In a further sign that the economic downturn is more widespread than any before, Russian consumer confidence dropped 6 points in February 2009 from November 2008, when it dropped 16 points from September 2008, according to Nielsen’s Consumer Confidence Index.  The issues causing Russians nervousness mirror those found in other countries: growing unemployment, high inflation, devaluation of national currency and the burden of easy credit obtained during the “optimistic” years.  Maintaining employment is the key concern, with only 20 percent saying their job prospects were good, while 75 percent were …

While uncertain economic conditions have forced most marketers to cut back their budgets, they can take a number of steps to compensate for fewer available dollars and maintain the effectiveness of their campaign.  By moving beyond the use of traditional media age/sex demographics and having a clearer understanding of what networks and programs best reach actual brand targets, marketers have an opportunity to change their mix.  These new schedules can diminish the impact lower marketing budgets could have on a brand’s in-market presence.
Nielsen conducted a recession analysis that replicated the …

Nielsen Games released its January 2009 data for top console usage and PC game titles with Playstation 2 and the role-playing game World Of Warcraft topping their respective lists.
Top Game Consoles January 2009

Rank
Console
Usage
Minutes %

1
PlayStation 2
23.7

2
Wii
20.7

3
Xbox 360
18.2

4
PlayStation 3
9.0

5
Xbox
7.9

6
GameCube
3.3

7
Other
17.2

Source: Nielsen Games – GamePlay Metrics™
Usage Minutes % is the percent of all measured console minutes
“Other” consists of any other console systems found in the home

Top  10 PC Game Titles January 2009

Rank
Title
Publisher
Share
Avg. Min
Per Week
TMP%

1
World of Warcraft
Blizzard Entertainment
12.090
649
46.560

2
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic
Ubisoft
0.978
732
4.403

3
Second Life
Linden Lab
1.488
520
3.589

4
Warcraft III: …

While buyers may be delaying new vehicle purchases, consumers still actively post tens of thousands of brand and vehicle related messages each month. In its latest Automotive Industry Overview, Nielsen Online found that consumers have enthusiastically responded online to the Hyundai Assurance program (which allows leasers to return a vehicle with no penalty if they lose their income). Since the plan debuted in January, 2009, more than 1,900 messages have been posted, helped by general curiosity, praise from the media, Super Bowl commercials and the Assurance Plus addition in February. …

Grocery sales in the U.K. are holding their ground despite the continued economic difficulties, according to a new survey from Nielsen. Overall, sales grew 5.7 percent in the twelve-week period ended February 21 versus the same period last year, with all of the top 4 grocers attracting new customers.
Asda and Sainsbury showed solid growth during the quarter (7.6% and 5.5%, respectively), while Morrisons grew a strong 8.2 percent, driven by increased spending from its shoppers and Waitrose re-energized its business with 3.2 percent growth.
Discount retailers continued to make gains …

According to Nielsen Online, approximately 8.5 billion Web searches were conducted during February 2009, a 10% percent jump from January 2008.
Google searches accounted for 63.5 percent of all Web searches with nearly 5.4 billion queries. Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask.com continued to round out the top five.

RANK
Provider
Searches (000)
YOY Growth
Share of Searches

All Search
8,494,653
10.10%
100.00%

1
Google Search
5,394,190
19.20%
63.50%

2
Yahoo! Search
1,415,354
4.00%
16.70%

3
MSN/Windows Live Search
881,050
2.40%
10.40%

4
AOL Search
320,098
-19.90%
3.80%

5
Ask.com Search
162,226
-16.90%
1.90%

6
My Web Search
55,772
-21.60%
0.70%

7
Comcast Search
42,895
1.30%
0.50%

8
Yellow Pages Search
37,636
N/A*
0.40%

9
AT&T Worldnet Search
17,371
-27.60%
0.20%

10
Dogpile.com Search
15,880
-28.90%
0.20%

Source: Nielsen Online, MegaView Search

* A year-over-year comparison is not possible because of a definitional change to Yellow Pages …

Even though news of the peanut butter salmonella outbreak has subsided, peanut butter sales continue to decline.
During the four-week period ending February 21, 2009, sales of jarred peanut butter fell to $87.2 million, down 2.3 percent from the same period in 2008.  41.8 million pounds of jarred peanut butter was sold during the current four-week period, down 13.3 percent for the same period a year ago.  Pounds sold is at the lowest point of the three-year span Nielsen has tracked the total U.S. Food/Drug/Mass (including Walmart) Stores channel.
“While most brands …

John Burbank, Nielsen Online
For years, it has been assumed that home internet usage would cannibalize live television viewing, but there’s something interesting happening between social networking and live television.  Could it be that what Pete Blackshaw termed “telecommunities” – people simultaneously watching live television programs and chatting in real time with an online network of like-minded fans - will gain scale and give consumers a reason to stick with live viewing?
Let’s look at what happened during the Oscars.
During this year’s broadcast, we used Nielsen’s “Convergence Panel” – a sample of homes in which we …

Ken Cassar, Nielsen Online
For our March 11 webinar, “Retail Recession Realities,” I’ll be recommending coping strategies for retailers dealing with the ongoing economic crisis. The news has gone from bad to worse in the past six months, but there are approaches retailers can take to survive the lean times and even come out ahead when (dare I say it?) the economy recovers.
The Web offers opportunities for growth like no other channel. Quick case in point – readership of traditional offline newspapers has declined significantly of late, and with it, the …

It’s a long running joke: men and women are wired differently.  But the field of neuroscience has proven that this is no joking matter, and the ramifications are tremendous for consumer goods manufacturers, as women buy or influence the purchase of 80 percent of all consumer goods in the U.S.
So what are the key differences between the male and female brain? There are some key structural differences, such as a larger hippocampus in women, as well as a heavier reliance on brain areas that contain mirror neurons, which enable a …