The NCAA Tournament, March Madness, is one of the most celebrated sporting events in the U.S, providing a tremendous opportunity for advertisers to reach a wide and relatively affluent audience.
Nielsen’s Guide To March Madness, tracks a range of consumer and media information surrounding the event including advertising trends and demographic reach of the multi-week event. Ad buys for CBS’s coverage of the NCAA Tournament have risen steadily over the last five years – from $434 million in 2004 to $580 million in 2008 – a surge of almost 34 percent.  …

Population trends have clear implications for those involved in the media and advertising industries. There are now more than 114 million U.S. TV households, with immigration continuing to play a major role in population growth. U.S. Census estimates predict that by the year 2050 more than half of the U.S.
population will be non-white.
Nielsen’s “Ethnic Trends In Media,” is a comprehensive report profiling African-American, Asian, Hispanic and White households in the U.S.  This report examines household characteristics, television usage, timeshifted viewing and popular programming genres for each group.
Key findings include:

Household …

Change is quietly shaking up rural America — both the traditional economic base (farming) and the ethnic composition (strongly skewed to non-Hispanic whites) are rapidly diversifying.
With roughly one-third of the total U.S. population and at least three-quarters of the country’s land area, rural America is a diverse and important marketplace for marketers of consumer products, Doug Anderson, EVP, Research & Development, Nielsen, argues in the January issue of Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” online newsletter.
Marketers intent on reaching rural Americans should pay attention to marked differences in media usage and consumer preferences that …

In the U.S., high definition TV penetration has climbed steadily in the last year.  In December 2007, 13.5% of U.S. households HD TV sets — by this November that percentage had grown to 23.3%.
Who are these HD TV adopters?  According to a new study released Monday by Nielsen PreView, these HD equipped homes tend to be upscale, college educated, and have younger heads of household.  Sixty percent of HD homes also own DVR machines — compared to 24% of all homes in Nielsen’s National People Meter sample.  Nielsen Preview also …

From now until 2050, nearly all population growth worldwide will take place in less-developed countries. Overall, growth in the more-developed world has nearly halted and is expected to stay at very low levels for decades to come. Opportunities for growth, however, will be substantial for marketers able to reconfigure their product lines to meet the needs of struggling young families with many children.

Given the current, sluggish economic climate, retailers will have to look hard to find growth opportunities in the U.S.
According to Nielsen Claritas, they might start by taking a closer look at large, fast-growing metro areas, like Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix. 
These three markets ranked as the top three fastest growing U.S. markets in the last eight years — and could offer the retail industry some hard-to-come-by expansion opportunities, Nielsen reported in a new study released Monday.
“While some of these markets like Phoenix and Los Angeles have been hard hit by the recent wave …

By 2050, the number of people on in the U.S. living to 100 will be nearly 850,000 — 14 times what it is today, according to a new study from Nielsen.
The report looks at issues related to the baby boom and beyond, breaking down the global challenges for marketing to an aging audience. 
A Global Phenomenon
The U.S. is not alone.  During this same period, Japan’s over-65 population will double, while parts of Europe will reach a 1:1 ratio between working-age and pension-able citizens.  Even developing nations will face unprecedented mid-century surges in their elderly: India’s …

Asian-Americans are at higher risk for being left without access to TV broadcasts when the analog-to-digital television transition occurs next February, Multichannel News reported Saturday.
As of this July, 13% of Asian immigrants in the U.S. owned television sets that were unequipped to receive digital TV broadcastin, according to Nielsen. 
In a separate story by the San Diego Union-Tribune on Monday, Anne Elliot, of Nielsen, noted that many unprepared households lack digital hardware for economic and cultural reasons. 
Elliot told the Union-Tribune that Black and Hispanic households and people under 35 are also under-prepared for …

America’s wealth landscape is in flux.  In recent years, a new segment of wealthy Americans has emerged, according to a new white paper recently released by Nielsen Claritas. 
Known as the “New Mass Affluent,” members of this group have amassed assets of more than $100,000 each, though most of these baby boomers were born into middle class households.  By 2007, the group represented 19% of all households in the U.S.  By 2012, the New Mass Affluent is expected to grow to account for at least 20% of all American households.
Often underserved …