Early detection of changes in consumer behaviour by monitoring nutrition buzz ?

I have the impression that most people do not often talk about average fruit or vegetables like oranges, banana's or potatoes. Unless they are somehow asked by a food manufacturer to give their opinion.

Large food multinationals are always interested in the latest food trends among consumers. What are consumers talking about on the social media ? Sanoma and Unilever have their social platform Yunomi (http://www.yunomi.nl/) where they try to get women to talk about all kinds of products. With 280.000 women quite succesfull for a Dutch social platform.

Nielsen has chosen a different path to better understand emerging trends in nutrition, The market research company has been quantifying buzz among health enthusiasts, a passionate and informed consumer segment that Nielsen monitors across 400+ social networks, key blogs and forums. Below you can find a table of their findings.

Can you really detect in an early stage a change in consumer behaviour by monitoring the nutrition buzz on social media ?

Nielsen believes that listening to what health enthusiasts care about helps to see what’s next.
For average Europeans who know that unprocessed fresh fruit is the best option watching these statistics it is like a watching an artificial TV contest about who is the winning exotic fruit or vegetable of Q1. In Q2 the ranking can be completely different. Some entertaiment value but wether it does provide relevant consumer insight or spotting relevant food trends in an early stage remains the questions.

Source:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/state-of-the-consumer-wellness-watch-nutrition-buzz/

More and more screens are competing for the attention of the consumer

Àlways wanted to know where other people have gaming consoles in their house. Nielsen did some interesting market research and made a nice infographic.

Because all the screens in the house compete for attention of the consumer it would be interesting to see where other devices like televisons, pc´s, laptops and tablets are located. It is a nice illustration of the connected consumer but the media channels through which a marketeer can reach the consumer become ever more fragmented.
Finding the right media channel mix for your offer is a more and more difficult marketing challenge.

Source:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/u-s-console-gaming-the-living-room-beyond/

Women are the biggest online shoppers

My students sometimes have the impression that men do most of the online shopping. This might have been the case in the early days of the internet. But nowadays Internet mirrors society and proof of stereotypes about men and woman and old and young can effortlessly be found on the internet.

The Nielsen market research company shows that women are the most frequent shoppers online in the USA. Only the category computer hardware remains a dominant male bastion.



All the old stereotypes still hold true: women shop the most, senior citizens watch the most TV, men play video games and women and the young like to text. I assume this is also true for European countries, but I have not found any data to confirm this.

The Nielsen USA report summary with data from Q3 2010 is interesting stuff to read and can be found here
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/in-u-s-men-are-shopping-more-than-ever-while-women-are-watching-more-tv/#

Lecturing during the International Week at the University of Katowice in Poland

Recently I had the opportunity to lecture at the University of applied sciemces in Katowice in south west Poland. Together with 11 collegueas from different countries we gave lectures centered around the theme Internet Communication Management My topic was "building brands on line". 4 student groups consisting of 4 students each had to choose an interesting consumer product and develop an online marketing communication plan. Considering they were mainly first year students and had no experience with marketing they produced some really good results. The students were surprisingly good at english and worked really hard to achieve the best results. Working in groups and immediately applying the theory in a practical assignment was something completely new to the Polish students. They were really enthousiastic about this form of teaching because it allowed them to work in groups and discuss pro's and con's among each other. The evaluations were really very good; 90% would recommend this course to other students. You can find the results of their work on their blogs and judge for yourself.

Iphone	http://intweekkatowicegroup1iphone.blogspot.com/
Nissan quashqai	http://intweekkatowicegroup2nissanqashqai.blogspot.com/
3D tv Panasonic	http://www.group3panasonic.blogspot.com/
m&m's	http://intweekkkatowicegroup4mms.blogspot.com/

Besides lecturing we had time for a very nice social programm including a visit to the town hall and a meeting with the major. Who gave an impressive presentation of the growth and entrepreneurial spirit of the region around Katowice. Several Western multinationals have a subsidiary in the Silezian region. The unemployment rate is below 3,5%. Which made me realize I had to adjust my perception of this region.

All lecturers and the international team during the visit of the town hall of Katowice.  

I was surprised by the exceptionally good promotional coverage of the international week.
The trailer at the top gives a nice example of how universities can promote important events in a modern way with social media.  Facebook, Youtube picassa all modern media were used to communicate the story of the international week. 
If you are interested check out the following websites.

http://www.intweek.ue.katowice.pl/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Economics-in-Katowice/145274722181780