May and June 2012

• Some 38% of college students claim they can’t go more than 10 minutes without checking their smartphone, tablet, or other technology device of choice. (Couresmart; phone 650-295-3830)
• More than one-half (55%) of U.S. married couples have been married for at least 15 years. (US census bureau)
• Three in 10 men (31%) say they do the majority of household cleaning at home, up from 17% in 2006. (www.mintel.com)
• Two in 10 (21%) men say they hold in their stomachs for the first time that a woman sees them naked. (glamour magazine 212-286-2860)
• When talking to the person sitting beside them on an airplane, 39% of male travelers say they “embellish” the details of their lives. (men’s health 310-967-5171)
• Sixty-two percent of American adults have pets at home; the most popular are dogs (69%) and cats (51%). Many pet owners often allow the pet to sleep in the bed with them (70%), buy pet holiday gifts (60%), buy pet birthday gifts (36%), cook meals especially for the pet (24%), dress the pet in clothing, and bring the pet to work with them (11%). (harrisinteractive.com, harris poll #70)
• Some 69% of consumers say they prefer glass bottles over plastic. (owens-illinois 567-336-5000)
• More Hispanics of Puerto Rican heritage live in the U.S. (50 states plus the District of Columbia) than in Puerto Rico (4.4 million versus 4.0 million).
• The top reason home gardeners say they grow their own food is because it provides them better-tasting produce (58%). (national gardening association 802-863-5251)
• Some 61% of smartphone or tablet users say their device has now replaced their alarm clock. (prosper mobile insights. 614-846-0146)
• One in five mobile phone owners (21%) say they would rather walk barefoot than give up their cell phones for one week. (tele-nav. 408-306-6677)
• When someone posts a status update on Facebook, only 12% of their Friends typically see it. Posts by brands which post five days a week are seen by only 16% of the brand’s Fans. (Facebook and comscore. “the power of like: how brands reach and influence fans through social media marketing”)
• Recent research, conducted in 2011 and early 2012, shows that 46% of Americans favor gay marriage while 44% oppose it. In 2007/2008, 38% favored gay marriage and 53% opposed it, compared to 2003/2004 surveys that showed only 32% supported gay marriage while 59% were opposed. (pew research center http://www.people-press.org/2012/05/23/changing-views-of-gay-marriage-a-deeper-analysis/?src=prc-newsletter )
• As of February 2012, 88% of U.S. adults were cell phone owners; 46% owned a smartphone.

Brand Strategy

• Some 25% of consumers who post product or service complaints on Facebook or Twitter say they expect to get a response within one hour; 6% expect a response within 10 minutes. (Lightspeed research. Phone 908-605-4480)
• Adults age 18-34 are three times more likely than those age 35-54 to post complaints about brands on the companies’ Facebook pages. (lightspeed research 908-605-4480)
• Americans with household incomes of $100,000 or higher, are 19% more likely than those with lower incomes to click on online automotive offers. (adgenesis 646-350-4418)
• Online shoppers looking for branded products mostly rely on search engines (44%), retailers’ websites (33%), and manufacturers’ websites (20%). Only 2% ask Facebook contacts for recommendations and 1% post questions on Twitter. (the 2011 social shopping study, brief 1: consumer research dynamics, mobile and user-generated content. June 2011, the e-tailing group. E-tailing.com )
• Online shoppers say they look for consumer-generated reviews or ratings either “all the time” or “very often” in these places: Amazon.com (58%), retailers’ websites (45%), search engines (41%), manufacturers’ websites (32%), review sites (e.g. Epinions, Cnet) (25%), Facebook (11%), and Twitter (7%). (the 2011 social shopping study, brief 1: consumer research dynamics, mobile and user-generated content. June 2011, the e-tailing group. E-tailing.com )
• Some 12% of mobile shoppers make purchases on their phones at least once per week. (price grabber/Experian 323-601-1200)
• An American Society of News Editors survey shows that newspapers now employ 40,600 editors and reporters, down from a high of 56,900 in 1990.
• Over one-half of consumers (55%) have expressed interest in receiving mobile coupons but only 10% have received one from a merchant.

Healthcare

• The average prescription drug label lists 70 potential side effects.
• Some 12% of women say they crave pickles when they are pregnant.
• Just under one-half (49%) of Americans’ total food budget is spent on restaurants, compared to 25% in 1955.
• Hispanics (48%) are least likely to eat the recommended daily serving amount of fruits and vegetables, while Blacks (58%) are the most likely.
• Some 84% of parents take their children to fast food restaurants each week.
• Almost one in 10 visitors to professional sports events (8%) are too intoxicated to drive home afterwards.
• Sixty-three percent of American adults say they would like to grow old living in the country, compared to 21% who would choose the suburbs and 15% who prefer the city.
• Three-quarters of Americans say they try to eat seasonal foods; 29% “strongly agree” and 48% “agree somewhat.”
• One-quarter of Americans (25%) say they have lower respect for people who smoke than for non-smokers.
• At least 20% of the population is obese in every state except Colorado. Areas with high Hispanic populations are 23% less likely than average to be obese, while other areas such as the rural farming communities are as much as 65% more likely.
• A recent study by the Kaiser Foundation shows that only 5% of the American population accounts for half of the health-care spending in the U.S.
• Millennials in their 20s are spending a massive 78% more than Baby Boomers did when they were in their 20s.

Business to Business

• Some 74% of men and 76% of women say they have used their mobile phones in a bathroom. Sixty-three percent have answered a phone call and 41% have initiated one. Twenty percent of males have engaged in work-related calls, versus 13% of females.
• Over one-half of workers (56%) say that participating in office politics is required to move up the corporate ladder.
• Some 16 million people in the U.S. will book travel on a mobile device in 2012, with that figure estimated to more than double to 36.7 million people by 2016.
• U.S. advertisers are expected to spend $3.1 billion in 2012 on video ads, up from $2 billion in 2011. By 2016, projections show that $9.3 billion in online ad spending will go toward video.
• Spammers create as many as 40% of the accounts on social media sites. In addition, about 8% of messages sent via social pages are now spam.

Energy

• The energy concentrated in one gallon of gasoline is enough to charge an iPhone once a day for almost 20 years.
• The top five sources of foreign oil to the U.S. (listed from higher to lower) are Canada, Nigeria, Venezuela, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
• Based on today’s energy trends, the U. S. could end up exporting 500 million tons of coal a year, 3.2 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas and 2.5 million barrels a day of oil products by the year 2030.
• Global biofuel sales (ethanol and biodiesel) reached $83 billion in 2011, up from $56.4 billion the previous year, and are estimated to rise to $139 billion by 2021. However, the escalations are mostly due to price increases resulting from higher costs for feedstock commodities (sugar for ethanol and rapeseed and other vegetable oils for biodiesel). Between 2010 and 2011, global biofuels sales remained fairly flat, rising from 27.2 billion gallons to 27.9 billion gallons.
• Revenues from solar photovoltaics (including modules, system components, and installation) increased from $71.2 billion in 2010 to a record $91.6 billion in 2011. Projections are for continued expansion to $130.5 billion by 2021. While revenues were up 29%, installations climbed more than 69% from 15.6 GW in 2010 to more than 26 GW worldwide during 2011. This reflects a more than 40% decline in crystalline module prices between 2010 and 2011. Between now and 2021 installed costs for PV should continue decreasing, falling to almost 33% of current levels.
• Buildings devour 40% of all energy used in the U.S. and are responsible for almost 40% of domestic carbon dioxide emissions.
• Producing diesel fuel from algae today costs about $10.66 a gallon from open ponds and almost $20 a gallon from photobioreactors, according to a recent U.S. Department of Energy report.