The early predictions were gloomy: the recession gripping the U.S. would make for a dismal holiday shopping season for retailers.  And while many retailers certainly felt the effects of the economic downturn, holiday dollar sales in 2008 actually increased 5.8 percent or $99.5 billion across grocery and drug stores, mass merchandisers and convenience stores, according to Nielsen.
Categories that drove the highest sales spikes were musical instruments and accessories, with more than half of the purchases for the year made in the last eight weeks of 2008.  Women’s and children’s fragrances, baking …

During a recession, the conventional wisdom may be that brands suffer as consumers look to reduce costs and save money.  But while private labels have shown solid growth in many categories, brands continue to grow.  According to Nielsen, 75 of Britain’s top 100 brands continue to increase sales.
Britain’s top brand? Coca-Cola, which racked up £969 million in sales in 2008. Following behind – and showing impressive 16 percent growth – was bread brand Warburtons, with sales of £710 million.
“A strong brand, which focuses on its core value proposition, can outperform …

According to Nielsen’s recent “Global Faces And Networked Places” report, the biggest increase in unique visitors to Member Community Web sites during 2008 was among 35-49 year olds. The social networking trend has moved well beyond early adopters to become an integral part of most users’ Web experience. However, among adults with more than one social networking profile, the profile still skews young and tech savvy, as revealed in Nielsen @Plan’s Spring 2009 results.
“Although this older segment has joined Member Communities en masse in 2008, most have only a toe …

Hispanic Internet users are avid downloaders of digital content, according to consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research, a joint partnership between Arbitron and The Nielsen Company.
The study found that Hispanic Internet users are 21% more likely to download digital content than the average adult online. Forty-two percent of Hispanic Internet Users have downloaded some form of digital content during the past 30 days, compared to 35% of the total Internet population. Music is the top download category for both Hispanics and the total Internet population. Almost one-third (32%) of …

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 …