Recently, at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 Conference, The Nielsen Company featured a unique exhibit, Consumed: The Economy Hits Home, which looks at how today’s uncertain economy is shaping consumer attitudes and behaviors and how marketers can navigate this new landscape to uncover growth opportunities. Mark Leiter, President, Professional Services, provides a guided video tour.

Read the corresponding presentation: Consumer or Consumed.
More video and presentations available at Consumer360.com.

Nielsen’s second update since the country’s June 12th conversion to digital television has reported that 2.1 million American households, or 1.8 percent of the television market, were unable to receive digital television signals through the week ending June 21.  This is an improvement of 400,000 homes since the week of the June 12 DTV transition.
% of Homes Completely Unready

Date
Total
White
African American
Hispanic
Asian
Under 35
Over 55

June 21, 2009
1.8
1.3
4.0
2.8
2.9
4.0
0.8

June 14, 2009
2.2
1.6
4.6
3.6
3.2
4.4
1.1

June 7, 2009
2.5
1.9
5.1
4.3
3.1
4.6
1.3

May 24, 2009
2.7
2.1
5.4
4.7
3.2
5.0
1.5

May 10, 2009
2.9
2.3
5.7
4.9
3.4
5.4
1.6

April 26, 2009
3.1
2.4
5.9
5.0
4.1
5.7
1.7

April 12, 2009
3.2
2.5
5.9
5.4
4.3
5.9
1.7

March 29, 2009
3.4
2.7
6.2
5.6
4.4
6.3
1.8

March 15, 2009
3.6
2.9
6.6
6.1
4.4
6.5
2.0

March 1, 2009
3.9
3.2
6.7
6.5
4.5
7.2
2.2

February 15, 2009
4.4
3.6
7.5
7.4
5.1
8.1
2.6

February 1, 2009
5.1
4.1
8.7
8.5
6.3
8.6
3.2

January …

David Wiesenfeld, Vice President, Insights & Innovation, Nielsen Online
What’s driving all the excitement and energy around “listening?” After all, the basic notion of “listening” – observing and interpreting naturally occurring consumer behavior – is not new. In fact, when the first professional market researchers sat in consumers’ living rooms and talked with them about their lives and their needs, they were engaging in “listening” as much as they were asking questions. These pioneers were literally the eyes and ears of their organizations. They brought consumers to life in ways that …

For many consumers, skimping on a new car upgrade has created a lot of pent-up demand. While it’s unclear when buyers will be ready to buy autos en masse again, a new report from The Nielsen Co. suggests one of the best ways to reach them now is via online advertising, particularly video.
The report, released this month, found many consumers were still looking, but just not buying during the first four months of the year. However, 12 percent of the U.S. population said they will probably or definitely buy a …

Alex Burmaster
Last month, we were honored to win a ‘BOBI’ award for “Most Innovative Approach” from the British Healthcare Business Intelligence Association for our recent work with Pfizer. Their challenge was to monitor what consumers were saying online about Champix, the company’s smoking cessation aid, and to that end, we created a research methodology using our BuzzMetrics solutions.
Whilst winning is, of course, fantastic, what was most important for us was that the client was so happy with the work that they submitted us for the award in the first place.
What’s …

As most top industries cut their ad budgets in 2008, the travel and hospitality industry saw its ad spend increase four percent, according to an analysis by The Nielsen Company. The industry spent $3.9 billion in total advertising across 16 media last year.
“In a year where ad spending declined across the board, it’s refreshing to see travel and hospitality companies were expanding their reach to consumers,” said Annie Touliatos, VP for Sales Development at Monitor-Plus, Nielsen’s ad tracking service. “It shows the confidence they have that Americans are still looking to travel even in this …

Consumer confidence around the world has been falling as the ongoing recession is causing more people to worry about their jobs and cut household spending.  And although residents of the United Arab Emirates share those concerns, they rank in the top ten of the most optimistic countries of the 52 studied by Nielsen.  The UAE scored a confidence level of 89, compared with other regional neighbors such as Saudi Arabia (79) and Egypt (74).  Globally, Indonesian consumers were the most confident, with a score of 104, followed by the Danes …

Tom Pirovano, Director, Industry Insights

For the past several months, we’ve seen sales for U.S. store brands grow at unprecedented rates with annual sales of $85.5 billion, up by $13.6 billion (+19%) vs. just two years ago. (Nielsen Grocery/Drug/Mass including Walmart). At first, this growth was driven by higher prices for milk and other commodities. Then the economy got even worse, and many just assumed that shoppers were switching from national brands to store brands to save money.
But what about the other factor we sometimes forget to mention? Could it be …

Global consumer spending appears to be on the rebound, driven by sales gains in China, India, the U.S. and Canada in April, another indication that the global economy may be stabilizing as consumer attitudes and confidence turn up. For the first time in four months, since the creation of the Nielsen Economic Current (NEC) scorecard of consumer behavior, a monthly report from The Nielsen Company, none of 10 major GDP countries showed declines in consumer activity compared to the previous month.
“Although consumers are still not shopping as frequently, we are …

May 2009 data from Nielsen Online shows that people continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites than ever before, with total minutes increasing 82 percent year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 67 percent year-over-year in May 2009. Twitter.com was the fastest-growing Web brand in May 2009, increasing 1,448 percent year over- year, from 1.2 million unique visitors in May 2008 to 18.2 million in 2009. Despite being the fastest-growing brand year-over-year, Twitter’s month-over-month growth has begun to slow, increasing 7 percent from April. The …