what got them to where they are, what made them want to share what they love with other people and how they’re trying to build a business out of it. Stories of the people who are attending and how they chose that particular SideTour and how they got there and the dynamic among the group. The stories that they tell other people after that experience, especially in a world where everybody is thinking, “Is that worthy of a Tweet or Facebook update?” It’s all about the stories and the experiences you have. What are the stories I want to be able to tell? That’s important for travel brands and for consumers.

What are some credible ways for established brands to participate in this P2P experience market? Can you speak to any of the partnerships SideTour is working on?

We’ve worked with established brands and companies to host experiences and share their stories with customers that they might not have connected with otherwise. We’ve done SideTour experiences with companies as big as Tesla and as small as Brooklyn Gin and Brooklyn Soda Works, as well as more artisanal producers who are trying to build a following.

What’s interesting is that when the stories are personal and compelling, people naturally spread the word. Brooklyn Gin, a small gin distillery in Brooklyn, was doing a pub crawl via SideTour through three or four of the top underground bars in Williamsburg, all about gin-based cocktails and talking about the history of gin, but not trying to sell or push their products. It was more about educating, engaging and informing. Afterwards you’ve got these 20 people who have heard this story from the founders, from the owners, and it’s really compelling. Those customers have told us, “Every time I go to a bar now, I ask for Brooklyn Gin. I just want to support these guys.” And they tell so many other people these stories.

Sometimes brands get concerned with the question of reach. What’s interesting is that a compelling, personal story travels way beyond the direct audience through word-of-mouth. It’s like crazy stories about how the customer service people at Nordstrom are so incredible that someone returned a tire to them and they accepted it even though they don’t sell tires!

More on the travel side, we’ve been working on partnering with tourism boards, hotels, publishers and airlines. All these pillars of the travel industry think about their user experience. We meet with hotels and they’re so focused on their guest experience. And they’re talking about the guest experience beyond the four walls of the room they’re staying in that night. What’s going to get them to keep coming back? What is the loyalty based on? Look at the Ace Hotel. They’re trying to create a space that is an experience. It builds a different type of loyalty that’s not based on number of points you’ve accumulated for a free stay. I want to be in this hotel because it’s an experience.

We’ve talked to a bunch of hotels that are interested in having a weekly SideTour or maybe a daily one that’s actually happening in their space. For example, in a restaurant setting, we did a pig-butchering SideTour at [New York restaurant] Corsino. It was snout to tail. It was an amazing experience for people who are into pork. The thing that was interesting is that it was happening in the middle of the restaurant, and you had all these other people peering over and wondering, “What’s going on over there?” Different than your regular trip to a restaurant, where everything generally looks the same. There’s something happening here. The restaurant loved it. And we’ve done the same experience repeatedly there because other customers keep asking about it.

There are a lot of different things traditional companies can do to enhance people’s experiences.

What’s next for the peer-to-peer travel marketplace?

The whole experience economy will become more and more mainstream. I also think the idea of travel within your own city will take root. The importance of travel, those breaks, and the opportunity to recharge your batteries is so important and becoming more and more so. We’ve always said, “Why should this be something that only happens to you once or twice a year?” Life is short. Those experiences you have when you travel are so meaningful and so important to you. They have to happen with more frequency.

People from all over the world come to New York City as a highlight in their life. We’re living here and surrounded by all these fascinating people. The problem is, it’s not easy to find these people and discover these experiences, the kinds of things that allow you to step into their shoes for an hour or two. Travel is a mentality. How do you bring that to 52 weeks of your life rather than two weeks?

Last, what’s next for SideTour?

Our aspiration is to build a global marketplace for local experiences. The other part of our business that’s not really related to travel: our “companies” business has been growing quite a bit. A bunch of startups, media companies and bigger corporations such as American Express and Yahoo have started using SideTour for team events, community events and client entertainment. It’s happened quite organically. Foursquare took their whole marketing and communications team on a hip-hop SideTour. They said it was singlehandedly one of the best things they’ve ever done as a team. So we’ve been putting a bit more resources against that business.

Recently, Walmart announced it will start rolling out delivery lockers in its U.S. stores, allowing customers to pick up goods ordered online. The retailer is following in the footsteps of Amazon and a range of others, aiming to knock down any consumer barriers to e-commerce and avoid the costs associated with missed deliveries. In the U.K., for instance, failed first-time, on-time deliveries cost the e-commerce sector an estimated £851 million a year, according to an October report by IMRG. And two-fifths of British shoppers have stopped purchasing from a website after a problematic delivery, per the industry association Interactive Media Group.

Amazon started testing its locker service in late 2011, with customers in certain cities able to pick up items from locker sites such as 7-Eleven stores, chain drugstores and Staples outlets. BufferBox, a Canadian startup acquired by Google last November, allows subscribers to have packages sent to lockers in locations around Toronto at no fee. Delivery lockers are being used for groceries, too. In January, Finnish postal service Itella launched a pilot click-and-collect scheme with retail co-operative HOK-Elanto: Shoppers pick up their groceries from refrigerated lockers.

Other postal services have also adopted lockers over the past few years, allowing customers to collect deliveries at their convenience around town. Postal services across Europe and Asia—including those in Germany, France, Turkey, Lithuania, Estonia and Singapore—have installed electronically operated lockers in public places. Cleveron, with locations in Estonia, Finland, Russia and Ukraine, simplifies the sending process as well, allowing users to drop off packages and pay with a credit card.

Increasingly, ecommerce is delivering goods whenever and wherever shoppers need them, whether on the same day they’re ordered or at the location that works best for the consumer.

-Fast Company publishes its annual list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.”

-The Economist takes a look at how digital tools are changing the art of marketing.

-Wired explores the rise of Intelligent Objects, or what it calls “The Programmable World.”

-The Pew Research Center finds that support for the EU is sinking, and “The European project now stands in disrepute across much of Europe.”

-Another sobering forecast on global warning: One expert warns that hundreds of millions of people will be displaced this century, per The Guardian.

-Middle-class British consumers have become less “sniffy” and bigger fans of bargain-hunting, reports The Economist.

-A Forbes contributor goes “in search of Japan’s missing startups.”

-The Wall Street Journal reports on how manufacturers are using Big Data to change the way factories operate.

-The Economist spotlights the rise of civic crowdfunding and startups that enable community improvements.

-McKinsey speaks with Cisco’s Padmasree Warrior about how “the exponential growth of connectivity between people and devices … will change commerce, business systems, and individual behavior.”

-Web browsers are getting reinvented, a trend The Wall Street Journal says will change how we work and entertain ourselves online.

-Bloomberg Businessweek argues that 3D printing “can be a powerful force for economic and social progress.”

-Bonnie Fuller writes in Ad Age that “Baby-Boomer Marketers Are Misreading Millennials’ Media Behavior.”

-The New York Times examines Americans’ declining interesting in driving.

-The Wall Street Journal reports that retailers are leveraging social media images to show how their clothes and accessories look in the real world.

-Bloomberg reports that the lower end of upper-class Americans (“2 percenters”) are trading down from labels like Prada to brands like Coach.

-The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization argues that more people will need to eat insects if we’re to sustainably meet the needs of a growing population.

-The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the rise of beverages that give plain old water some soda-like oomph.

-MarketWatch reports that sugar consumption in America is up while sales of artificial sweeteners are falling.

-The New York Times examines the drive to create “in vitro” meat.

-Hotel restaurants are embracing the farm-to-table trend, reports The New York Times.

-The flavor du jour is “birthday cake,” according to USA Today.

-Sriracha is invading pop culture and becoming America’s condiment of choice.

-These days motorcycles are “valued more for their usefulness than their speedy glamour,” observes The Economist.

-Time takes a look at why online passwords may become passé.

-Fast Company explains “how Google made maps human, savvy, and monetizeable.”

-E-books are driving growth in America’s publishing industry, reports Mashable.

-Texting and driving has replaced drinking and driving as the leading cause of death among American teens, per Mashable.

-Hollywood movies are “taking anti-business sentiment to a new level” this summer, reports The Wall Street Journal.

As our recent report “Travel: Changing Course” outlines, hospitality brands are increasingly using customer data to offer hyper-personalized service. While most consumers will prefer to be treated as individuals more than demographic segments, as personalized marketing gets more finely tuned, they will also take time to adjust to the idea that brands know a great deal about their lives and can predict their needs. Our research found that consumers are currently of two minds about brands analyzing their personal data in order to customize offerings: a little freaked out by the idea but also ready to reap the benefits.

Close to two-thirds of respondents said they feel discomfited by the idea of brands tracking and analyzing their data, saying it makes them anxious and that it feels as if Big Brother is watching. Half of respondents go so far as to say it makes them feel violated. (We surveyed 1,016 adults in the U.K. and U.S. using SONAR, JWT’s proprietary online tool.) On the other hand, consumers are open to personal data collection if there’s a clear benefit, and especially if it directly affects their wallet.

Transparency will become increasingly important for companies that leverage consumer data—they will need to explain what information they collect and why, assure consumers they’re to be trusted with the data and demonstrate how customers benefit.

We identified “ethical fashion” as one of our 100 Things to Watch in 2010, focusing on the use of organic cotton. Now, the horrific scope of last month’s garment factory collapse in Bangladesh—more than 1,100 workers were killed—is putting a spotlight on the apparel industry’s labor practices. So-called “sweat-free” initiatives are taking center stage: On Monday a group of apparel companies—including Sweden’s H&M, Spain’s Inditex and Netherlands-based C&A—signed an agreement that legally requires retailers to help pay for safety upgrades at the Bangladesh factories that produce their goods. At the same time, some U.S. states and municipalities are passing sweat-free procurement policies—nine states, 40 cities and 15 counties to date.

A few niche retailers are tackling the issue head-on. Eternal Creation, founded by an Australian designer, trains and manages its own factory workers in Dharamsala, India. Online brand Everlane tells customers, “We spend months finding the best factories around the world” and says they visit them often. Brands whose goods were produced in the collapsed factory, including Joe Fresh, have set up relief funds and announced new commitments to safety standards. Meanwhile, American Apparel has taken the opportunity to remind consumers that its Los Angeles-made goods are “sweatshop-free.”

The question is whether The New York Times had it right in an article declaring that labor conditions would become an important issue for apparel: “With fair-trade coffee and organic fruit now standard on grocery shelves, consumers concerned with working conditions, environmental issues and outsourcing are increasingly demanding similar accountability for their T-shirts.” While the Times points to the growing consumer demand for transparency, research has found that even if consumers readily say they’re against sweatshop labor, shoppers are less ready to adjust their fashion-buying habits. MarketWatch points to a study that compared sales for a label-free rack of socks and a rack touting socks made under good working conditions; the price tag was the same, yet just half the study participants chose the “ethical” socks.

Image credit: American Apparel

As we note in our recent report on mobile trends, payments will start getting pushed to the back of consumer experiences as apps enable customers to purchase and pay easily, enjoying a seamless experience. Taxi service Uber is the most high-profile and oft-cited example. Now, several apps are aiming to bring this experience to diners and bar patrons.

MyCheck launched in Israel—where the company says it’s accepted at hundreds of locations, including a large café chain—and is looking to expand, starting with New York City. Users check in to a participating venue upon arrival, receiving a code that they give to a waiter (or other relevant person), syncing their phone with the establishment’s system; before leaving, they use the app to pay for as much of the bill they want to cover. Still in private beta, New York-based Cover has a similar focus; its founders say the idea was inspired by Uber. Square is also in this space, as well as TabbedOut, which emphasizes the potential for merchants to collect data that will enable more personalized service. At the same time, fast food chains including KFC (in the U.K. and Ireland) and Five Guys (in the U.S.) are creating their own apps that enable seamless payment via the mobile device.

While consumers have been slow to adopt the mobile wallet, they’re more likely to embrace payment apps that remove clear hassles (e.g., waiting for and dividing up the check, standing in line to pay) and enable efficiency. On the merchant side, such apps will enable Predictive Personalization—i.e., fine-tuned offers and messaging—via the data they collect on users’ habits and preferences.

-Time’s cover headline: “The Me Me Me Generation: Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.” The subheading: “Why they’ll save us all.” Time includes observations on the “connected generation” by Mashable’s Pete Cashmore.

-In the wake of the Bangladesh factory collapse, The New York Times reports that apparel could be the next front in the fair trade movement. And The Wall Street Journal looks at the tough options for apparel brands seeking to keep costs down.

-CNBC reports on a PwC study finding that Chinese consumers will soon become the biggest adopters of mobile commerce.

-China’s blue-collar women are gaining clout as the supply of female factory workers dries up, according to The Economist.

-Ad Age reports that emerging-market consumers are starting to adopt the American habit of frequent snacking.

-Adweek examines whether the ailing American shopping mall can have a “second life.”

-A New York Times column notes that the U.S. “has quietly surpassed much of Europe in the percentage of young adults without jobs.”

-A survey of U.S. students finds they’re growing less interested in finance careers and more interested in health care jobs, per CNBC.

-The Economist reports that India will have the world’s biggest potential workforce within a decade but is in danger of squandering the opportunity.

-Writing in Foreign Policy, Microsoft Research’s Kate Crawford says Big Data “isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

-Given the growth in Latino buying power over the last decade, U.S. firms “are chasing the elusive Hispanic dollar,” as The Economist reports.

-The New York Times looks at resistance to Google Glass, as skeptics question whether it will “distract drivers, upend relationships and strip people of what little privacy they still have in public.”

-Google’s Eric Schmidt talks to McKinsey about “technologies likely to have the greatest disruptive impact on economies, business models and people.”

-The Wall Street Journal reports that Bitcoin-focused startups are raising “sizable” capital.

-The Economist examines how YouTube is “becoming more like normal television.”

-YouTube launches a video trends map.

-An Ad Age columnist outlines six trends for online video and traditional TV emerging during the upfronts/NewFronts season.

-The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the quest for a mobile operating system that can challenge the dominance of Google and Apple.

-The Guardian spotlights some of the new challengers to Facebook.

-Slate’s Farhad Manjoo examines why electric car brand Tesla is “about to be huge.”

-McKinsey outlines how MOOCs are changing higher education and some implications for traditional colleges.

-A Huffington Post columnist outlines four alcohol consumption trends that Millennials are embracing.

-Bloomberg Businessweek reports on the growing black market for stolen food.

-A study finds that by 2050, more than half the world’s population could depend on imported food, The Guardian reports.

-Coca-Cola pledges to stop advertising to children under age 12, as Ad Age reports.

-Food-based ingredients in cosmetics are gaining in popularity, reports Cosmetics Design.

-A report by The NPD Group shows online gaming continues to rise, via MediaPost.

-USA Today reports that boutique hotels are offering increasingly quirky amenities.

-The Wall Street Journal writes that jewels are becoming a more popular option for investors looking to store cash.

-A study from the University of Oxford finds that social media use may cause marital instability.

Among the trends examined in our recent report “Travel: Changing Course” is the expansion of the peer-to-peer marketplace, which is upending the hospitality, tourism and transportation industries. One driver of the P2P phenomenon is a loss of faith in big institutions: Having seen longstanding financial brands collapse, along with various corporate scandals and bailouts, people are becoming more apt to place their trust in individuals and less likely to regard established brands as more trustworthy, reliable, high quality and/or safer than the rest.

A majority of people say they would put their trust in an individual over a big corporation any day, according to a survey we conducted of 1,016 adults in the U.S. and the U.K. using SONAR™, JWT’s proprietary online tool. While we don’t see a big generation gap on that question, Boomers are least likely to embrace the P2P concept. Overall, 56 percent of respondents felt it’s great that people can avoid traditional businesses through P2P platforms, and 40 percent said they trust individuals offering P2P services. As we observed last week, open-minded, tech-savvy Millennials will drive demand for these services.

As more travelers chart their trips on social media, travel companies are making tweeting, Instagramming and posting easier and more automatic. Sydney’s Luna Park was a forerunner, launching “My Experience” in 2011. As we explained at the time, visitors who buy an Unlimited Rides Pass receive wristbands that they register online using a smartphone or computer; these can be scanned at ride exits to launch a Facebook status update (choosing from several options) or used to post ride photographs in real time. Spain’s Ushuaïa Ibiza Beach Hotel lets guests share their clubbing experience on Facebook by scanning RFID-enabled wristbands at kiosks around the venue; the hotel is planning an upgrade that will rely on fingerprint recognition.

For the 2013 U.S. presidential inauguration, the Loews Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., got a lot of buzz for offering a package that included a social media butler to keep guests’ online profiles updated (ultimately the package failed to sell, according to Politico). More broadly, hotels and theme parks are selling sessions with professional photographers. Jumby Bay, a Rosewood Resort in Antigua, offers a two-hour photo session for couples, as The Wall Street Journal has reported. Vail Resorts gives guests digital copies of ski photos expressly for social media (while still charging for high-quality prints), and a chip embedded in lift tickets lets skiers automatically upload photos to social networks.

For more Things to Watch and trends in travel, see our latest report here.