More New Zealanders than ever are turning to the internet to shop, according to a new report from Nielsen Online.  Those who shop online grew to 45 percent in the fourth quarter 2008, up from 39 percent for the same period a year before.  The adult online shopping population now stands at a record 1.4 million people out of a total population of about 4.5 million.
The trend towards shopping online cuts across most categories, with the most popular categories being airline tickets, books/magazine, clothing and other travel-related services such as …

Now that the NCAA Tournament has tipped off, senior vice president for Nielsen Sports Tom Ziangas talks about how important March Madness is to the CBS brand as well as the basketball tournament’s appeal to advertisers.
“The one thing you think about as far as the NCAA tournament is it’s synonymous with CBS,” said Ziangas. “I think advertisers understand that. That’s why you have people like Coke and AT&T – and even GM is actually coming back to the tournament when they pulled out of the Super Bowl. Having that cache …

More U.S. homes have prepared themselves for the Digital TV transition according to an update from The Nielsen Company. As of March 15, only 3.6 percent of all TV homes remain unready for the June transition to all-digital broadcasting compared to slightly less than 4% at the start of the month. Homes where the head of household is 35 or under showed the most notable demographic improvement, improving from 7.2% unready to 6.5%. This leaves roughly 4.1 million homes unprepared for DTV, an improvement of nearly 350,000 in the …

Few countries have developed as rapidly as Vietnam has over the last decade – its growth has averaged 7.5 percent per year since 2000.  But the economic downturn has affected almost all countries to some degree.  Will the global recession derail the extraordinary progress Vietnam has made?  Nielsen has prepared a study “Boom or Doom in Vietnam in 2009?” to look at this very question.
Success has bred confidence: Vietnamese are the 9th most confident consumers in the world. And opportunities clearly remain, with AT Kearney rating Vietnam as the most …

At a time when financial institutions are pulling back on their advertising, a new study from Nielsen IAG shows that consumer confidence in the long-term health of these companies is dramatically influenced by advertising and marketing efforts.
When asked about their own banks, insurance companies and investment firms, 55% of respondents who said they had seen more advertising for their financial institution reported having “complete confidence” in the financial health and soundness of their financial company and only 18% said they had “little or no confidence” in their company. However, among those …

Despite hosting the Beijing Olympics, ad spending in China grew 17 percent in 2008, up from the 15 percent growth in 2007, but below the 23 percent growth posted in 2006, according to Nielsen. The total ad spend was 520.3 billion Yuan, or US$74.3 billion.
“The Olympics didn’t deliver the advertising boon everyone expected, as the bulk of China’s advertisers took an ad break during August, resulting in a monthly ad spend figure close to 2007 levels, and not much higher than in May, when the Sichuan earthquake hit and advertising …

James Russo, Vice President, Marketing, Nielsen
With unemployment reaching 25-year highs, it is no surprise that Americans are nervous about their futures.  Over the last twelve months, confidence has nosedived as consumers worry about keeping their jobs, paying their mortgages and other bills, and their retirements.
We are on the verge of a potential fundamental shift in how consumers shop and buy that could have ramifications long past economic recovery.  They are shopping less and changing the types of products they purchase, such as shifting …

The NCAA Tournament, March Madness, is one of the most celebrated sporting events in the U.S, providing a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to reach a wide and relatively affluent audience.
Nielsen’s Guide To March Madness, tracks a range of consumer and media information surrounding the event including advertising trends and demographic reach of the multi-week event. Ad buys for CBS’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament have risen steadily over the last five years – from $434 million in 2004 to $580 million in 2008 – a surge of almost 34 percent.  …

Michelle McGiboney, Nielsen Online
Twitter.com continues to grow in popularity and importance in both the consumer and corporate worlds. No longer just a platform for friends to stay connected in real time, it has evolved into an important component of brand marketing. Unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month.  Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240 percent and 228 percent, respectively.
Fastest Growing Member Community …

Manish Bhatia, President, Advanced Digital Services, Nielsen
Any physicist will tell you energy can neither be created nor destroyed — just changed from one form to another. Much the same can be said these days about television viewing.
Life used to be so simple – one screen, three national broadcast networks and a handful of local TV stations in every market. What’s more, all stations “signed off” sometime after midnight, leaving insomniacs with nothing to watch until morning but the once iconic test pattern. Then along came cable, considerably expanding …