Nielsen’s Melissa Davies offers a summary of her experience at the recent FDA hearings which focused on how healthcare and pharmaceutical companies can responsibly engage consumers online and through social media.

On Friday, November 13, Nielsen’s Melissa Davies, Research Director, Healthcare, Online division, will present testimony at an FDA hearing surrounding the pharmaceutical industry and regulations surrounding social media.

When the FDA recommended lowering the daily dose of acetaminophen citing potential overdose and liver injury, consumers reacted. Online chatter spiked and sales went flat.

The 2009 flu season is fast approaching (or has already arrived) and this year, swine flu is expected to figure prominently, but online consumers aren’t yet paying attention. In fact, online discussions about the swine flu have held relatively steady since a spike in April, when federal…

While connected by a common language (accents notwithstanding), history and location, Australians and New Zealanders have always had a degree of friendly rivalry. But that rivalry is diminishing to some extent as more Australians visit their neighbor to the southeast, according to research from Nielsen’s BuzzMetrics service.

For decades, consumer product manufacturers have used research such as focus groups to test new products and marketing campaigns to help ensure that they resonate.  And much of the time, those traditional techniques have been effective.  But the Internet has added a new twist to consumer research, one that makes it easier for people to voice their opinions to the world.  More and more, consumer goods firms are finding that listening to what customers are saying on message boards and dedicated web sites can yield even more insight to what …

The notion that the global economy may be on the verge of recovery has not yet translated into improved consumer spending or confidence, although consumers in the emerging countries – Brazil, India and China – seem to be more optimistic than others and are loosening their purse strings ever so slightly, according to the new edition of the Nielsen Economic Current.  Of the 12 countries Nielsen now tracks, all but Taiwan (which declined) showed no significant change in measures of spending.  Canadian, Western European and American spending was, at best, …

In his effort to discredit NY Daily News reporter Adam Rubin, Mets General Manager Omar Minaya may have likely given the newspaper a wealth of positive exposure.
On July 22nd, when Rubin first reported that Mets VP of Player Personnel Tony Bernazard challenged players on the team’s minor league affiliate to a fight, the NY Daily News received no spike in online chatter according to Nielsen Buzzmetrics.

When newlyweds Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz asked their wedding party to turn their wedding into a party the result was the latest YouTube hit “JK Wedding Entrance,” which featured the entire cast dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever.” Just five days after it was posted, the video was the most-cited clip according to Nielsen’s BlogPulse, and has recently passed the 10 million views mark after the “Today” show flew the crew to New York to recreate the entire event outside Rockefeller Center.
While it’s great news and great …

There has been increasing mainstream interest in and gravitation towards all things vampire, most recently spurred by the Twilight books/movies and the HBO series, True Blood. And even if these aren’t familiar topics to you yet, marketers are keen to the vampire mystique.
Vampire-related sites are drawing audiences on the Web. In June 2009, the official Twilight movie site was the top online vampire-related destination, garnering 553,000 unique visitors who spent an average of two minutes and 45 seconds on the site during the month (the New Moon trailer is a …