Online engagement by Internet users is deepening, according to a new report on the online landscape released today by The Nielsen Company. This increased engagement is in part a result of a shift toward video content and social networking as popular online subcategories.
Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank takes a look at the economic and advertising impacts of the report.

Highlights Of The Report Include

The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.
Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same …

Global consumer confidence has reached an all-time low, according to the Nielsen Global Consumer Confidence Index [download]. Thrifty habits being formed during the downturn will carry over into the recovery.
In the past six months, the index has plummeted to a record low 77 points from 84 points. The catalyst: Latin America, Russia and other emerging nations are now feeling the full effects of a recession that began in the United States, officially, in December.
Though consumer anxieties about the economy take many forms, the most widespread fear centers on job loss. …

Matt O’Grady, President, Nielsen Claritas
New data makes it clearer than ever: the U.S. is in a white-collar recession.
In the news and in our minds we understandably think of lower-to-middle income households as being the hardest hit victims of the housing, credit crisis, and the ensuing loss of jobs. But as we look back on a full year of recession, surprising patterns emerge that indicate higher-income households have been proportionately hit harder.
Since the beginning of last year, there has been a shift in household credit, according to an analysis of Nielsen’s …

Indians tend to be optimistic by default: there is a popular adage that “whatever is happening, that is for the good!”  But Indians have cause to be optimistic in the current economic environment as the global recession seems to only have just brushed India thus far.  According to Nielsen’s consumer confidence index for the second half of 2008, India had one of the highest rankings among the 52 markets the company conducted its survey.
The survey found that 77 percent of Indian respondents considered the state of their personal finances to …

Tom Pirovano, Director, Industry Insights
Sales of store brands, or private label products, began to spike in 2007 just as we were seeing the first signs of an economic downturn. At first, these private label sales were driven by higher commodity prices, but volume growth began to catch up with dollar growth in mid-2008. As the economy continues to struggle, more and more consumers are replacing their branded products with private label equivalents. Store brands are up 10% to $84.4 billion in annual sales across categories …

Home prices around the U.S. appreciated enormously in the first seven years of the decade, but declines over the last two years now dominate the headlines. But which markets showed the biggest early gains and largest recent dip? According to analysis by Nielsen Claritas of 254 counties with populations of a 250K or more found that counties in California and Florida dominated both categories.
Top 10 Counties with the Highest Percentage Decrease in Median Home Value from 2007-09

Rank
County
% Change from 2000-07
%Change 2007-09

1
Merced Cty, CA
192.0%
-37.6%

2
San Joaquin Cty, CA
185.9%
-36.1%

3
Stanislaus …

As a preview to Nielsen’s Consumer 360 conference May 12-14 in Orlando, Nielsen’s Mark Leiter took a few minutes to chat with scheduled presenter Tom Davenport, author of Competing On Analytics. In this interview, Davenport discusses the economy, pricing, and advice for marketers. For more information visit consumer360.com.

Mark Leiter, Nielsen’s President of Professional Services Interviews Tom Davenport, Author of Competing on Analytics and Babson College Professor
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Like most people in countries around the world, Taiwanese are experiencing record low consumer confidence.  And just as consumers in the U.S., U.K. and elsewhere have become more value-driven, so too have the Taiwanese, according to the latest Nielsen ShopperTrends report.
62 percent of Taiwan’s grocery shoppers claim to have become more price-sensitive, while among females over 35 and low income households, that number rises to 75 percent.  One store, Post Exchange, has capitalized on this trend with its low price strategy. As a result, 17 percent of all Taiwanese shoppers …

With the 2009 tax deadline quickly approaching, Nielsen conducted an audit of its own, looking back at how tax service companies spent their advertising dollars in 2008.
The Tax Services category spent $220 million in 2008 on ads, an increase of 11% from 2007. Over one-third of the 2008 total was spent on Cable TV ($76.9 million), followed by Spot TV ($40.5 million), and Network TV ($35.7 million).
Over half ($125.8 million) of the budget was spent in the first quarter – the three months leading up to the April deadline. That …

The Canadian economy showed signs of improvement in January, while the economies of Germany, Italy and Spain showed signs of weakening economies, according to the latest edition of Nielsen’s Economic Current, which consolidates key consumer data from the company’s global research resources.  The U.S. economy continued to be weak, but showed no signs of worsening.
Other key findings from the survey include:

U.S. consumers reversed a six month trend of declining number of shopping trips and spending per trip.
Consumers in the U.S. and Canada spent more per trip across fast moving consumer …