Online engagement by Internet users is deepening, according to a new report on the online landscape released today by The Nielsen Company. This increased engagement is in part a result of a shift toward video content and social networking as popular online subcategories.
Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank takes a look at the economic and advertising impacts of the report.

Highlights Of The Report Include

The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same …

Global consumer confidence has reached an all-time low, according to the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index [download]. Thrifty habits being formed during the downturn will carry over into the recovery.
In the past six months, the index has plummeted to a record low 77 points from 84 points. The catalyst: Latin America, Russia and other emerging nations are now feeling the full effects of a recession that began in the United States, officially, in December.
Though consumer anxieties about the economy take many forms, the most widespread fear centers on job loss. …

Matt O’Grady, President, Nielsen Claritas
New data makes it clearer than ever: the U.S. is in a white-collar recession.
In the news and in our minds we understandably think of lower-to-middle income households as being the hardest hit victims of the housing, credit crisis, and the ensuing loss of jobs. But as we look back on a full year of recession, surprising patterns emerge that indicate higher-income households have been proportionately hit harder.
Since the beginning of last year, there has been a shift in household credit, according to an analysis of Nielsen’s …

Indians tend to be optimistic by default: there is a popular adage that “whatever is happening, that is for the good!”  But Indians have cause to be optimistic in the current economic environment as the global recession seems to only have just brushed India thus far.  According to Nielsen’s consumer confidence index for the second half of 2008, India had one of the highest rankings among the 52 markets the company conducted its survey.
The survey found that 77 percent of Indian respondents considered the state of their personal finances to …

As the Pulitzer Prizes for journalism were announced, Nielsen Online released data on unique visitors to online news sites for March 2009. MSNBC, CNN, and Yahoo! News led the way, with each showing gains over last year’s traffic numbers. The BBC (up 61%), Fox News (up 48%) and McClatchy Newspaper Network (up 20%) reported solid gains while, Gannett Newspapers (down 11%), USA Today and CBS News (both down 7%) slid down from last year’s mark. The NY Times, which led all outlets with five Pulitzers, drew 7% more visitors than …

Baby Boomers may be the perfect catch for advertisers in this unstable economy, according to new research from Nielsen.  Not only are Baby Boomers spending the lion’s share of consumer packaged goods, but are also watching more TV and spending more time on the Internet than Millenials age 18-44. Boomers watch 39 hours of TV per week compared to only 27 hours a week for Millenials.   Boomers also use the Internet almost 7 hours per week compared to 6 hours a week those for those 18-44.  Read the full study here.
More …

Tom Pirovano, Director, Industry Insights
Sales of store brands, or private label products, began to spike in 2007 just as we were seeing the first signs of an economic downturn. At first, these private label sales were driven by higher commodity prices, but volume growth began to catch up with dollar growth in mid-2008. As the economy continues to struggle, more and more consumers are replacing their branded products with private label equivalents. Store brands are up 10% to $84.4 billion in annual sales across categories …

A recent video made by two rogue and rude Domino’s employees left a bad taste in the mouth of customers who watched it. But, thanks to some social media tipsters, Domino’s was able to issue their own YouTube response quickly as a remedy to the potentially brand damaging viral video. The buzz online about the brand spiked during the crisis.

Patrick Doyle, President, Domino’s U.S.A., thanked the online community for the tip in his video and the brand also created a twitter account @dpzinfo to communicate.

Brandon Eshman, Nielsen Online
If you think the internet can support unlimited content and you’ve been enjoying your all-you-can-eat web surfing… just wait. At the same time that consumers are increasing their use of the internet to view content at their convenience, some cable companies and ISPs are setting limits on how much content you can access in any given month – or risk paying a penalty for going over the limit the same way your phone company budgets your anytime minutes.
Comcast has levied a 250-gigabyte cap on its users, (that’s …

Home prices around the U.S. appreciated enormously in the first seven years of the decade, but declines over the last two years now dominate the headlines. But which markets showed the biggest early gains and largest recent dip? According to analysis by Nielsen Claritas of 254 counties with populations of a 250K or more found that counties in California and Florida dominated both categories.
Top 10 Counties with the Highest Percentage Decrease in Median Home Value from 2007-09

Rank
County
% Change from 2000-07
%Change 2007-09

1
Merced Cty, CA
192.0%
-37.6%

2
San Joaquin Cty, CA
185.9%
-36.1%

3
Stanislaus …