Research

According to the latest Experian-Gallup Personal Credit Index survey, 65 percent of consumers say they save some money regularly, while 31 percent report that it’s hard enough just to make ends meet. The survey also revealed interesting statistics about consumer financial concerns, credit card usage, quality of life and spending habits. In addition, the Personal Credit IndexSM is down 15 points to 90, which is the lowest level since November 2006.

According to the latest study by Arbitron and Edison Media Research, The Infinite Dial 2007: Radio’s Digital Platforms, consumers are continuing to explore radio in all its digital platforms—Online Radio, Satellite Radio, HD Radio, and audio podcasting—while maintaining a broad use of AM/FM radio.

Last Friday afternoon, I went on my weekly shopping trip to the local grocery super-center. There, I began my multi-hour adventure, mulling over a two-page list of items to pickup, that I received from my girlfriend. While scanning over the list, I began to rethink a book I had just read for Dr. Korzenny’s Multicultural Marketing class. Guy Garcia’s The New Mainstream: How the Multicultural Consumer Is Transforming American Business, is a book that explores 21st century America, and how important and prevalent muliticulturism is within our society. I begin to think about my first reactions to one of Garcia’s (2004) opening statements, that only 50 percent of the population will be made up on non-Hispanic whites by 2050-that this multiculturalism is reaching “critical mass”-that America is becoming the first real multicultural society.

Reports from around the world suggest that gaming addiction is real and on the rise. Nationally, 8.5 percent of youth gamers (ages 8 to 18) can be classified as pathological(1) or clinically “addicted” to playing video games. Most youth play video games and many feel that they may be playing too much. Nearly one-quarter (23%) of youth say that they have felt “addicted to video games”, with about one-third of males (31%) and a little more than one in ten females (13%) feeling “addicted.”

More than one out of every three television viewers (35 percent) spend some portion of their weekly television viewing hours at a location other then their own home, according to a new study by Arbitron Inc.

Despite a national economic downturn in 2001-2002, the buying power of Idaho’s largest minority grew much faster than the rest of the state between 2000 and 2007.

Overall, Hispanic buying power has risen from 2.8 percent of total statewide buying power to over 5 percent this year, when Hispanic spending is projected to account for $2.1 billion of the $40.9 billion spent statewide.

According to population estimates released for all metro areas by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Be concerned if you don’t know what bling-bling means. That is a red flag that you are failing to keep up with the new America. The growing number of African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians has dramatically shifted the demographic and the cultural makeup of the United States population, and the once Caucasian majority called the American mainstream is being outpaced by the multiethnic, multicolored “new mainstream”.

GMAC Mortgage, LLC and the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute (TRPI) at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California, have announced the results of a comprehensive survey conducted by GMAC Mortgage on home ownership among 4,000 Latinos in the United States. The survey revealed that Latinos hold substantial power when
it comes to the United States housing market.

The proportion of all legal foreign-born residents who have become naturalized U.S. citizens rose to 52% in 2005, the highest level in a quarter of a century and a 14 percentage point increase since 1990, according to an analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center.

New research by political scientists concludes that available data does not appear to support the claim that Hispanic immigration poses a threat to American identity. Among the key findings of this study are that Hispanics acquire English and lose Spanish rapidly beginning in the 2nd generation; appear to be as religious and at least as committed to the work ethic as native-born whites; and largely reject a purely ethnic identification and exhibit levels of patriotism equal to native-born whites by the 3rd generation.

Online Hispanics in the U.S. are “media mavens,” consuming and adopting media and technology at a higher rate than the general population, according to new research released by Yahoo! Telemundo and Experian Simmons Research. The study found that Hispanics lead the general market in “media meshing” and use of key mobile phone features as they spend more than half of each day engaged with television, Internet and technology gadgets. Overall, Hispanics identified 51 hours of total daily activities, including 14 hours with technology and 13.5 hours with media. Online U.S. Hispanics regularly combine TV and Internet to enrich their media experience and would like to see more online options in Spanish.

Global public relations firm Weber Shandwick released a new study revealing that companies can gain a significant competitive advantage by creating marketing programs that target baby boomers’ expansive relationship networks. The survey, conducted with KRC Research, found that Boomer-to-Friend (B2F) communications are untapped in their potential to influence purchasing decisions for products and services.

New segmentation analyses from Mediamark Research Inc. (MRI) delve beyond demographics to provide marketers with a deeper understanding of the lives of U.S. teenagers. Based on the latest MRI Teenmark study, the various segments focus on the attitudes that often dictate youthful consumer behavior.