New research by NM Incite helps uncover what impacts social media may have for marketers trying to build their brands and connect with their audience more directly.

2010 will be huge test, as new realities of consumer expression and cross-platform integration create a powerful new dynamic hovering over the largest single-spot ad spend on record.

The Internet has spawned a disruption in the market research world, giving birth to the era of “listening.” A study comparing traditional research methods with online listening techniques paves a new way of providing holistic consumer insights.

Charlie Buchwalter & David Wiesenfeld, Nielsen Online
More and more researchers are waking up to the reality that mining the growing volume of conversations on blogs, message boards and social networking sites (i. e., “listening” to consumers) can provide timely, penetrating insights on a wide range of issues and brands.
A series of parallel studies we conducted with Procter & Gamble demonstrates that both surveys and listening are often required to tell the whole story. We looked at a number of brands and products: everything from orange juice, to razor blades, to …

By 2020, one in five U.S. residents will be Hispanic or Latino.  But despite the growing number of American homes with Spanish speakers, most U.S. companies’ customer service and marketing websites remain English-only, Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Online Executive Vice President, notes in his latest Ad Age column.
That lack of Spanish-language online content has left many Hispanics out of online consumer discussions, Blackshaw argues.
“If you survey the landscape of brand websites, mini-sites and Facebook brand pages, you’ll be struck by the surprising absence or marginalization (intentional or not) of Spanish-language content,” …

In the next in a regular series of Ad Age columns, Nielsen Online Executive Vice President Pete Blackshaw examines how Canadian fast-food chain Tim Horton’s benefits from the unusually intense loyalty of its customers.
While Starbucks has struggled with store closings and customer-service failings, this coffee competitor from the North has quietly expanded, banking on its mission, its people, and its community ethos.
“Even though it’s a chain, the brand…comes across as uniquely authentic,” Blackshaw writes.  “There’s an important story behind this Tim Hortons brand. Great food, good value, strong community support …