Unlike past recessions, few countries have been spared from the economic downturn.  Nielsen’s top industry thought leaders recently discussed how shopping patterns around the world have been affected by economic conditions, how consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers are adapting to the new marketplace realities and what lies ahead.
The participants were Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights, Nielsen U.S.; Jonathan Banks, Director, Retail Insights, Nielsen Europe; James Russo, Vice President of Marketing, Nielsen U.S., and; Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, Director, Retail Insights, Nielsen Europe.  Key themes were:
Consumers: It does …

Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights, Nielsen U.S., Jonathan Banks, Director Retail Insights, Nielsen Europe, James Russo, Vice President of Marketing, Nielsen U.S., Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, Director Retail Insights, Nielsen Europe

CI SUMMARY: A shift from nice-to-have to need-to-have assortment and retailing is a common thread across the U.S. and abroad. An interview with Nielsen’s top industry thought leaders reveals how shopping patterns across the world have been affected by the economic downturn, how consumer packaged goods manufacturers and retailers are coping and what lies ahead for the rest …

It’s official now that we are in a recession, one that has been particularly tough on the retail sector because consumer spending is the lowest it has been in years. However, these past few weeks we have seen a surprising uptick in traffic across the sites we track in our Nielsen Online Holiday Shopping Index.

In the wake of the global financial meltdown, India’s top business school graduates are most eager to work in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) sector, according to Nielsen, which reported the results of its Campus Track B-School Survey on Monday.
Management Consulting (35% of respondents), Software/IT Consulting (23% of respondents), Foreign Banks, and Retailing (both 22% of respondents) rounded out the top five most popular sectors among students. 
“Preferences seem to have shifted in favor of large business conglomerates and the IT sector as a consequence of the current global financial turmoil.  …

Among the top computer and consumer electronics websites for November, computer giants Microsoft and Apple easily drew the largest unique audiences, according to Nielsen Online. 
Visitors to Apple’s site logged the longest average stay-times.

Rank
(by UA, Nov. 2008)
Top 10
Computer & Consumer Electronics
Web Brands:
Nov. 2008
Unique Audience:
Nov. 2008
(in 000s)
Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)

1
Microsoft
95,543
0:45:44

2
Apple
52,909
1:12:27

3
Adobe
29,472
0:05:19

4
Hewlett Packard
23,435
0:09:58

5
Best Buy
22,138
0:11:28

6
Flickr
19,304
0:09:06

7
CNET
17,935
0:06:23

8
Dell
17,058
0:18:38

9
Circuit City
16,609
0:08:18

10
Mozilla
14,400
0:02:23

Source: Nielsen Online (November 2008 ).

Note: Web properties reported at either the brand or channel market level and can include multiple URL’s.

Ken Cassar & Pete Blackshaw
A lot of folks have seen the Black Friday and Cyber Monday releases that we’ve put out, but we’ve also been tracking Web traffic on a daily basis – in total, by category, and by retailer since the Monday before Thanksgiving. Let me share a little bit more data:
Traffic was up by 10 percent on both of the high profile days, where consumers expected that they would be able to find deals. This is certainly better than some might have feared given the …

Germany-based sports apparel brand Adidas AG is set to open its largest international store in Beijing, China.  The shop is about one-and-a-half times the size of Adidas’s previous largest outlet, on Paris’s Champs-Elysées, reports The Wall Street Journal.  Christophe Bezu, who heads Adidas Asia, told The Journal that China will overtake Japan as the company’s second-largest market, after the U.S., by the end of 2008.
In the same story, Richard Basil-Jones, Nielsen’s managing director of Asia Pacific media, noted a recent Nielsen survey, which suggests that Adidas faces significant challenges from both Nike and Li …