Latest News

Is the Blue Planet Truly ‘Going Green’?

August 8, 2009

Thanks to the consciousness-raising film An Inconvenient Truth and the Live Earth concert series, global awareness of environmental issues has increased, prompting attitudinal changes, but consumer behavior at retail is changing more slowly.

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Primetime Broadcast Ratings: August 7, 2009

August 8, 2009

NBC’s “Dateline Friday” claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of the top primetime telecasts
broadcast TV for August 7, 2009. The show drew just over 5.6 million average viewers Friday evening.
CBS’s “Numb3rs” & FOX’s “Smarter Than a 5th Grader” rounded out the top three with approximately 4.5 and 4.4 million average viewers.

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The Promise and Perils of Set Top Box Data

August 7, 2009

Manish Bhatia, President Advanced Digital Client Services
The television industry is about to sail into a vast ocean of granular insights on TV viewing.  The ocean we refer to is, of course, Set Top Box (STB) data.  Other industries have also entered their own uncharted waters, with access to multiple sources of more granular information – manufacturers have shipment data and store data, magazines have circulation figures and sales data, the Internet has log files.  In most of these cases, the industry players have found a way to navigate through huge, …

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Win-Lose For Green Issues In Recession

August 7, 2009

The recession has prompted consumers around the world to re-evaluate what’s important to them.  Issues such as the economy, job security and other topics related to finances are top of mind for most people and, as a result, issues such as the environment have fallen.  In fact, the latest edition of Nielsen’s Global Online Survey covering more than 50 countries found that global warming dropped to 14th place on the list of “biggest and second biggest concerns.” That said, the issue remains important to citizens in many countries.  More than …

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Interview: Twintern Delivers Buzz for Pizza Hut

August 7, 2009

Interview by Sue MacDonald, Research Manager, Online Division
In a difficult economy of rising unemployment, struggling newspapers and advertising agency cutbacks, Alexa Robinson graduated this year from the University of North Carolina/Chapel Hill with a degree in… journalism and advertising. But she wound up finding a position that carried an entirely new job title — one that didn’t even exist when she started at UNC — “Twintern.”
As Pizza Hut’s first-ever Twitter intern (Twitter + intern, hence, “Twintern”), the 22-year-old Greensboro NC native has been on the job in Dallas since late …

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Primetime Broadcast Ratings: August 6, 2009

August 7, 2009

FOX’s “So You Think You Can Dance-Thursday” claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of the top primetime telecasts on broadcast TV for August 7, 2009. The show drew just over 9.6 million average viewers Friday evening.
CBS’s “The Mentalist” and “CSI” were ranked second and third with approximately 7.7
and 7.1 million average viewers.

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Budgeting for the Upturn – Does Share of Voice Matter?

August 6, 2009

In today’s tough economic times, advertisers are under increased pressure to gain market share while working with shrinking budgets. Should they cut back on media investments? How will they succeed?

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Chinese Consumers Gaining Confidence

August 6, 2009

Consumers around the world are becoming more optimistic that economic recovery is starting to take root according to the recently released Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Survey, and Chinese consumers in particular are feeling good about their prospects.  Consumer confidence there increased 6 points from the March survey, and China jumped from tenth to sixth place in the global rankings behind Indonesia, India, the Philippines, Brazil and Australia.

Chinese consumer confidence is higher in the East and North regions of the country versus the South and the West, and consumers in smaller …

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Channel Competition: Convenience Stores Feeling The Heat

August 6, 2009

If, when walking or driving around town, you’ve thought to yourself that it seems like there are a lot of new convenience stores that have sprouted up over the last few years, you’d be right.  Since December 2001, more than 20,000 new locations have opened, bringing the total to almost 145,000 such stores in the U.S.  But facing high gas prices last year as well as competition from groceries and mass merchandisers and the effects of the economy, C-Stores have actually been pulling back.  Since the end of 2007, more …

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Primetime Broadcast Ratings: August 5, 2009

August 6, 2009

FOX’s “America’s Got Talent-Wednesday 9PM” claimed the top slot in Nielsen’s ranking of the top primetime telecasts broadcast TV for August 5, 2009. The show drew just over 10.7 million average viewers Wednesday evening.
NBC’s “Wipeout” and CBS’s “So You Think You Can Dance-Wednesday” rounded out the top three with approximately 8.0 million average viewers.

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