For US smartphone owners who report using their devices while shopping in-store (”smartphone shoppers”), the degree to which they engage in various activities differs by the type of store they are in, says Nielsen in May 2012 survey results. For example, 57% have scanned a QR code for product details while in an electronics store, compared to 36% who have done so in a department store, the next most-popular location for this activity. Other stores where smartphone shoppers have scanned QR codes are mass merchandisers (31%), grocery stores (26%), office supply stores (20%), clothing stores (16%), and convenience stores (8%). Just 5% have done so in a furniture store, and only 2% in a dollar store. Read More »

Grocery shoppers are making an increasingly large number of their purchase decisions in-store, according to research findings released in May 2012 by The Point of Purchase Advertising International (POPAI). Breaking down purchases into 4 categories - Specifically Planned, Generally Planned, Substitutes, and Unplanned - the trade association calculated the in-store decision rate by taking the sum of the Generally Planned, Substitutes, and Unplanned category rates. This year, that rate stands at 76% (55% Unplanned; 6% Substitutes; and 15% Generally Planned). Read More »

The proportions of tablet and laptop owners using their devices at home at different stages in the purchase path are almost on par, according to a report released in May 2012 by InMobi and Mobext. Basing their findings on research conducted from January to April 2012 across 8,400 panelists in 5 markets (India, South Korea, the UK, the US, and France), the companies found that 69% of laptop users make purchases in the home, compared to 63% of tablet users. Laptop users and tablet users also show similar levels of device usage at home for product awareness (64% and 61%, respectively) and active evaluation (62% and 58%, respectively). Read More »

The proportion of smartphone owners who use their device to get directions, recommendations, or other information related to their present location (”location-based information services”) has jumped almost 35% in less than a year, from 55% in May 2011 to 74% in February 2012, according to a May 2012 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. During the same period, the proportion using a geosocial service such as Foursquare of Gowalla to check in to locations or share their location has risen 50%, from 12% to 18%. Overall, 75% of smartphone owners are now using at least one of these services. Read More »

Mothers are tuned into a variety of social media, but Facebook is chief among them, details Nielsen in a May 2012 blog post. In fact, almost 3 in 4 mothers (27.9 million) who went online from a home computer in March visited Facebook, while roughly one-quarter visited Blogger, making them 27% more likely than the US average to visit the blogging platform. Yet despite their preference for Facebook, many Millennial mothers (born between 1977 and 1994) have a love/hate relationship with the social network, according to May 2012 survey results from Meredith’s Parents Network. For example, on the one hand, 57% of this group feel that it is a waste of their time, while on the other hand, 89% describe their time with the site as “me time.” Read More »

The top 250 internet retailers have almost universally adopted Facebook and Twitter as marketing channels, while almost as many are on Pinterest as Google+, says Campalyst in a May 2012 infographic. Basing its analysis on Internet Retailer’s Top 500 Internet Retailers 2011 list, and collecting the data from April 14 to May 2, 2012, Campalyst reveals that 97% of the top 250 internet retailers have at least one branded page or channel on Facebook, with Twitter (96%) closely following, and YouTube (90%) also seeing high adoption. Similar to a recent Simply Measured report which found 64% of the Interbrand top 100 brands to have a presence on Google+, the Campalyst data shows Google+ adoption among the top 250 internet retailers to be at 67%, with Pinterest (61%) not far behind. Looking at average follower size, though, a clear winner emerges. Read More »

The vast majority (94%) of restaurant operators who have placed ads on TV say that the ads are either very of somewhat effective in increasing overall revenue for their restaurant, finds the National Restaurant Association (NRA) in a May 2012 survey sponsored by LivingSocial. Among operators who had used each of the various marketing communication forms identified, TV ads were rated effective by the largest proportion of respondents, beating out emails to consumers (90%), ads in local papers (88%), brochures/menus left on consumers’ doorsteps (87%), and participation in a coupon booklet (84%). Read More »

When looking to achieve high click counts, the optimal time to post is similar for Twitter and Facebook, but differs dramatically for Tumblr, details Bit.ly in a May 2012 blog post. Exploring how content propagates through social networks, and how the day and time of a post affect the attention received, the company finds that for Twitter, posting in the afternoon earlier in the week (1-3 PM Monday through Thursday) gives the best chance at achieving a high click count. Similarly, on Facebook, links posted from 1-4 PM result in the highest average click throughs, with Wednesday at 3 PM proving to be the peak time of the week. By contrast, Friday evening, which is the slowest time on the other platforms, is the optimal time to post on Tumblr, with posts after 7 PM on average receiving more clicks over 24 hours than content posted mid-day during the week. Read More »

Digital video ad loads were as high in Q1 2012 as in Q4 2011, bucking a trend for lighter spending in Q1 across advertising media, says FreeWheel [download page] in a May 2012 report. The average ratio of video ad views to video views (across all content lengths) in Q1 was 0.75 (8.7B vs. 11.6B, respectively), compared to slightly less than 0.74 in Q4 (9B vs. 12.2B). By contrast, in Q1 2011, the ratio was 0.55, down from more than 0.7 the previous quarter. The 8.7B video ad views in Q1 2012 represented more than 58% year-over-year growth, while the 11.7B video views marked a more modest 17% year-over-year growth. Read More »

Some countries are making progress towards adoption of mobile payments, but on the whole, there is still a ways to go before the world reaches mobile payment readiness, finds MasterCard WorldWide in a May 2012 study that combined public and proprietary data with original market research. The study examined the preparedness and receptivity of 34 countries for person-to-person (P2P), mobile e-commerce (m-commerce) and mobile payments at the point of sale (POS), finding that on a scale of 0-100, the average score across all countries was 33.2. In fact, no country reached the inflection point of 60 on the adoption curve, with Singapore garnering the highest readiness score of 45.6, ahead of Canada (42) and the US (41.5). Read More »