Overall 210 million Americans were active on the Internet in September 2011, and Nielsen estimated that Internet access continued to grow, with over 275 million Americans connected as of September 2011.

Although there are no differences between when men and women watch TV during primetime, age is a factor. Viewers ages 18-49 typically tune in later. For this demographic, 9:45 to 10:00pm is prime viewing time, while they use TV the least at the beginning of primetime, from 8:00 to 8:15pm.

Hybrid data extends beyond Home and Work PCs, and as a result of these measurement enhancements and the additional sources measured, metrics including Unique Audience, which Nielsen uses to rank the top web brands, witnessed changes in data for July. Therefore July data can not be trended, but moving forward Total Internet Audience data can be trended with previous months’ Total Internet Audience data.

Hybrid measurement combines Nielsen’s online panel, a people-based representative sample employed to measure consumer’s Internet behavior using Home and Work computers, with tag-based data from websites to account for Internet use from any source. Thanks to this hybrid approach, Nielsen’s Total Internet Audience metric includes web browsing activity from all devices, including mobile devices, tablets, secondary PCs and access points outside of home and work locations.

Overall 213 million Americans were active on the Internet in July 2011 from all sources included in hybrid measurement. Internet access through home and work PCs continued to grow to 249 million individuals in the U.S. during July 2011.

There is no doubt that U.S. store brands benefited greatly from the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The quality of today’s store brand offerings coupled with more value-conscious consumers looking to stretch their dollars ignited a sales boom. In the U.S., private label sales increased 1.8 share points from the end of 2007 to the end of 2008 to reach a 22.3 percent market share.

The reputation of store brands today continues to improve. Nielsen research shows that three-quarters of consumers believe store brands are a good alternative to name brands and two out of three agree that quality is also on par. And fewer consumers view store brands as those geared towards people on tight budgets who are unable to afford “the best”.

But since the end of 2008, store brand share growth across food, drug and mass has been fairly flat as brands stepped-up their promotion support and innovation efforts and some retailers took on a “build it and they would come” strategy. Today, national brands still command 78 percent of CPG unit sales.

Store brands may have reached a new share plateau, but long-term growth will be fueled by both consumers’ interest in value and retailers’ focus to drive margin and build banner equity. Retailers need to manage their store brands like manufacturers do – by investing in research to identify the best new products for roll-out combined with the most effective marketing/merchandising support to build awareness, generate trial and repeat purchasing to yield sustainable and profitable volume levels.

Strategies to Grow Store Brands:

• Expand the variety. Half of consumers said they are willing to buy more store brands if there is greater variety. Do your homework to assess opportunities among your core shoppers. Don’t introduce new lines or items at the expense of high penetration and/or high frequency brands, which can drive your shoppers to competitive retailers.
• Keep prices affordable. The majority of consumers are not willing to pay more for store brands. The same is true for brands, but an assessment of price level and price gaps between your store brands and brands can yield stronger sales and profits.
• Invest in quality. Value is important, but quality goes hand-in-hand. Consumers dissatisfied with quality will buy less. Store brands don’t need to be just about low prices; a tiered store brand approach can allow you to build sales among diverse shoppers.
• Build strong brand equity. About 40 percent of consumers claim to only trust store brands from retailers they have confidence in. Enhance your shopper connection with a strong store brand program.
• Connect with younger consumers. Younger generations are strongly committed to store brands and low prices. Not only do they view them as good alternatives to name brands, but almost half (42%) said that some store brands are higher quality. These shoppers are also more engaged in online information seeking, so look for opportunities to connect with them via digital communication vehicles.
• Reach older consumers. The “Greatest Generation” leads the way in believing store brands are “extremely good value for money”. This group is a prime segment for trial programs. Leverage in-store sampling programs, money-back guarantees, and communications through your paper circulars.
• Appeal to lower-income consumers. Necessitated by a need to stretch dollars further, lower-income consumers have a stronger commitment to store brands. These shoppers are also less inclined to believe that store brands should always include a retailer’s name on store brand products. Have some fun naming your store brand items.
• Understand Hispanic consumers. Hispanics place great importance on getting the best price and say they will buy more store brands provided there is more variety available. Based on population projections, Hispanic households will represent the single biggest growth opportunity for years to come; now is the time to make an investment to understand how your store brands connect with Hispanics.
• Broaden appeal for African American and Asian consumers. African American and Asian consumers are very committed to brands, so look for opportunities to co-promote the right combination of branded and store brand items and be careful not to invade a branded space with a store brand offering and turn away shoppers.

Overall web activity increased slightly in May, and among the Top 10 sites Apple witnessed the highest increase in monthly visitors, with more than 5.7 percent more uniques during May. Facebook also increased unique U.S. visitors by 4.7 percent compared to the prior month, with average visitors spending slightly less time (-0.8%) on their website in May.

Over 200 million Americans used their PCs in May 2011, and overall Internet use was up 2.8 percent from April. U.S. consumers also visited more unique sites (2.5%) compared to the previous month, and spent more time online on average (0.8%) in May. Internet access continues to grow during the month, with an estimated 246 million individuals in the U.S. having accessing to the Internet through Home/Work computers in May 2011.

Although retailers have been thinking about the 2009 holiday season since last January, consumers are just starting to think about their holiday plans. As we do every year, Nielsen fielded its annual holiday retail survey at the beginning of this month to get an understanding of consumers’ holiday shopping plans.  While the economy appears to be improving at a snail’s pace, it’s apparent that many consumers intend to spend less and save more this holiday season. In fact, some 42 percent of respondents stated that compared to a year ago they were planning on spending less money on holiday gifts, compared with only 4 percent who intend to spend more.

An even more surprising trend is that of the money that consumers plan to spend this holiday season, a smaller percentage will be spent online: 63 percent of survey respondents said that they would do at least some holiday shopping online, down 10 points from two years ago. Meanwhile, 7 percent of respondents said they would not do any shopping online compared to just 1 percent in 2007.

Consumers Expect to Spend Less Money Online this Year

Among those that do plan to shop online this holiday season, many consumers expect to spend significantly less than last year. In 2008, 42 percent answered that they would spend more than $300 online during the holiday season. This year, that percentage has dropped to just 31 percent, while 22 percent of respondents said that they are going to spend less than $100 online.

So why do some consumers shop online? Interestingly, the main reason is not to save money, but for convenience. Respondents said the top reason they would shop online was the ability to shop whenever they wanted, followed closely by the ability to avoid the large crowds associated with holiday shopping.

While consumers appear to no longer view the Internet as a value channel, they still see it as a place to do comparison shopping, find coupons and do research. And it’s not just consumers coming from lower household incomes–shoppers of all ages and income levels rely on the Internet to inform their in-store purchases. In October 2009, over one-third of the U.S. online population visited at least one deal-oriented Web site.

Although many consumers don’t feel that they save money by making purchases online, they do view the Internet as a deal-seeking venue. When asked how they use the Internet before going shopping in physical stores, 55 percent of respondents said they use the Internet to compare prices across retailers and 49 percent answered that they use the Web to learn about sales and promotions available in physical stores.

It is clear that while the majority of all purchases continue to take place offline, the Internet has an important role to play—deals found online impact holiday purchase decisions and drive purchases at brick and mortar locations.

For more information and insights on the 2009 holiday season, download our recent webinar,2009 Holiday Retail Season: What Consumers Have in Store for Retailers this Season.

“It was resoundingly clear from the presentations that we have a new consumer on our hands, one that has emerged from the financial crisis with what could be a permanent shift in their values, spending habits and lifestyle choices and affecting the way they consumer and purchase alcohol.  They are more frugal and demanding value.  Investing in new product development should be an essential part of any suppliers’ strategy in counteracting consumers’ heavy reliance on price discounts as a key purchase driver,” said Michael Walton, Executive Director, Nielsen Liquor Group in the Pacific.

Nielsen’s regional experts also provided a snapshot of trends in their respective markets.  The four key topics that were common across regions were:

• Low carb and low sugar: new products and brand extensions in this category are performing relatively well.
• Marketing to the over 50s demographic: This group makes up between 40-50 percent of alcohol consumers in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, yet are often overlooked when it comes to marketing in favor of a millennial focus.
• Online consumers: New ways and approaches to marketing to the technologically savvy consumer.
• New product development: A critical pathway to improve returns and drive real category growth.

Gavin Humphreys noted that just 57 percent of British beer drinkers popped over to the pub in 2009, compared to 70.5 percent in 1998.  In fact, the off-trade sector looks set to overtake share of beer consumption over the next two years.  While beer remains the favorite, wine is rapidly gaining share, driven by its link with in-home entertaining and also the availability of cheaper South African, Italian and Chilean varietals.

In the U.S., Danny Brager noted that more than 50 percent of Americans choose to entertain and eat at home more often.  Consumers are often trading down in an effort to find the best value, favoring domestic offerings and sticking with brands they know and trust.

Paul Kirby said that almost half of Australian drinkers claimed to be going out less often compared to last year, but are actually trading up when they do go out, sparking growth in premium and super premium alcohol segments (imported beer, international wine and bottled wine priced over $20).  Almost half of all packaged liquor was sold on promotion and 77 percent of alcohol consumers selecting their choice of outlet because it offered great promotions.

Just to the southeast, 60 percent of New Zealanders claimed to be going out less often compared to last year, according to David Hanson.  Annual sales for the off-premise market grew by 10 percent in value terms and 7 percent in volume.  More than three-quarters (77%) of all beer sales were sold on promotion.

But just one year later, gas prices have fallen considerably.  In June and July of 2009, the average price per gallon for regular gas was between $2.50 to $2.62.  According to the seventh update to Nielsen’s gas price impact survey, lower gas prices have loosened up consumers’ behavior, although not to pre-2008 levels.  For example, 71 percent of respondents said that they were still combining errands and trips in an effort to save gas – down from a year ago, but still above the 68 percent who said the same in 2007.  Another 44 percent said that they were doing more things at home, down from 51 percent in 2008 but still higher than the 39 percent in 2007.  One area that consumers have not yet rushed back to is eating out: 52 percent said that they were eating out less, the same as 2008, and well above the 38 percent who said the same in 2007.  Meanwhile, carpooling has dropped, with just 5 percent of respondents indicating that they were sharing rides, a decline of two points from 2008.

While some behavior seems to be returning to pre-2008 patterns, it’s clear that consumers are still adjusting behavior, due in part to gas prices.  One-quarter of U.S. households are buying gas at locations because of incentives tied to spending levels at a grocery store where they shop.  They continue to buy less expensive grocery brands, and shop at supercenters.  As we highlighted previously, the use of coupons is high, with 38 percent of respondents indicating that they are using more coupons.

“Compared to last year, the price of gas was low this summer, making it one less thing consumers had to worry about as they grappled with issues such as job security, retirement, putting kids through college and making mortgage payments.  That said, with economic recovery beginning to take hold, it will be interesting to see if consumer behavior shifts considerably as they feel more confident about their circumstances,” said Todd Hale, Senior Vice President, Consumer & Shopper Insights at The Nielsen Company.

Nielsen started conducting the Gas Impact Survey in July 2005.  This year’s survey had more than 63,000 respondents.

In the U.S., consumers remain skittish.  Shifts to private label brands continued at a strong pace, as they have for the last eight months, while consumers are shopping less frequently and spending less per trip.  Canadians, on the other hand, are spending more per trip, and are taking advantage of retail promotions.  Unlike in the U.S., private label brands are struggling to gain share as national brands step up promotional activity.

In Europe, the French remain relatively unchanged in their shopping.  Value channels continued to see growth and more retailers were selling on promotion, leading to a modest increase in the amount spent per trip.  Germans showed very little change in the number of shopping trips they took, nor did they increase or decrease how much they spent.  Unit sales increased, however.  In the UK, sales volume improved slightly from the previous month, while budget store brands’ growth slowed as consumers began returning to premium brands.  British shoppers were also spending slightly more per trip.  Italians continued to move to store brands and value channels, although they were reducing their shopping frequency.  Spaniards, who have been among the most optimistic, have not seen that reflected in spending.

Brazilians showed an 8 point surge in optimism, and this translated into more frequent shopping trips and higher sales, in both volume and value terms.  Hong Kong and China both showed growth in sales, but Taiwan showed declines, and optimism there was among the lowest in Asia.  Indian consumers’ confidence was high, and volume and value sales both increased by more than 5 percent.

“While things are starting to look up, it’s clear that Americans and Western Europeans aren’t quite convinced that recovery has taken hold and remain cautious when it comes to shopping.  The labor market is clearly affecting this behavior.  It comes as little surprise that Brazil, India and China – countries that have generally been less affected by the global recession – are among the first to see renewed consumer confidence and sales growth,” said James Russo, Vice President, Global Consumer Insights at The Nielsen Company.

The Buzz

While the idea of recovery hasn’t opened up global consumers’ wallets quite yet, it has started to infiltrate their discussions on the Web.  In June, 71 percent of survey respondents thought that their countries were in recession, an improvement from the 77 percent who thought the same in April.  Additionally, 26 percent believed that their country will be out of a recession in the next twelve months, up three points from April.  Global recession buzz has declined 27 percent since March.  In July, however recessionary buzz perked up, primarily in Western Europe.

“We are likely to see an overall downward trend in recession discussions, but it will be choppy until consumers really feel as if they are experiencing the recovery,” said Russo.

Download the latest Nielsen Economic Current.

So what will be different in terms of consumer spending in just 11 years?  A weakened Social Security system and underfunded private pension plans will make it difficult for a large number of retirees to maintain their current standard of living. From now until 2020, the Struggling and Lower Mid affluence groups will be the only ones to gain share, pulling households from all other groups.  Household sizes will decrease.  Consumer spending will grow modestly over the next 11 years, but actually fall after 2020.  And the changes that occur after that year – both in terms of demographics and spending – will require marketers to dramatically change the way they do business if they hope to continue to grow.

Read an in-depth look at the demographic changes projected to take place in the U.S., and the challenges and opportunities for manufacturers in the July edition of Consumer Insight.