Posted by truecreek on December 24, 2009 under More Dam News, Research | 
The Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Project and Internet Project combined forces to write an in-depth look at Internet penetration across racial and ethnic categories in the U.S.
A summary of the major findings:
From 2006 to 2008, Internet use among Latino adults rose by 10 percentage points, from 54% to 64%. In comparison, the rates for whites rose four percentage points, and the rates for blacks rose only two percentage points during that time period. Though Latinos continue to lag behind whites, the gap in Internet use has shrunk considerably.
For Latinos, the increase in Internet use has been fueled in large part by increases in Internet use among groups that have typically had very low rates of Internet use.
· While U.S.-born Latinos experienced a two percentage point increase in Internet use from 75% in 2006 to 77% in 2008, foreign-born Latinos experienced a 12 percentage point increase during the same period, from 40% to 52%.
· In 2006, 31% of Latinos lacking a high school degree reported ever going online; in 2008, this number was 41%. In comparison, Latinos with higher levels of education experienced three to four percentage point increases in Internet use.
· Internet use among Latinos residing in households with annual incomes less than $30,000 increased 17 percentage points from 2006 to 2008. For Latinos in households earning $30,000 to $49,999 annually, Internet use increased two percentage points, and for Latinos in households earning $50,000 or more annually, there was no change in Internet use.
Read the entire survey, Internet Use Grows Fast Among Latinos, here.
Posted by truecreek on December 17, 2009 under The Work |
Posted by truecreek on December 16, 2009 under More Dam News |
This article brings up a good point that the increased usage of DVRs creates a huge problem for any advertiser whose television spot is time constrained .
By Brian Steinberg, AdAge
The ability to delay viewing of TV shows by using a digital video recorder is giving rise to noticeably different habits, according to new research from Horizon Media.
Through November 2009, 11 fall season programs were regularly “time-shifted,” or watched as many as seven days after the date of original air, by more than 3 million viewers, said Brad Adgate, the independent media-buying firm’s senior VP-research. Last year at this time, only three programs — ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” Fox’s “House” and CBS’s “CSI” — fit that bill.
The trend is cause for scrutiny among TV outlets and advertisers, because the more people who watch TV programs longer after they air, the more difficult it is to reach them with a timely ad pitch.
While futurists project one day advertisers may well be able to insert more relevant advertising into recorded programming, these days marketers remain concerned that ads for particular events — Friday-night movie openings and weekend sales at retail outlets — amount to naught when consumers watch them five or six days after they were intended to run.
Entire article, “The Most Time-Shifted Shows of the Fall Season” here.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News, Research |
By David Lieberman, Associated Press
The Internet and tech toys get the headlines. But the vast majority of Americans still turn to their familiar televisions, radios, and CDs when they want to be informed and entertained, according a consumer tracking survey released Tuesday by the NPD Group.
“There’s a perception that families spending time in front of a glowing TV hearth has been replaced by glowing laptop or iPod displays,” NPD analyst Russ Cupnick says in a release. While true for some, “TV remains the top entertainment choice by far in the United States.”
More than 80% of the country watches an average of 10 hours a week of non-movie TV programming, according to the online survey of 10,281 people in August, weighted to reflect the general population.
After that:
* 78% said that they listened to music on a traditional AM/FM radio sometime during the prior week.
* 70% sent an instant message or e-mail.
* 60% listened to music on a CD.
* And 58% watched a movie on TV, not including pay-per-view or video-on-demand.
But the survey found that online is becoming an increasingly important part of the mix. Some 47% of the respondants visited a social networking site the prior week.
Read the entire survey, entitled “TV More Popular Than Internet for Entertainment” here.
Posted by truecreek on December 14, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Emily Bryson York, AdAge
Not everyone wants a value meal. And not everyone is unemployed. These insights informed an impressive year at Panera Bread Co., in which the chain outperformed much of the fast-casual category. To do so, the chain focused on quality, innovation and marketing.
“A bunch of folks have been cutting quality to cut price to go after the marginal customer,” said Exec VP-Chief Operating Officer Rick Vanzura, who added that Panera donates about $100 million in bread each year. “We said a better strategy that addresses a bigger group of people is providing better value.”
More about Panera: an America’s Hottest Brands Case Study here.
Posted by truecreek on December 10, 2009 under More Dam News |
If this software works well, it could really improve the creative process for digital media.
From Creativity.
Burt, a software development company that sprang from Crispin Porter + Bogusky Europe, has released its digital media analytics product, Rich.
Rich is aimed squarely at agency creatives and is designed as a streamlined, accessible – and free- tool for measuring the success of online campaigns.
Burt was co-founded by Gustav von Sydow and Gustav Martner of Daddy, which was acquired by CP+B this year. von Sydow was a planner at Daddy and is now working at Burt full-time; Martner is still ECD of CP+B Europe. As agency types, they say they have a greater understanding of the specific needs of creatives when it comes to these sort of tools.
Burt is making Rich available to agencies for free and, starting in January, will offer premium services like media quality audits and pre-testing for a fee.
Read more about Burt Unit Launches Analytics Tool for Creatives here.
Posted by truecreek on December 7, 2009 under More Dam News |
Real moms still have unmet needs—as women and mothers. Boston Consulting Group estimates that women control $4.3 trillion of the $5.9 trillion in U.S. consumer spending, or 73% of household spending.
To reach this demographic, marketers need not just to communicate that the goods and services they offer are practical and convenient; they also need to make real moms feel confident and in charge.
Marketers should empower these female consumers to delegate to others (spouses, children,brands) so they can have more time to be who they want to be—at home, at work and on their own.
And marketers have to use new ways to reach a population that rarely has time to sit down to read or watch or enjoy something without simultaneously doing something else.
Read the entire report about marketing to moms here.
Posted by truecreek on December 4, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
We’ve recommended Cinema advertising to our clients for years now. Executed well, it’s an effective tactic.
By Breeanna Hare, CNN
There’s an old Hollywood tale, and it goes like this: Open a female-led movie around Valentine’s Day. Watch women go in droves and drive up box office numbers.
Then let Hollywood executives call it a fluke, since everyone knows that women don’t go to movies.
Over the past few weeks, that tale has been told with a twist.
Two female-led movies have earned astronomically high box office numbers — like “third best opening weekend” high — on fall weekends typically dominated by blockbuster movies aimed at men. “New Moon,” the second film in the “Twilight” vampire series, has grossed more than $230 million since its opening, while “The Blind Side,” about a white family that takes in a homeless African-American boy, is already past the $100 million mark.
For both “Blind Side” and “New Moon,” women have made up more than half the audience. And by the time these films complete their runs, they could gross nearly $500 million each, said Gitesh Pandya, the editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com, because of a largely female audience packing theaters.
Read more about women going to the movies here.
Posted by truecreek on December 2, 2009 under More Dam News |
From Popsop:
Heinz is going to spend more money on its marketing campaigns over the next few months to attract new shoppers and please consumers loyal to its products. The giant food company’s profits rose to $2.67 billion (2.5%) in the last quarter, and the giant believes it’s high time to adopt new approaches for gaining more popularity among customers, looking for discounts and bargains.
The company is going to spend 25-30% more in the second half of the fiscal year, and in four years the expenditures set for these purposes will comprise $130 million. Over this period the marketing investments will be greatly increased particularly in North America and Europe.
“Even though the global recession appears to be abating, there’s no question that consumer and customers remain intensely focused on value which they are more often defining as price,” comments Bill Johnson, chairman/CEO of Heinz. The new approach is going to be based around the company’s Consumer Value Program scheme involving “selective price point adjustments that are more attractive to cost conscious consumers, targeted media, increased point of purchase, in store marketing and increased new product activity,” noted Johnson.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
From Popsop:
By the end of 2020 Coca-Cola is planning to double its “Asian” revenues to $200bn in course of the next 10 years, with the developing markets of India and China being set as the major fields. The giant soft drinks maker is hoping to have at least $1 billion of annual sales from marketing its six major brands in the Celestial Empire.
The giant’s broad portfolio, which now includes a wide range of soft drinks, diary and water, helped increase Coke’s profits by annual 19% over the past five years, and the company is plotting to earn three times more by 2020. At the current moment, Coke’s sales double those of its main competitor PepsiCo. As FT reports, each average resident of China annually consumes 28 Coca-Cola items.
Coke and Sprite soft drinks already make $1bn in China on an annual basis, and Yuan Ye, the maker’s tea product, and Ice Dew, are supposed to deliver this amount of money by 2020. To win more consumers, the giant has already launched Glaceau water and Minute Maid Super Pulpy Milky in China market and is planning to introduce new products to the fast-growing market. The company has 10 years in stock, and with its high brand level and a variety of new offerings to arrive a decade will be more than enough to reach the lofty aims.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
From Popsop:
The Nike (RED) campaign was launched yesterday, December 1, in 13 countries around the world. Like Starbucks, another global brand, the sportswear maker joined the movements dedicated to fighting AIDS in Africa. All the revenues gathered from selling red football laces, with each pair costing $4.00, will be donated to the Global Fund.
Posted by truecreek on November 30, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
By Bertha Coombs, CNBC
Retailers drew more shoppers to open their wallets this Black Friday weekend, but the steep discounts they used to get them in the door meant that on average, shoppers spent less.
The National Federation of Retailers says 195 million people shopped at stores and online over the weekend, up 13.3 percent from last year. Total spending was flat at $41.2 billion, but on average consumers spent 8.5 percent less, roughly $343 per person compared to $372 a year ago.
Department stores emerged the shopping destination of choice for nearly half of all shoppers polled in the NRF’s Black Friday survey, conducted by BIGresearch.
Discount stores came in second garnering a 43.2 percent share, and outlets picking up 7.8 percent of shoppers. Just over one in four surveys shopped at electronics stores (29 percent) or online (28.5 percent).
Two years into the deepest recession in a generation, consumers may be showing signs of what some have termed frugal fatigue, says the NRF’s Ellen Davis. “Retailers have to come away from this weekend encouraged,” she says, “that shoppers were willing to spend on some discretionary items.”
Capital Growth Partners president Craig Johnson says the consumer was back in force over Black Friday weekend. In a note to clients, he wrote, ‘These are not simply browsers, but buyers, with checkout lines of 30 or longer in some mall teen specialty stores, and checkout lines exceeding 350 in several Big Box stores.”
Just over half shoppers bought clothing, according to the survey, helping to boost department store sales. About forty percent bought books, DVDs and video games. Those numbers were about the same as last year.
Price wars on popular toys at Wal-Mart, Target and Toys R Us saw more shoppers buying toys as gifts. About a third of shoppers said they spent money on toys, a 12.9 percent increase from last year.
According to the survey, more shoppers bought sporting and leisure items this year — 12.6 percent, up a point from last year. Personal care and beauty items saw a bigger increase — 22.4 percent up from 19.0 percent — along with gift cards — 21.2 percent vs. 18.7 percent a year ago.
Did those early door busters in the wee hours of the morning pay off? Nearly one-third of shoppers (31.2 percent) were at the stores by 5 a.m. according to the NRF survey, that’s up from 23.3 percent last year. The majority of those early shoppers were men or younger shoppers.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
By Meg James
There’s finally some new life in old media.
After pummeling traditional media companies for nearly two years, the advertising recession is showing signs of a recovery. TV networks — including Fox, CBS and ABC and such leading cable channels as TNT, TBS, USA, Bravo and Fox News Channel — have benefited the most as advertisers have been snapping up available commercial spots and agreeing to pay significantly higher prices than they did just five months ago.
“In challenging times, people go back to what they know, and what they know best is television,” said David Levy, president of sales for Turner Entertainment, which includes TNT and TBS. “It is a little too early to declare victory, but the market is definitely improving.”
The welcome news is the result of stronger-than-expected demand for TV advertising in the “scatter” market, in which advertisers frequently have to pay premiums for scarce available commercial time. It also represents something of a win for the networks, which gambled this summer that demand would pick up later in the year and held back a larger percentage of their inventory than in previous years, hoping to capitalize on the improved economy.
Fourth-quarter commercial sales have been propelled by retail chains hoping to ignite their holiday sales; technology giants Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc., which have new products to promote; cellphone carriers such as Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, which are battling for customers; and even such financial firms as American Express, according to television executives and advertising buyers surveyed this week.
Such strong demand has made up for the weaker orders from other mainstay advertisers, including automakers, still reeling from weak sales, and Hollywood movie studios, which have fewer new movies to hype.
A fourth quarter described by one top network sales executive as “gangbusters” amazed even veterans who have lived through several economic cycles. Only five months ago, the industry was bracing for another dismal year as TV network sales teams were engaged in protracted negotiations with advertisers that were demanding that the networks roll back prices as much as 20%. Networks eventually agreed to trim rates about 5% to 8% to mollify advertisers and begin unloading their time.
But now, in some cases, advertisers have agreed to pay rates 10% to 35% higher than the prices established in June and July, when the networks sold the bulk of their time for the new TV season. In addition, advertisers that placed their orders in the summer are honoring their commitments. Network executives said that few advertisers have canceled their orders for commercial spots, in contrast with a year ago.
“We have all been surprised that the ad market has come back this soon,” said Gary Carr, executive director of national broadcast for the advertising firm TargetCast. The networks, he said, also face easier comparisons because last fall, with banks failing and the economy on the skids, companies were afraid to spend on advertising.
“A year ago, people thought the world was coming to an end, and the U.S. economy was falling apart,” Carr said. “But the world did not come to an end. Cars still have to be sold, and studios still need people to go see their movies. Advertisers have begun releasing the money that they have been holding onto all year.”
Even local TV stations — among the hardest hit by the slump in advertising spending — have received a lift, primarily fueled by stores that unleashed their holiday sales campaigns earlier in the season, according to television executives.
Not all media outlets have rebounded, however. Many small cable TV channels and Spanish-language television networks are still hurting, according to television executives. Newspapers, magazines and radio stations also continue to struggle.
“In many sectors, the news is still grim,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president for research at TNS Media Intelligence, which tracks advertising spending. “And there is still a fairly large hole for these companies to dig out of before they get back to the levels they were a few years ago.”
Unexpectedly, online advertising also has taken it on the chin.
Many advertisers are no longer as eager to buy Internet display ads as they were two or three few years ago, when firms were steering millions of ad dollars to online sites.
“There is still a big push toward digital and online video, but the Internet display advertising market is challenged,” said Greg Kahn, senior vice president of strategic insights at advertising firm Optimedia. “There is so much clutter in the space, and advertisers have begun to question the effectiveness of those display ads.”
More here.
Posted by truecreek on November 25, 2009 under More Dam News |
This is turning into quite the battle of the airwaves. The mere fact that the court declined to order Verizon to pull the ads means more to come, and quickly.
By Peter Svensson
NEW YORK (AP) – What would the holidays be without bickering between siblings? AT&T and Verizon are swamping TV with ads attacking facets of each other’s wireless networks. While the ads stick fairly close to the truth, there’s a lot they don’t say.
AT&T Inc. has been running ads with actor Luke Wilson checking off points in AT&T’s favor over Verizon Wireless. It’s the continuation of a spat that started a month ago, when Verizon started airing cheeky commercials that highlighted how its fast, third-generation (“3G”) network has wider coverage than AT&T’s 3G system.
Verizon’s ad used the slogan “There’s a map for that,” a play off Apple Inc.’s ads for the iPhone, which tout the diversity of third-party applications for the phone with the line “There’s an app for that.“
AT&T sued Verizon Wireless over the “map” ads, not because the maps were incorrect, but because AT&T felt there was a danger that viewers could get the impression that AT&T had no coverage at all where it doesn’t have 3G. Last week, a judge declined to force Verizon to pull the ads.
AT&T and Verizon, two offspring of Ma Bell, are getting more aggressive in their marketing, though it’s not clear how much they are spending. Verizon and AT&T are both pulling away from their smaller rivals, so instead of competing with Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA, they’re increasingly focused on each other. Verizon Wireless has more subscribers than AT&T – 89 million versus 81.6 million. But AT&T added more wireless subscribers in the latest quarter – 2 million versus 1.2 million at Verizon, which is a joint venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.
Posted by truecreek on November 24, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
From Consumer Reports:
Bell ringers, perfume sprayers and the steady drumbeat of holiday music may be annoying to some shoppers. But what really brings out their grinchier instincts are stores that fail to open all the checkout lanes and then use pushy retail tactics when shoppers finally make it to the cash register.
Customers don’t like being pressured to open store credit cards or being asked for personal information. And they really object to being hounded to buy extended warranties, according to a nationally representative survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center.
The survey was conducted as part of Consumer Reports’ annual “Dear Shopper” campaign that highlights holiday gotchas and shopping traps. This year Consumer Reports had an assist from its sister Web site, Consumerist, which collected a list of annoyances from its readers.
When the list was taken to the public at large, those surveyed were in agreement. Here are the top gripes about retail practices:
* 72% Stores that don’t open all the checkout lanes;
* 68% Fake “sales”. If something is always 20% off, it’s not on sale;
* 67% Coupons that exclude almost everything in the store;
* 62% Being hounded with the extended warranty sales pitch;
* 58% Cashiers that ask for your phone number or other personal information;
* 56% In-store prices that do not match the same company’s on-line prices;
“Consumers have told us that they just want a hassle-free and convenient shopping experience,” said Jim Guest, president and CEO of Consumers Union. “We really hope this list of holiday annoyances is a wake-up call for the retail industry.”
When we asked shoppers about the number one non-retail practice that made them grumpy almost a third said the crowds (29%) followed by difficulty parking (28%), sales people spraying perfume (16%) and bell ringers outside stores (13%). Surprisingly, few folks are annoyed by that holiday music—only three percent said that was their top pet peeve. Fa-la-la-la-la indeed.
More here.
Posted by truecreek on November 12, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
Some 19% of Internet users now say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This represents a significant increase over previous surveys in December 2008 and April 2009, when 11% of Internet users said they use a status-update service.
Three groups of Internet users are mainly responsible for driving the growth of this activity: social network website users, those who connect to the Internet via mobile devices, and younger Internet users – those under age 44.
In addition, the more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Fully 39% of Internet users with four or more Internet-connected devices (such as a laptop, cell phone, game console, or Kindle) use Twitter, compared to 28% of Internet users with three devices, 19% of Internet users with two devices, and 10% of Internet users with one device.
The median age of a Twitter user is 31, which has remained stable over the past year. The median age for MySpace is now 26, down from 27 in May 2008, and the median age for LinkedIn is now 39, down from 40. Facebook, however, is graying a bit: the median age for this social network site is now 33, up from 26 in May 2008.
It will probably become more difficult to track status updating as an independent activity as social network updates feed into Twitter and vice versa. For now, it is clear that a “social segment” of Internet users is flocking to both social network sites and status update services. This segment is likely to grow as ever more Internet users adopt mobile devices as a primary means of going online.
More here.
Posted by truecreek on November 10, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Stephen Shankland
Google said Tuesday it will subsidize free wireless network access in 47 airports from now until January 15–and indefinitely in the airports of Burbank, Calif., and Seattle.
The promotion, in cooperation with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, and Airport Marketing Income, is the latest effort to use free Wi-Fi to boost a brand. Among others: Yahoo is sponsoring Wi-Fi in Times Square in New York, and Google is sponsoring Internet access on Virgin America flights during the holidays.
Among the larger participating airports are those in Houston, Boston, Miami, Las Vegas, Nashville, San Diego, Baltimore, and St. Louis. A full list of the airports is at Google’s free holiday Wi-Fi site.
The move, though not cheap, is probably smart. Plenty of business travelers have a laptop and time to kill, and today’s consumers are increasingly likely to be equipped with laptops, iPod Touches, or other devices that can use wireless Internet access. Google is spending some money for an opportunity to give a lot of people the warm fuzzies when they encounter the Google brand.
And in the big picture, Google gets to show people what the world might be like if there were more high-speed wireless Internet access–something the company has been aggressively lobbying for in Washington, D.C. Many people are used to wireless networking in their homes, but it’s a different matter on the road.
There are downsides, though, too. Having been to dozens of conferences where the wireless Net access collapses as soon as the keynote speech begins, I’m acutely aware that providing large-scale wireless Internet access is technically demanding–and people get unhappy when a promised benefit evaporates. And public, anonymous places such as airports and urban population centers are great spots for hackers to launch main-in-the-middle attacks by offering “Free Wi-Fi,” so exercise caution when logging on to these networks.
Posted by truecreek on November 9, 2009 under More Dam News |
The battle between AT&T and Verizon is going to make for some great advertising in the near future…
Marketing Casts Verizon Device as Antithesis of the Ubiquitous iPhone
By Rita Chang
SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) — Verizon’s droid is pitching itself as the anti-iPhone, and nowhere is that more evident than in the look and feel of its campaign — a blanket push you won’t be able to escape.
The integrated campaign, the largest in Verizon history, will receive an estimated $100 million in support, most of it spent before the end of the year. Within it, the new phone is touted as the robotic do-it-all antidote to the Apple handset’s shortcomings.
The TV spots set to hit airwaves Monday night are about as far from the iPhone’s cheery spots as possible. Visually somber and testosterone-packed, they could be mistaken for ads for “The Terminator.” But, like the iPhone spots, they also demonstrate what the device can deliver, such as voice-activated turn-by-turn directions, fast web-browsing and video viewing. The tagline: “In a world of doesn’t, Droid does.”
More here.
Posted by truecreek on November 6, 2009 under More Dam News |
Franchisee’s obscure idea turns sandwich maker into national phenomenon
By Matthew Boyle
Stuart Frankel isn’t what you’d call a power player in the world of franchising. Five years ago he owned two small Subway sandwich shops at either end of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.
After noticing that sales sagged on weekends, he came up with an idea: He would offer every footlong sandwich (the chain also sells 6-inch versions) on Saturday and Sunday for $5, about a buck less than the usual price. “I like round numbers,” says Frankel, a brusque New Yorker who moved to Miami in 1972 and owned a drugstore before opening his first Subway outlet in 1988.
Customers liked his round number, too. Instead of dealing with idle employees and weak sales, Frankel suddenly had lines out the door. Sales rose by double digits. Nobody, least of all Frankel, knew it at the time, but he had stumbled on a concept that has unexpectedly morphed from a short-term gimmick into a national phenomenon that has turbocharged Subway’s performance. “There are only a few times when a chain has been able to scramble up the whole industry, and this is one of them,” says Jeffrey T. Davis, president of restaurant consultancy Sandelman & Associates. “It’s huge.”
In fact, the $3.8 billion in sales generated nationwide by the $5 footlong alone placed it among the top 10 fast-food brands in the U.S. for the year ended in August, according to NPD Group. That puts the $5 menu’s success just a notch behind KFC and ahead of Arby’s and Domino’s Pizza. It helped privately held Subway, of Milford, Conn., lift U.S. sales 17 percent last year at a time when most restaurant chains, save for industry leader McDonald’s, struggled.
Read more.
Posted by truecreek on November 4, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
Broadcast radio still has reach. Now, that’s great to hear.
By Katy Bachman.
Contrary to popular belief, consumers are not trading broadcast radio for new media. Far from it. Of all audio segments, broadcast radio reaches more than 77 percent of users daily compared to 11.6 percent for MP3 players and iPods.
In total, more than 90 percent of adults were exposed to some form of audio media.
The findings, published Tuesday (Nov. 3) are based on a Nielsen analysis of data from the Council for Research Excellence Video Consumer Mapping Study. The $3.5 million landmark study conducted in 2008 used direct real-time observation methods to record the media behavior of participants in five major markets. Earlier this year, the CRE released results for video media.
Portable audio has its highest daily reach among the 18-34 demographic, but it takes up only 7.5 percent of all daily audio usage, compared to more than a 47 percent share for broadcast audio. In fact, broadcast radio has the highest daily reach among 18-34 year olds at 82.2 percent, compared to 81.6 percent for the 35-54 demo and 71.9 percent for 55 and older.
“There is a much more complex picture going on with audio than we ever really imagined,” said Dr. Michael Link, chief methodologist for Nielsen (parent company of Mediaweek). “What this report shows is that 18-34s aren’t abandoning radio. Rather, they’re adding new audio technologies in addition to broadcast radio consumption.”
Broadcast radio was also widely used among users of other forms of audio media. More than 81 percent of those who used portable audio devices, also listened to broadcast radio.
The medium also stacked up well against other media in terms of average hourly reach. Live TV reached the most people, followed by radio, the Web/Internet and newspapers and magazines.
Posted by truecreek on November 3, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Cat Moriarty
Sure, your brand message is consistent across all channels. But you haven’t truly integrated your marketing efforts unless you’re putting those channels to work together.
Mixing media — especially print and digital — is not only a smart idea, but with a little creativity, it can be a highly profitable one.
If your company depends on offline purchases, for example, improve direct mail conversions by e-mailing your audience before a drop, like True North did during a campaign for a New York–based credit union. The print-digital combination quickly produced 5,543 new members — 122 percent above expectations.
And with personalized URLs (PURLs), you can use direct mail to help drive online purchases, too. It’s what office machinery and consumer electronics company Ricoh did (with some pretty impressive results) when promoting its new high-end production print equipment
Retailer W.L. Gore had similar success when it included PURLs in its “Take Me to Everest” campaign. Not only did PURLs strengthen the company’s direct mail–Web connection, they also helped build brand awareness and generate shoe sales during the coveted holiday season.
And as this holiday shopping season soon gets under way, don’t underestimate the power direct catalogs — and their hybrid cousins (magalogs and catazines) — can have over online sales. With so much online competition, sending catalogs and other direct pieces is helping brands like mark and Zappos.com motivate customers to visit their sites more often, stay longer and get to know them better.
Posted by truecreek on under More Dam News |
In wake of recession, consumers look for value, focus on essentials.
By Allison Linn
The recession has dramatically changed many Americans’ shopaholic habits, at least temporarily and perhaps forever.
Now the question is whether the nation’s retailers have kept up.
“The answer is no,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with NPD Group.
He’s not alone in that assessment.
Although it’s still early days of the holiday shopping season, some analysts are already worried that too many merchants are taking a business-as-usual approach to an era that is anything but usual. Any miscalculation could be disastrous for retailers, who typically expect up to 20 percent of annual sales and a bigger share of annual profits during the critical holiday season.
“Retailers still don’t have a full grasp of reality,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of Strategic Resource Group, a consulting firm.
Flickinger thinks many of the nation’s retail executives don’t completely understand how severely the Great Recession has affected the millions of Americans who have lost jobs, had their wages cut or are living in fear of a job loss.
That, he noted, is on top of other financial concerns many Americans are facing, including a steep drop in home and investment values.
Retailers have good reason to fear such financial jitters, having only last year endured a disastrous season in which holiday retail sales fell 3.4 percent as Americans, rattled by the financial crisis, held onto their pocketbooks.
This year, Flickinger said, consumers are facing the reality of a sky-high unemployment rate and growing concerns about credit card debt.
“Shoppers are more scared going into this holiday season than any time in the last 50 years,” he said.
In the new era of tight budgets, consumers are looking for good value on the items they want and need. But instead, many analysts say retailers seem to be taking a different approach: offering ever-more extreme discounts on items they want to get rid of.
The super-low price method of offloading excess inventory has become so commonplace, even among higher-end retailers, that shoppers are coming to the conclusion that many products are just worth less, said brand analyst Robert Passikoff.
“It isn’t just that you learned that there will be sales — there will always be sales — but what it’s done is it ultimately affects the value perception of the product,” said Passikoff, president of the customer loyalty research firm Brand Keys.
More here.
Posted by truecreek on October 27, 2009 under More Dam News |
By Christina Cheddar Berk
Most of the early reads on how retail sales will shape up for the Christmas holiday period haven’t been all that jolly. At best, they have painted a picture of a shopping season that will be better than last year’s dismal turnout. But, according to some industry analysts, there are several reasons to believe that Santa might bring retailers a little joy this season.
1. Frugal Fatigue
Speaking on a conference call hosted by Dow Jones analyst Indexes and STOXX, Marshall Cohen, chief industry of market researcher NPD Group said consumers are getting tired of watching their pennies.
“Consumers are clearly telling us they are beginning to get tired of saving money,” Cohen said.
It has been more than a year since the economy started putting the pinch on consumer pocketbooks. Consumers have been trying to get their debt under control, and have pushed up the savings rate to decade-high levels. The holidays may finally give consumers a reason to start spending again.
2. Store Traffic Is Increasing
Have you noticed more folks at the store lately? ShopperTrack has, according to data analyzed by Richard Hastings, a consumer strategist for Global Hunter Securities. Hastings said he has seen signs of both year-over-year and month-to-month gains in the numbers of shoppers at the stores.
The increased store traffic is one signal that has prompted Hastings to boost his forecast for holiday sales. Although he previously expected sales to fall, he now anticipates retail sales for the November through January time period will rise 2.5 percent from last year.
3. Improved Guidance from Smaller Retailers
Another sign that things are starting to turn for retailers is the improved forecasts issued by even smaller retailers such as Bon-Ton Stores, Tuesday Morning and Pier 1 Imports.
Hastings said these comments are a sign that a new tide is coming in and “the smaller boats are being lifted up by a bigger wave.”
4. The New Normal
It just may be that consumers are finally comfortable with the new landscape. They have been spending carefully and planning for the holidays.
Retailers also have had time to plan, and with advancements in the way retailers track their inventory, are more capable to reacting quickly to chances in demand.
5. Weather
Weather may also play a role. Trends are aligning right now for better weather than last year, according to Paul Walsh, of Atmospheric and Environmental Research. For example, AER ,a Boston-based firm that analyzes the impact of climate change on business operations, expects, colder temperatures in December for the eastern part of the country, which could put consumers there in the holiday mood.
Weather has already played a key role in helping to boost retail sales in September by driving more sales of warm weather apparel before retailers marked down the cost of those items.
Posted by truecreek on October 14, 2009 under More Dam News, Research |
By eMarketer.
College students are the most connected demographic group in the US. They own multiple electronic devices and are a prime audience for online video.
eMarketer estimates 18.2 million college students, 95.7% of the total, will go online at least once a month in 2009. As Internet usage becomes ubiquitous, the percentage of students online is growing more slowly, rising to an estimated 96.8% in 2013.
“Not only is Internet access widely prevalent, but so is technology ownership in general,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “College Students: Connecting with the Connected Crowd.” “Since students own multiple devices, they want to use those devices to interact with friends and information in multiple ways. They care less about what method they use for their interactions and more about how easy and seamless those interactions are.”
Students are heavy consumers of online video—but also regular TV. They use social networking Websites to stay in touch with their friends—but rely on text messaging as well. And smartphones, which are becoming more and more common on campus, give students the ability to do many activities without touching a computer at all.
Despite the fears of some industry-watchers, college students are not abandoning social networks now that the sites have caught on among their elders.
“So far, that is not happening,” said Ms. Williamson. “In fact, the opposite is true. Students are more likely than ever to use social network sites.”
EDUCAUSE, which has tracked social network usage on campus for the past several years, found that the percentage of students visiting sites such as Facebook or MySpace on a daily basis has more than doubled in the past three years, from 32.9% in 2006 to 66.2% in 2009.
“But other indicators bear watching,” cautions Ms. Williamson. “One is how often students visit social networks and how much time they spend there.”
Still, in May 2009 Youth Trends found that Facebook was the No. 3 source among college students for learning about new products and services, after word-of-mouth and television commercials. Social networks remain a viable venue for marketing to the college crowd.
Posted by truecreek on October 7, 2009 under More Dam News |
Continuing the discussion about the change in consumer spending behavior….from today’s Washington Post.
By Nancy Trejos
The recession has cooled the American ardor for living on credit. After years of saying “Charge it,” consumers are more often paying with their debit cards instead.
Worry about jobs, fear of fluctuating interest rates on credit cards and wariness about spending too much are contributing to the change.
“People are managing their money in a different way,” said David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report, which tracks the credit card industry. “You clearly have a situation where those people who have jobs are exhibiting recession anxiety and they are making more debit transactions.”
Nine months ago, Alyson Chadwick, a public relations representative for a nonprofit organization on Capitol Hill, got a debit card with a MasterCard logo so she could use it anywhere for purchases. Carrying cash was unsafe, she thought, and a debit card would help her manage her spending better.
“I use my credit cards hardly at all,” she said. “I don’t even carry them with me.”
Trish Preston, head of U.S. debit for MasterCard, said the changing fortunes of debit and credit tell the story of how the recession has transformed consumer spending.
“Think about what’s happening in the economy,” she said. “Appliances, furniture, jewelry: Those are very sensitive to the economy, and those have generally been credit spending categories.”
Debit cards, meanwhile, tend to be used for routine necessities such as groceries and gasoline. “Those kinds of expenditures are happening,” she said.
The Federal Reserve said that revolving credit, primarily credit cards, dropped by $6.1 billion in July, or 8.1 percent on an annualized basis. Debit card usage, meanwhile, had been steadily growing over the years but has surged in this recession.
Credit cards draw on money borrowed at often high interest rates; debit cards withdraw money from the cardholder’s bank account.
Visa announced this spring that spending on Visa debit cards in the United States surpassed credit for the first time in the company’s history. In 2008, debit payment volume was $206 billion, compared with credit volume of $203 billion. MasterCard reported that for the first six months of this year, the volume of purchases on its debit cards increased 4.1 percent, to $160 billion, in the United States. Spending on credit and charge cards sank 14.8 percent, to $233 billion.
“Consumers are rational thinking individuals, and they’re going to shift their behavior in a way that fits with their current economic situation,” said Scott Strumello, an associate with the Auriemma Consulting Group, a Long Island-based payment card advisory firm. “They’re thinking more seriously about it, and many may decide, ‘I’m going to use debit where I can and reserve credit for larger purchases.’ ”
For three decades, credit cards, which emerged about 50 years ago but were not in widespread use until the 1970s, have reigned as the preferred mode of payment, mostly on big purchases, for baby boomers and their children. Before that, people used cash, bank loans or the installment plan.
Baby boomers typically charged responsibly. Their children, who grew up in the mostly prosperous 1980s and 1990s, became dependent on cards from an early age, partly because card issuers marketed heavily on college campuses. Unlike their parents, they tended to see credit cards as long-term loans. And they charged too much.
“An awful lot of kids grew up in a very big house and they grew up with pretty much everything they wanted, and then they became adults and their parents, rightly or wrongly, probably wrongly, conditioned them to a set of conditions they cannot afford,” said Lewis Mandell, professor of finance and business economics at the University of Washington and a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute.
Industry executives said much of the debit card growth is fueled by a growing disdain for carrying cash and writing checks. But they also acknowledged that credit cards have fallen out of favor with consumers who want to save more and limit their discretionary spending. In July, the personal savings rate reached 4.2 percent, up from about 1 percent of after-tax income early last year, according to government data.
“The real question is: Is consumer behavior permanent?” Strumello said. “And that’s something where the jury is still out. Consumers have made moves in other downturns.”
Mandell said the next generation might reject credit after seeing their parents struggle with money. “I think the next generation may be self-correcting depending on the duration and magnitude of the downturn,” he said.
There is some indication that the shift to debit is partly a visceral reaction to credit card industry practices in the past few months. Since a law was passed in May that will limit the industry’s ability to raise rates and fees, many issuers have cut credit lines and increased rates, forcing borrowers to look for other modes of payment.
