Now more than ever, marketers are trying to identify and reach profitable and discrete market segments that were previously overlooked in an effort to keep growing in difficult economic conditions.  Predictive analytics is one way to do that: it marries a range of consumer, transaction and media information and reveals the “who” and “how” of an effective go-to-market strategy.
Predictive analytics can help marketers in several ways:  It can provide a deeper understanding of customers to guide the marketing spend; it offers guidance on selecting messages and vehicles for communicating with …

Consumers have more choices than ever from which to access media: traditional television, the Internet, and mobile devices like cell phones and iPods.  As more options exist, they serve to actually increase the amount of time people view media as opposed cutting into viewership of one format or another.  Despite the array of options, television continues to be the primary way Americans of all ages consume media.  In the last quarter of 2008, the average Nielsen household watched more than 151 hours of television per month.  Internet users logged on …

Susan D. Whiting, Vice Chair & Executive Vice President, The Nielsen Company
Of the myriad challenges confronting the television industry, the much-discussed defection by viewers to online and mobile platforms may be the most comforting; simply because it hasn’t happened. Despite the profusion of multimedia computers, broadband Internet connections and portable video devices, the overwhelming majority of Americans are staying right where they are – in front of their TV sets inside their homes.
That is just one finding from a new, year-long Video Consumer Mapping study, which calls into question several …

A ground-breaking study conducted by Ball State University’s Center for Media Design and Sequent Partners found that younger baby boomers – those 45-54 years old – are the top consumers of video media.
Conducted on behalf of the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, the study ran over the course of a year and used a custom media collector program developed by Ball State.  Researchers gathered a wide range of data usage of any of the four categories of screens: traditional TVs (including DVD/VCR and …

Neuroscience has a surprise for marketers: the way we are neurologically wired can actually prevent us from accurately reporting what we really think and remember, when asked.
Writing in the January issue of Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” online newsletter, Palak Patel of NeuroFocus Inc., explains that the real truth lies beyond the reach of typical consumer research methods, like surveys and focus groups — in the subconscious mind.
According to Patel, answers are essentially corrupted information — biased by the conscious mind, which is influenced by everything from what language you speak to …