Todd Hale, SVP Consumer & Shopper Insights, The Nielsen Company

Gloom or Boom?
While consumers around the world are more confident about the year ahead, Americans still seem relatively unconvinced there will be drastic improvement. And they have good reason to be leery. The “jobless” recovery—like government bailouts—hasn’t yet touched consumers. Banks remain skittish about extending credit. Home foreclosures will likely hit hard in the first quarter of 2010 as banks work through an incredible backlog. And smaller community banks with exposure to commercial loans will be acquired should they not have the reserves to cover the losses. While economic indicators point to a technical recovery, a fair number of looming issues have yet to be addressed.

With these mixed messages, what will the American consumer do? Nielsen research reveals that consumers’ fundamental spending adjustments are likely to last in the next year. Either by choice or necessity, their new-found thriftiness will continue. Almost one-third of consumers (30%) say that they will use credit less even when conditions improve with 19% saying that they intend to save more money.

Discretionary spending cutbacks continue to change the way consumers shop. Consumers now use coupons with an enthusiasm not seen in many years—for the first three quarters of 2009, Inmar reported that manufacturer coupon redemptions were up 26%. Food departments outperformed non-food, health and beauty and general merchandise departments as Americans returned to cooking and eating at home—boosting grocery channel shopping trips in the process. Store brands grew becoming an acceptable alternative—or even preferred brand—for many. Meanwhile, consumers “traded down” across categories, preferring chicken, turkey and pork to beef and seafood. While value channels such as supercenters, club and dollar stores, as well as online retailers, drove shopping trips to their stores, discretionary retail channels (home improvement, office supply and pet stores) saw declines.

Top Five Consumer Goods Spending Trends in 2010:

1. Restraint remains the new normal
   Americans’ confidence has been slower to rebound compared to other parts of the world. The need to save money, unemployment and other economic issues continue to be top of mind, suggesting that any return to past behavior may take some time—if at all.
2. Value is a top priority
   With no signs of readiness to open wallets, a focus on low prices at the expense of all other variables threatens margins. Value messaging must also include some point of differentiation beyond pricing. Manufacturers and retailers that “drive the recession wave” and take an active role in innovation and ad spending are likely to be the big winners.
3. Store brand growth continues
   Even with year-end 2009 softness in store brand dollar share growth as retailers cut prices across the store to be more competitive, unit share growth continues and retailer focus has never been stronger.
4. Grocery consolidation intensifies
   Local and regional players, unable to drive profits in the soft economy, will become acquisition targets and some larger national and regional grocers will divest unprofitable formats and banners to strengthen investments behind their winning formats and banners.
5. Assortment wars escalate
   Retailer efforts to simplify the consumer shopping experience by eliminating aisle and shelf clutter will cause market share land grabs for small and medium-sized brands in pursuit of elusive revenue growth. Retailers may lose sales as they shift away from in-store merchandising that drove impulse buying and built shopper baskets. Look for brands caught in the trap of greater store brand focus and assortment optimization to forge alliances with key retailers, enter or step-up efforts as store brand suppliers, and/or explore direct-to-consumer sales.

2010 U.S. Outlook

Part 1: Cross Media

• Big Screen, Smart Screen, Small Screen: Top 5 Cross-Media Trends
• You Can Take It With You: Future Trends In Media

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Part 2: Consumer

• Winner Winner Chicken Dinner – Top 5 Consumer Goods Spending Trends
• Innovation Creates Opportunities for CPG Growth
• Aging Puts a Wrinkle in U.S. Marketplace

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Part 3: Advertising

• Talking Back – Top Five Advertising Trends
• Get Ready for the Audience-Centric Web
• What Would John Wanamaker Say Today?

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Part 4: Entertainment

• There’s No Business Like Show Business – Top Five Entertainment Trends
• Game On – The World is Watching More Than Ever
• Video Games in Play

Eighty-one percent of the units purchased using manufacturer coupons came from just 19 percent of U.S. households during the twenty-six week period ended June 27, 2009.

The most avid users, called “coupon enthusiasts,” are households that purchased 104 or more items using manufacturers’ coupons. The 10 percent of shoppers that fall into this category accounted for 62 percent of manufacturers’ coupon units. They also accounted for 16 percent of total unit sales making them a very attractive and important consumer target.

Still, the recession is driving heavier coupon usage among all types of consumers as many lighter users have become heavier users. After three quarters of declines in 2008, coupon redemptions spiked 10 percent in Q4 2008, per Inmar. This was followed by a 17 percent increase in Q1 2009 and a 33 percent surge in Q2. This tally includes FSI’s, on-pack offers and Internet coupons but excludes retailer coupons.

Inmar also reported that more and more consumers are using coupons for both food and non-food items. In Q4 2008 non-food redemptions were -3 percent. However, in the second quarter of this year redemptions for non-food items were up 46 percent. Food coupon redemptions were +21 percent in Q4 2008 and increased 27 percent in the second quarter of 2009.

“Without question, coupon usage is undergoing a renaissance,” said  Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer and Shopping Insights for Nielsen. “More consumers are looking for value and lower prices as retailers and manufacturers are distributing more coupons and making it easier for consumers to leverage technology to access coupons they want with less effort.” Overall, 1.6 billion coupons were redeemed in the first half of 2009.

“These findings from Nielsen suggest that the increased coupon usage we’ve seen this year not only helped consumers stretch their budgets but also provided meaningful sales impact to manufacturers and retailers,” said Inmar’s Matthew Tilley, Director of Marketing. “Coupons have always been an effective way to encourage trial and repeat purchase and are proving to be a bright spot in an otherwise dreary economic environment.”

But that doesn’t mean manufacturers and retailers shouldn’t be looking for ways to make it simpler for households to receive and redeem coupons. 

Writing in the December issue of Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” online newsletter, Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights, Nielsen, outlines what today’s coupon shopper can expect as new technologies revolutionize couponing methods and mediums.

1. Reduced reliance on paper-based feature and coupon circulation.
A race for dominance is taking place with computer-based Internet applications, mobile phones, credit cards, frequent shopper cards and in-store applications. Global positioning systems (GPS), radio frequency identity tags (RFID), eye movement tracking cameras and similar devices will enable location- and interest-specific promotional offers to be delivered at actionable sites.

2. Electronic or store entrance coupon delivery.
Instead of tagging consumers as they leave the store post-purchase, next generation systems will deliver coupons via mobile phones, via Internet or via in-store devices when shoppers enter the store or are in the mood and in the aisle, ready to buy.

3. Smart appliances provide in-store shopping assistance.
What’s for dinner tonight? Visit the produce or meat department and allow your personal chef avatar to generate some electronic menu suggestions and automatically create a shopping list with aisle and item locator cues.

4. Stores offering engagement and entertainment opportunities.
Look for personal shopper holograms to guide you through the store or shelf talkers activated by your cell phone to offer up special discounts. Walmart has pledged to invest $10 million and two years of testing to determine the optimal placement of in-store screens and special shopper programming.

5. One-to-one personalized promotions.
Stores will become increasingly interactive and consumer-specific, marrying data from multiple sources to deliver an involving shopping experience that reflects individual interests and buying preferences. Social networks based on shopping proclivities will be formed to build demand and drive sales.

6. Integrated strategic promotional planning.
Shopper marketing comes of age, dominating the retail landscape, displacing product-centric marketing planning. Technology enables a holistic planning approach that puts the consumer front and center while “benefitting the brand, the consumer, the shopper and the retailer”.

Read the full article.

View the latest issue of “Consumer Insight.”