June 18, 2013
Pay attention to "upscale Latinos," says Nielsen, calling them "the most influential segment since the baby boomers." In partnership with the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA), Nielsen has released some data concerning this demographic, which accounted for 29% of the Hispanic population last year but an outsized 37% of its total spending power. Defined as Hispanic households earning between $50k and $100k in annual income, these Latinos tend to be fairly young, with three-quarters of them under the age of 45. Read more »
June 18, 2013
Online ad spending around the world is projected to grow by 13.4% to reach $113.6 billion this year, according to a revised forecast issued by MAGNA GLOBAL that takes a more bullish view of online spending this year than its previous forecast. Another new forecast, from ZenithOptimedia, projects a 15% annual increase in online spending between this year and 2015. Both groups see strong growth for social and mobile advertising around the world. Read more »
June 17, 2013
After a big jump last year, discretionary spending by college students is expected to remain largely flat this year at $117 billion, per the latest College Explorer report from re:fuel. That remains significantly above discretionary spending power from 2009-2011, though, which stood at roughly $90 billion. Factoring in $287 billion in non-discretionary spending (on items such as room and board, tuition), the total college market's spending power is estimated to be $404 billion this year, down only slightly from last year's $409 billion. Read more »
June 5, 2013
Consumer spending on entertainment and media content is moving away from physical purchases, and that shift will only intensify over the next 5 years, according to the latest "Global entertainment and media (E&M) outlook," from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). While physical purchases represented 88% of total spending on E&M content in 2008, that number has dropped to 73% this year, and will fall to 53% by 2017. That mirrors an overall spending transition in the global E&M market. Read more »
June 3, 2013
E-commerce sites exceeded the threshold of excellence in customer satisfaction last year, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index, and new data from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) confirms that online merchants are providing worthy experiences to visitors. Across 16 industry segments examined in the BCG study, online merchants came in second with a "digital satisfaction score" of 11.8, putting them squarely in the bucket of leaders who are best able to satisfy their consumers' expectations. Close behind, media retailers, with a score of 11.1. Read more »
May 30, 2013
A new analysis of Census Data released by the Pew Research Center details a dramatic rise in the percentage of households with children that count the mother as the primary or sole source of family income. The study indicates [pdf] that the proportion of such households with the mother as primary or sole breadwinner has almost quadrupled in the past half-century or so, from 10.8% in 1960 to 40.4% in 2011. While the majority of those "breadwinner moms" are single mothers (63%), a significant 37% are married mothers who are pulling in more income than their spouses. An accompanying survey by Pew finds the public holds mixed feelings about this trend. Read more »
May 29, 2013
Asked their motivation for deal shopping, 36% of "general market women" said that they're on a strict budgets and that deals help them live within their means and stretch their dollars, according to a survey released by Ginger. Fewer respondents cite their motivation as excitement over savings (23%), wanting to get nicer brands for less (16%), or the ubiquity of deals (habit - 14%), suggesting that if their financial situations improve, they may be less deal-driven in their shopping behavior. Read more »
May 23, 2013
Marketing budget conditions have improved for the 5th consecutive month, details Warc [pdf] in its latest Global Marketing Index. The budget component of the index improved to a reading of 54.3 this month from 52.9 in April. Rather than following last year's pattern of diminished enthusiasm between April and May, this month's index rose to its highest value since the index's start in October 2011. (A score above 50 indicates a generally improving environment, while a score below 50 indicates a generally declining environment.) Read more »
May 21, 2013
Data-driven marketing spending is on the rise, according to respondents to the Direct Marketing Association's Quarterly Business Review covering Q1 2013. 38.7% of respondents indicated that their spending increased quarter-over-quarter, with another 41.9% reporting a steady level of spending. On a 5-point scale, where 5 indicates a significant increase in spend from the prior quarter, data-driven marketers averaged out at a score of 3.19, up from 3.1 in Q4 2012 and 3.16 in Q3. In turn, 45.9% enjoyed revenue increases from their activities for the quarter, with another 39.4% indicating that revenues stayed flat. Read more »
May 17, 2013
Socialbakers has released its latest "Socially Devoted" figures for Q1, and the results are a mixed bag. On the one hand, the average response rate grew 6% points quarter-over-quarter to 38%, after only improving by 4% points in the preceding 6 months. But on the other hand, that means that significantly fewer than half of questions posted to brands' Twitter profiles were answered. What's more, the average response time increased by 10%, from 6 hours in Q4 2012 to more than 6-and-a-half hours in Q1. Read more »
