Image-based online ad spending by consumer goods companies increased 57 percent over the last two years, growing from $99.8 million in the first quarter of 2007 to $156.2 million in the same quarter in 2009, according to new Nielsen research.
Quarter-over-Quarter Growth in Online Display Ad Spend by U.S. Consumer Goods Industry

Quarter
Estimated Spend
Quarter-over-Quarter Growth

Q1 2007
99,814,750
n/a

Q1 2008
122,785,505
23%

Q1 2009
156,221,975
27%

Source: Nielsen AdRelevance

“While direct response advertising has been very successful on the Internet, with categories like finance and travel devoting a significant portion of their budget to online advertising, on-line advertising will not continue to …

Every day, shoppers walk into a store to find that the price of a favorite item has gone up.  These price increases drove dollar growth for retail sales within food, drug and mass merchandisers to 3.6 percent in the 52-week period ending 1/24/2009, although sales slowed in the last quarter.  Much of that growth, however, was driven by inflationary pricing as both retailers and manufacturers raised prices due to rapidly escalating commodity costs.  Every department – except general merchandise – showed dollar …

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 …

With a reported eight deaths and several hundred others sickened, the peanut butter salmonella outbreak is among the most serious food safety crisis in recent years.  It is not surprising that sales of peanut butter has dropped off in the last four weeks.
Nielsen tracks sales of a variety of peanut products at thousands of food, drug and mass merchandise stores (excluding Walmart) across the country. Here are the facts:

Nearly $32 million worth of prepackaged peanuts, including bags, cans, jars and …

The drop-off in consumer spending and the uncertainty of the U.S. economy are sure to cause consumer product manufacturers to reconsider their plans to launch new products in 2009. But according to new research from Nielsen, the immediate reaction to abandon launches could be short-sighted and result in missed opportunities.
Nielsen recently mined insights from about 35 new item launches that are actively being monitored across a variety of packaged goods categories in the U.S. and found that product innovation remains important, but should be approached in a different way. For …

Despite the slowing economy, new product introductions in 2008 remained steady compared to 2007.  According to a new Nielsen report, 122,743 new UPCs were sold through U.S. grocery, drug and mass merchandiser channels, excluding Walmart. Of these, 39 percent were food and beverage items, 29 percent were general merchandise items such as DVDs, 20 percent were health and beauty items with the remaining 12 percent non-food grocery items such as paper products, diapers and detergent.
Of the more than 122,000 items introduced, 3,882 (3.2%) achieved more than $1 million in sales, …

We’ve all gone to the grocery store and seen them: the boxes of cookies, crackers and other snacks that offer small packs of our favorite treats that limit calorie intake to 100 calories. Given the amount of shelf space these products take up, it would be a fair assumption that these items generate a fair amount of sales.  But the fact is that these products comprise a fairly small share of the huge, multi-billion dollar snack category. And with a high cost-per-ounce, the price premium for these products may be …

Advertising spending for the first half of 2008 declined by 1.4% compared to the same period last year, Nielsen Monitor-Plus reported Thursday.
Despite a continued softening of the economy, several media showed healthy growth in advertising for the first half.  Advertising on Cable TV (+8.1%), Syndication TV (+7.2%), and National Sunday Supplements (+7.2%) saw the largest growth, according to Nielsen.  Spot Radio fared worst among the 19 media categories analyzed by Nielsen (-10.1%). 
Although overall Internet ad spending, when including paid search and online video advertising, was up by 11% during the first half of …