“Digital is good for TV,” said Time Warner Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bewkes at The Nielsen Company’s Consumer 360 conference today. “TV is not only not dead, but it’s one of the fastest growing businesses. Ratings, time spent and viewership are all up.”

The Internet has spawned a disruption in the market research world, giving birth to the era of “listening.” A study comparing traditional research methods with online listening techniques paves a new way of providing holistic consumer insights.

The notion that teens are too busy texting and Twittering to be engaged with traditional media is exciting, but false. To develop the best strategy around teens and media, start by challenging popular assumptions about teens.

In economic terms, the auto industry was hit by the perfect storm: high gas prices, tight consumer financing, plant closings, brand reductions, dealership pruning, employee layoffs, longer vehicle retention, surplus inventory, manufacturer bankruptcies and waning consumer confidence. Despite a 37% decrease in total auto sales over 2008, bright spots persisted: the redesigned Forester revved up Subaru sales while price leaders Hyundai and Kia gained traction from new models. Online media has changed the rules of the road for auto marketing by placing consumer generated media squarely in the driver’s seat.

Store brands are on a winning streak, with sales running countercyclical to the economy and perceived product quality a hit with strapped consumers. Find out how to launch and leverage a strong store brand.

When Tiger Woods tees off later today at the Accenture Match Play Championship, he won’t be the only one relieved by his return to the links. In fact, PGA Tour officials and TV executives might have more of a reason to celebrate than Tiger himself.
The Nielsen Company compared the network TV ratings for the 3rd and 4th rounds of golf tournaments played by Woods after the U.S. Open in 2007 with those same tournaments he missed in 2008 due to a season-ending knee injury. And the results are just what …

According to Nielsen Online’s BuzzMetrics Service, Brad Pitt and Kate Winslet have garnered the most buzz so far compared with other nominees in the Best Actor and Best Actress categories with 47% and 46% of buzz volume, respectively.  Brad Pitt has more than double the amount of pre-show buzz compared with Mickey Rourke (22%), who follows Pitt in the buzz ranking, and nearly triples buzz volume compared to Sean Penn (17%).  Pre-show buzz seems to be a tighter race among the Best Actress nominees as Angelina Jolie slightly trails Winslet …

Alex Burmaster
This article was originally featured in New Media Age Magazine.
The downturn in the economy has effectively rebooted the growth of the internet in terms of the time people spend online and the number of sites they visit. Over the first nine months of the year, people weren’t spending more time online than they did in the corresponding nine months the previous year. The average year-on-year growth each month, in terms of average time online per person, was just 1%.
Between March and June 2008, people actually averaged less time online …

According to Nielsen Online, there were almost 8.1 billion Web searches conducted during November 2008 — up 9.6% over the same month last year.
Google searches accounted for more than 64% of all Web searches, with almost 5.2 billion queries.  Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and Ask.com rounded out the top five.

Rank
(by # of
searches)
Provider
Searches
(in 000’s)
% Growth:
Year Over Year
% of Searches

 
All Searches
8,075,564
9.6%
100%

1
Google Search
5,177,158
21.7%
64.1%

2
Yahoo! Search
1,299,306
-1.4%
16.1%

3
MSN/Windows Live Search
733,460
-16.7%
9.1%

4
AOL Search
344,465
3.6%
4.3%

5
Ask.com Search
184,059
-6.0%
2.3%

6
My Web Search
71,113
-18.3%
0.9%

7
Comcast Search
40,645
3.5%
0.5%

8
AT&T Worldnet Search
25,351
-13.3%
0.3%

9
NexTag Search
22,308
-19.5%
0.3%

10
Dogpile.com Search
17,121
-6.5%
0.2%

Source: The Nielsen Company (November 2008).

View the full press release.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings on CNET.com and Silicon.com, as well as in Mediaweek and …

At 70 million copies sold — and counting, since its release in 1988, “Madden NFL Football” is the most popular sports video game of all time.
What’s driving the wild success of EA Sports’ star product? 
A marketing vision that combines a deep understanding of the game’s core fan base with an innovative, “three-screen” strategy that leverages TV, online, and mobile phone outlets for the game, Matt Foran of Nielsen Sports, writes in the November issue of Nielsen’s “Consumer Insight” online newsletter.