Nielsen Informate analysis of social networking usage trends for Android smartphone users in India uncovered the following insights.

1. Social Networking properties (apps/sites) are the most accessed, second only to search
2. Facebook leads the list, Google+ comes in second
3. One in three Facebook users does not use any other Social Networking property
4. The Facebook app is very sticky with an average user logging in 17 days a month
5. While Facebook is used throughout the day, engagement levels peak late night

A whopping 93% of Android smartphone users in India use social networking on their smartphones.

Facebook is the dominant Social Networking property with a reach that’s more than 5 times higher than its nearest competitor – Google+.

A sign of Facebook’s domination is that one in three Facebook users doesn’t use any other Social Networking property on the smartphone.

The more preferred way to access Facebook is through the app. Integration with other Social Networking properties and with phone features (eg., camera, browser) make the app a convenient one stop solution.

A high share of Facebook users access the app throughout the day. The engagement levels, however, peak late at night.

About Nielsen Informate
Nielsen Informate leverages innovative smartphone metering technology to provide insights into evolving consumption patterns of mobile device users. Nielsen Informate maintains opt-in smartphone panels to generate syndicated reports, in addition to building custom panels and conducting custom surveys for clients.

Travelers head online as Summer Vacation approaches

Whether consumers were making their plans for summer vacation or simply finding their way around town, over half of Internet users visited Travel websites in April 2012.  Google Maps was the top web brand in the category during April, with 79 million unique U.S. visitors, followed by other popular mapping sites like Mapquest (29.6 million) and Yahoo! Local (15.2 million). Visitors to Google Maps returned frequently, visiting the site about 5 times each on average, logging well over 1 billion pageviews on the site.

Looking towards Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., travellers planning trips a little further from home also headed online to make plans, visiting sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, and Priceline Network to plan their trips (respectively 13.2 million, 12.9 million, and 12.2 million unique visitors each, respectively).  Millions more booked airfare on sites SouthwestAirlines.com and other airlines sites, as consumers searched for the best travel deals, with about half of visitors to TripAdvisor also visiting Expedia during the same month and a third also visiting Priceline sites.

These findings, based on what NCS believes to be the most in-depth study on the correlation between online advertising and offline purchase, indicate a turning point for the digital medium as marketers seek to better leverage their advertising budgets across multiple channels.

“Not only can we prove that online advertising drives sales, but the returns on ad spends are significant when purchaser-based data is used to optimize the media buy,” said Mike Nazzaro, CEO of Nielsen Catalina Solutions. “The marketer’s ability to precisely reach the desired consumer segment in the right media enabled by shopper-based analytics is changing the way advertisers plan and buy media,” Nazzaro said.

Nielsen Catalina Solutions and Nielsen completed more than 800 studies over the past seven years, collaborating with more than 300 CPG brands and 80 companies to measure the correlation between online advertising and offline consumer purchases.

Sales Return on Advertising Ranges from Three to Five Times Investment
A key metric for measuring campaign success is the ratio of the sales generated compared with the cost of the advertising, typically expressed as a cost per thousand or “CPM.” The incremental sales revenue per thousand households or “RPM” is compared with the advertising CPM to determine the return, or payback. According to Nielsen Catalina Solutions’ research, the average payback for all CPG categories was 2.79, ranging from 2.36 for food items to 5.29 for the pet category.

“These findings reveal an opportunity for advertisers to increase sales by leveraging purchaser data to improve media planning and buying. CPG marketers spent over $22 billion in total advertising in 2011, including $2 billion to $3 billion in the online medium,” Nazzaro said.

About Nielsen Catalina Solutions
Nielsen and Catalina established Nielsen Catalina Solutions as a joint venture enabling the CPG advertising industry to understand how advertising influences purchase behavior for TV, online, mobile, CRM and print using single-source analytics. The joint venture integrates viewing data from Nielsen and directly from media companies and purchase data from Nielsen Homescan and Catalina’s shopper data warehouse incorporating a subset of over 60 million households from participating retailers.

PC gaming data from Nielsen’s U.S. metering of home and work panelists provides insights on executable file gameplay, or “.exe’s”, that are launched and played from the desktop. A look at the last six months’ worth of 2011 metered data for the top five pre-installed game titles revealed the following insights.

• The total combined average monthly audience (July-Dec 2011) for these titles was 20.3MM
• Overall, 58% of metered gameplay came from females
• Overall, 88% of metered gameplay came from ‘gamers’ aged 25+
• Pinball and Minesweeper were the only games that showed more than a marginal audience under 25, with 31% and 24% of gameplay, respectively, coming from this younger age range
• FreeCell had the largest average monthly audience over the timespan, with close to 9.4MM unique players each month (Solitaire was 2nd with an average monthly audience of 7MM)
• FreeCell, Solitaire and Hearts resonated highest with the 55+ crowd, with over 50% of players for these three games being part of this older demographic

Another interesting dynamic is the amount of time spent and frequency for playing these pre-installed games:

• The card-based games of FreeCell, Solitaire and Hearts had the highest levels of average minutes of weekly play, with over 150 minutes each for FreeCell and Solitaire and just over 70 for Hearts
• FreeCell and Solitaire averaged seven sessions each per week, while Hearts was closer to six
• Taking into account the average audiences for these three card-based games, and factoring in the time spent playing, over 44 million hours of combined monthly play can be attributed to them
• Pinball and Minesweeper both exhibited lower average weekly play in terms of minutes, 26 and 38 respectively, as well as sessions, two and three respectively.

As new tech and devices emerge, it’s easy to assume that older versions of games, or just old games in general, would fall out of favor. However, old habits die hard, and familiarity with programs and games can have a lot to do with the long tail of gameplay. This particular data for pre-installed games skews heavily towards an older demographic, which presents an opportunity for developers/publishers to perhaps find ways to make their free-to-play games as easily accessible and bundled in as possible for this audience. And for advertisers that want to reach this large demographic, it’s an opportunity to work with device manufacturers and operating system publishers to reach this mass audience if/when these pre-installed games tie-in connectivity or become server-based as the norm. An important question remains though – how do you convert or transition these gamers to other versions of these same games or change their habits in how they access them on newer, or more social formats?

Not surprisingly, spot TV was the top choice among all candidates for reaching potential voters, representing nearly 75 percent of all ad units, followed by local/regional cable networks. Rick Santorum’s campaign showed the greatest balance between the two mediums, placing 59 percent of ads on local TV stations and 34 percent on regional cable networks.  President Obama’s team leaned more towards spot TV and placed over 80 percent of ads on those stations.  Ads for Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney saw the largest share of local radio placements among the candidates, 13 percent and 12 percent of total campaign advertisements, respectively.

When looking at ad placements by market, the most targeted was Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson (4,021 advertisements among the five candidates), which spans counties in Georgia, South Carolina and battleground state North Carolina.  Rounding out the top five were Florida markets Miami and Tampa, followed by Columbia, SC and Orlando.

Other findings include:

• Seattle was the only market targeted by all five candidates during Q1 2012.
• Although Newt Gingrich was the winner of the South Carolina primary, his campaign placed the fewest total ad units among the candidates in highly targeted markets Charleston and Columbia.
• The top markets for spot TV placements for Team Obama included North Carolina and Wisconsin, Team Romney focused on several Florida markets and Teams Gingrich, Paul and Santorum advertised heavily on local stations in South Carolina.

Key findings on black consumers’ online activities include:

• During the fourth quarter of 2012, 63 percent of black adults made a purchase online.
• Black Internet users spent 22 percent of their time online visiting Social Networks/Blogs in December 2011.
• YouTube accounted for 48 percent of black viewers’ online video time during December 2011, and 31 percent of black adults online watched consumer-generated video across the Web.

For more info and insights, download the complete series of Digital Black Consumer infographics.

The 12-17 demo is proving that they are also game, quite literally, for watching or playing just about anywhere in the home—including basements and garages. More than half (52%) of their time spent with a gaming console happens in either non-traditional spaces or bedrooms while 48 percent is spent gaming in more social environs, such as a living or family room.

When it comes to television, the 12-17 demo is proving that times may change, but teens will be teens, spending nearly the same amount of time viewing TV in bedrooms as they do in family rooms. Overall, teenagers spent 47 percent of their total TV viewing in their bedrooms versus 48 percent in family rooms.

In contrast, the 35-64 demo spends 62 percent of their total TV in a shared space and only 31 percent of their time in the bedroom. Those 65 and older spend the largest chunk of their viewing time (69%) in a family or living room.

Our homes play a vital role in our lives, from the time we awake in the morning to when we return home from a long day at work or school. For many Americans their home is also their most valuable financial asset. But recently this has proved to be a rather volatile asset, and dramatic changes in home values have created stress for many Americans.

The trajectory of the housing market has now reached a true turning point. Based on our team’s analysis, the worst of the housing crash is over and a recovery has now started.

Yet this recovery will be very different from previous ones, with implications for leaders in most sectors. Where housing goes, the economy follows. Each time a house is sold many industries benefit as consumers arrange financing, launch renovations, and invest to improve the comfort and value of their homes. We hope you will find this report on the U.S. housing market to be timely, thought provoking, and valuable.

To learn more, download The Shifting Nature of U.S. Housing Demand from The Demand Institute website.

Since its founding in 2004, the social network has passed many milestones as it skyrocketed from a few million U.S. users to millions more around the world. Looking back at Nielsen data from over the last eight years, here are some of the key moments in Facebook’s story:

• In January 2009 Facebook passed Myspace to become the top social network/blog site for the first time, a position it’s held in the U.S. ever since.
• Between 2005 and 2009 Facebook doubled its traffic each year in the U.S., surpassing 10 million uniques for the first time in November 2006 (11.6M).
• Facebook connected friends around the globe quickly: reaching 10 million unique UK visitors by April 2008. In 2009, the French, Spaniards and Germans followed suit, with 10 million visitors apiece in January, May and November, respectively.
• As recently as August 2011, Facebook overtook Orkut as the top social networking site in Brazil; it has continued to grow its audience since then.

Facebook continues to grow around the world, with consumers in each market finding unique uses for social media sites. While Facebook is the top social network globally, many netizens visit multiple social media sites; in Japan blog sites are more popular in the social media category (Facebook is ranked 5th), and in Brazil sites like Tumblr and Google+ are growing quickly as well. Currently Facebook is the top Social Networking & Blogs site in eleven of the following 12 markets:

Identify what they want
Sometimes less means more to lose. By optimizing your product portfolio to provide the greatest incremental volume, you can maximize sales value to align with what consumers actually want. Tactical listing and delisting decisions based on facts requires identifying the risks and opportunities of listing/delisting and evaluating the assortment health of categories in the aisle.

A study of 38 categories in the east region of China revealed that the smaller the store, the bigger the gain. Only 58 percent of the categories reviewed actually reach the smaller channels. With a bigger gap to fill, there is a bigger opportunity to offer an assortment structure that is aligned with shopper needs. Determining the product characteristics that drive demand across channels in the right number of stores will provide the most optimal assortment strategy.

Build a better linkage between online and offline
Current online shopping in China is dominated by a few key stores, but is that the right strategy? At least for fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), it might not be, since those channels are owned by non-FMCG categories and the presence of FMCG categories is low. Also, there is a limited opportunity for FMCG exposure within those stores since online shopping occasions are more planned, focused and direct in terms of their shopping behavior, compared with offline shopping.

A potential solution is to build an online space owned by FMCG categories. Hypermarket online stores offer the best opportunity for expansion as online shopping and hypermarket shopping share commonality in terms of shopping occasion and shopping needs. As such, by building a better linkage between online and offline shopping and utilizing existing resources, FMCG categories might be able to create a dedicated online space to further take advantage of growing online shopping trend.

Make your TV money work harder
Knowing how much to spend on advertising, where to allocate spending and how to optimize on a real-time basis to maximize return on investment (ROI) are some of the most challenging issues facing marketers today when it comes to TV optimization.

TV ad performance is more than just good creative. Other factors such as programming, media weight, placement, cross-platform exposure and competitive activity also have significant impact on advertising breakthrough and branding performance.

The new news is that brands can now optimize their TV advertising and media plans in flight, to achieve more than 10–20 percent gains in effectiveness. By measuring breakthrough and branding on a daily basis, brand advertisers can optimize performance by:

• Optimizing creative rotation to focus on strongest spots.
• Editing spots to improve branding and messaging.
• Moving spend from 30 second spots to high-performing 15 second spots.
• Shifting spending out of lower performing genres and into higher ones.
• Determining when ads are worn out and need replacement.
• Learning from and applying insights from competitive advertising.

Real-time ad effectiveness measurement is now a reality. Smart marketers are leveraging this capability to optimize their creative and media allocation decisions in-flight to greatly improve advertising performance.

Diagnose effective/ineffective ads
Using the power of science, you can capture consumer’s unarticulated deep subconscious response to ads, logos, package, brand attributes, in-store displays and merchandising layouts, therefore you can impact sales dramatically.

Nielsen NeuroFocus has done thousands of ad testing and gathers the core Neurometrics of Attention, Emotion, and Memory for every second of the consumer’s experience with the ad. This level of detail allows you to diagnose effective/ineffective segments and to uncover areas for improvement, second-by-second. A study carried out by a third party using approximately 50 television ads in 14 campaigns found that Nielsen NeuroFocus effectiveness is highly correlated with sales, significantly higher than traditional research methods.