Cutting budgets
Friday, July 17th, 2009When you have to cut your library budget, you have to rethink your priorities for purchasing books, databases, and journals.
Archive for July, 2009
Video game sales still growing despite the recession
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009Nielsen has some new information on how the recession is affecting the spending and playing habits of gamers.
How have gamers responded to the recession? While much of the conversation has focused on fluctuations in new game sales, a new study “The Value Gamer: Play and Purchase Behavior in a Recession” by the Nielsen Company shows there is much more to the story. Over the past several months, the number of hours that gamers claim to be playing is at an all time high, part of a rising trend in gameplay that began in 2007. Additionally, gamers have increased their purchase of used games to record-breaking totals since the Video Game Tracking survey began asking about this in 2006. The same is true for subscriptions to video game rental services by mail. Taken together, these trends point to gamers’ continued engagement with the category even as their budgets have come under pressure. Overall, the recession has not abated the trend of increasing gameplay and may have in fact accelerated it as gamers look to get more value out of the games they own.
via Video Game Engagement At All-Time High During Recession | Nielsen Wire.
The full report, in PDF format, is available here.
It’s cool to be frugal
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009With the recession in full swing and families worrying about jobs, mortgages, grocery bills, and more, the obvious result is that people are adjusting their spending habits. A report mentioned in AdWeek discusses that it’s now a bit more hip to be cutting coupons.
Parents and families are shifting to a new value system where keeping up with the Joneses is out and teaching the kids about responsible spending is in. Also in, according to a recent report from Starcom and Nickelodeon: putting brands’ feet to the fire and demanding they prove their worth to consumers who increasingly buy generic products in a hunt for deals.
Those are some of the key findings in a joint research effort that explored how the recession has affected family dynamics, relationships to brands and spending patterns.
“Frugality is cool, or the new black if you will,” said Ron Geraci, svp, research at Viacom-owned Nickelodeon. Parents, he said, indicated that they had become “stressed out” by the pressure of having to keep up with “neighbors and friends in the acquisition of cars, trips and homes.” The recession, he added, has provided relief from that burden.
According to the survey, 72 percent of those polled said they agreed with the statement, “It’s no longer important to keep up with the Joneses,” while 48 percent said that as a result of cutbacks in the family budget “we have redefined what’s truly meaningful in our lives.”
Overview of Serials Review Process
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009This video outlines the process for the Serials Review Project. Because of budget cuts, we’re having to review many of our subscriptions for possible cancellation. More information about the project can be found on the Serials Review Project page on the Biz Wiki.
More men in the grocery stores these days
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009A new Nielsen Report, Role Reversal – Mr. Mom Goes Shopping, finds that these days you’re likely to find more men in the aisles of the grocery store.
Over the past 20 years, the American household has changed and traditional roles have shifted with men now taking on a greater percentage of the household shopping than in the past. Today, almost one-third of men are now the principal shoppers in the home. With more men in the aisles, marketers need to better understand how they impact brand sales and how to reach this growing segment of principal shoppers.
It’s an interesting article with lots of useful, colorful tables and graphs.
I'm Chad Boeninger and I write this blog for the students and faculty of Ohio University. I cover business research issues, databases and other resources, current business trends and topics, and much more.