Friday, 31 July 2009
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Teen Spending Shifts To Value; Electronics Hold Firm
Today’s challenging economy and low consumer confidence has led to a 14% decline in fashion spending among US teens and a shift toward value in both fashion and restaurant purchases, according to a survey published this spring by Piper Jaffray.
Despite these overall decreases, the survey found that video-game spending is increasing as a percentage of teens’ overall budgets, as is the percentage of teens who plan to buy an iPhone.
The 17th biannual ‘Taking Stock with Teens” survey, which polled students both online and at school, revealed that teens and their parents are still buying new clothes, footwear and accessories, but are more selective and increasingly price conscious. Similarly, teen restaurant spending also reflects a similar shift toward value.
Fashion, Beauty & Apparel Preferences
- West Coast Brands (e.g. Pacific Sunwear, Volcom, Quicksilver, Zumiez) took the #1 spot in clothing brand preferences among teens, followed by Hollister, Nike, Forever 21, and American Eagle.
- Specifically among brands ranked by young women, Hollister took the “most preferred” position, while West Coast Brands continued to remain a favorite among young men.
- Spending in the junior apparel category has decreased 19%, but increased 9% for footwear and 8% for accessories.
- Footwear posted the strongest year-over-year and sequential results at a 4% and 21% gain respectively - an indication that the strong footwear cycle, particularly relative to the weakness in apparel, continues for the youth demographic.
- Beauty spending is down from last year, but is stabilizing from fall 2008 as lower-price categories of fragrance and cosmetics outpace skin care, and department stores continue to cede share to discount, drug, and specialty stores.
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Friday, 24 July 2009
‘Social Notworking’ Costs Firms 1.5% of Productivity
Companies that allow their workers to access to Facebook during business hours lose an average of 1.5% in total employee productivity, according to a study by Nucleus Research.
Interviews with 237 randomly selected US office workers and a subsequent analysis (pdf) found that 77% report having a Facebook account and 61% of them access Facebook during work hours. Moreover, one in every 33 employees has built their entire Facebook profile during work time, and roughly the same number of respondents use Facebook only when they are at work.According to Nucleus Research’s calculations, these figures amount to a 1.47% loss in total productivity among workers.
Additional study findings:
- Of those using Facebook at work, 87% cannot define a clear business reason for accessing the site.
- Of the 13% of users who had a business reason to access Facebook, most were not using it for personal networking and it was one component of a largely unmeasured business stragtegy.
- While the average user spends 15 minutes or work time on Facebook each day, some employees report spending upwards of two hours.
Over 70% of AdAge Top 100 marketers ran campaigns on YouTube in 2008
Over 70% of Ad Age Top 100 marketers ran campaigns on YouTube in 2008. They're buying our home page, Promoted Videos, overlays, and in-stream ads. Many are organizing contests that encourage the uploading of user videos to their brand channels, or running advertising exclusively on popular user partner content (see Carl's Jr.). Advertisers just want control, so we're continuing to develop tools and targeting products that give advertisers more control over where their ads appear on the site.
Wednesday, 22 July 2009
Monday, 20 July 2009
Mobile India: A statistical look at urban Indian mobile users
I found this excellent stats on mobile phone usage in India by Arun Prabhudesai on his blog Trak.in. I have summarized the main points in my post, you can read the full report here.
- India’s mobile subscribers base at the end of April 2009 has grown to 403.66 million (source: TRAI).
- India adds 10 - 12 million subscribers on an average monthly.
- The near-saturated urban India has 270 million mobile subscribers.
How is urban India using their mobile phones?
SOCIAL NETWORKING:
- Almost 10% of Delhi mobile subscribers use social networking services from their mobile phones topping the list, followed by Mumbai (6.4%) and Chennai (4%).
- Orkut is the favorite social networking site frequented by approximately 11.4% of mobile users, followed by Facebook used by 6.7% and hi5 by 6%.
SEARCH ENGINE:
- Approximately 5.76 million mobile subscribers use Google, making it the most used search engine to be accessed via mobile. The second position goes to Yahoo used by 4.58 million mobile users.
- Almost half (45.6%) urban mobile subscribers use Google followed by Yahoo (30.9%).
INSTANT MESSAGING:
- Yahoo Messenger is the most used IM application among Indians. Almost 18.3% use Yahoo and 17.8% use Google Talk. (not much difference)
MOBILE CONTESTS:
- 86% of mobile users have participated in SMS contests initiated by TV shows followed by 50% participating in newspaper SMS contests.
- Almost 60% of females and 49% of males have participated in at least 1 - 3 SMS contests and 51% of males and 41% of females have participated in more than 4. (very high numbers)
SMS SERVICES:
- The most popular SMS service appears to be jokes (accessed by 52%) and astrology (used by 48%). News updates are subscribed by 44% of mobile users (quite encouraging).
- Unlimited Internet access & SMS value added services are the two most critical factors when Indians decide on choosing their mobile service.
It appears that in India, mobile Internet is going to grow!!!
Sunday, 19 July 2009
Friday, 17 July 2009
Music 2.0: MTV Survey, MySpace Mobile, Twitter & Music, Warner Music Tax
MTV Survey Warns Of Loud Music's Impact on Hearing: MTV study on loud music & hearing loss looks to media, health pros to raise prevention awareness. [Ypulse]
MySpace: A Place For Phones: One question the effort to refocus on entertainment raises is how the shift affects the site's mobile strategy. Earlier this year, MySpace CEO Chris De Wolfe expressed big ambitions for the company's mobile business. [MediaPost]10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter: Turns out, there are plenty of ways to share tunes on Twitter as well. Here are ten of the best ways to tweet about what you’re listening to. [Mashable]
Fewer Teens Share Music Illegally: The survey of 1,000 fans also shows that many14 to 18 year olds are now streaming music regularly online using services such as YouTube and Spotify. [Guardian UK]
Twitter Music Chart: A Billboard Hot 100 for Twitter? Since so much music is shared on the microblogging service, it’s possible to use this data to figure out which songs are attracting the most buzz, much like Twitter’s trending topics. [Mashable]
Survey: UK Music Buyers Prefer CD To Digital
Most UK music fans are still happier buying a CD than downloading, according to the latest research by research agency The Leading Question in conjunction with Music Ally. Even teens say they still prefer CDs.The survey of 1000 music fans showed that despite the growth of digital download sales:
- 73% of music fans are still happy buying CDs rather than downloading
- 66% of 14-18 year olds prefer CDs
- 59% of all music fans still listen to CDs every day
- CD burning is top of all sharing activities (23%), above bluetooth (18%), sharing single tracks (17%) and sharing albums (13%)
Fans say they still value a physical CD much more than digital downloadsm and with most sales coming from online stores and supermarkets (they represented 46% of all UK CD sales in '08), even the demise of indie music stores may not cause the end of the CD.
Digital is still the future, but rumors of the death of the CD may be premature.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Future Marketing Trends - By The Numbers
Numbers, stats and trends move fast online and are in a near constant state of flux. Following up my post on social media stats, we’re past-due for 2009’s second by-the-numbers look at the web here at The Future Buzz.
I know you’re busy, but also interested in marketing trends. Let’s simplify them for you by providing just the figures.
Future Marketing Trends – By The Numbers
Marketing spends
$55 billion - number of dollars marketers will spend on interactive (display, mobile, email, social, search) channels by 2014
21% – percentage of all marketing spends that the 55 billion figure will represent
7.8 billion - amount marketers will spend on display advertising in 2009
$15.3 billion – amount marketers will spend on search marketing in 2009
$716 million – amount marketers will spend on social media marketing in 2009
4% – percentage of budget allocated to social media as compared to search in 2009
9% – amount this number will grow to by 2014
(source)
$585 million amount in 2008 marketers spent on MySpace ads
$210 million amount marketers spent in 2008 on Facebook ads
9% - amount Facebook’s ad revenue will grow in 2009
15% – amount MySpace’s ad revenue will fall in 2009
(source)
Friday, 10 July 2009
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Thursday, 2 July 2009
TV Ads Most Helpful; Web Banners Most Ignored
TV Ads Most Helpful; Web Banners Most Ignored
More than one-third of Americans (37%) say that TV ads are most helpful to them in making a purchase decision, while nearly half say they ignore internet banner ads, according to (pdf) a poll from AdWeekMedia and Harris Interactive.
In terms of the helpfulness of ads in other media, newspapers rank second behind TV, with 17% reporting that newspaper ads are most helpful, while 14% say the same about internet search-engine ads:
Today’s Teens Buy 19% Less Music
Teens between ages 13 and 17 listened to more online music in 2008 than they did in 2007, but acquired 19% less, according to research from the The NPD Group, which reported that this decline includes a combined 26% decrease in CD purchases and a 13% dip in paid digital downloads.
In the case of paid digital downloads, 32% of teens purchasing less digital music expressed discontent with the music that was available for purchase, while 23% say they already have a suitable collection of digital music, according to NPD’s music tracking surveys. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of teens also cited cutbacks in overall entertainment spending as a reason for buying fewer downloads.
52% of British kids aged 5-9 have a mobile phone
"Figures from MobileYouth, a research consultancy which tracks technology use by youngsters, found that 52 per cent of UK children aged five to nine have a mobile. Among ten to 14-year-olds, usage is running at almost 85 per cent."
Source: MobileYouth report, cited by the Daily Mail, 254th June 2009
