iDiz Incorporated

Marketers have to pay attention to shifts in people’s preferences and behavior in order to put their efforts and limited budgets to best use. (After all, is anyone still wasting money on Yellow Page ads?) Here are a few notable trends:

“Must-haves” from Pew Research:
• Half of Americans believe going online + high speed internet are a necessity.
• Fewer consider TV a necessity: 52% of Americans (down from 64%) think of their TV as a necessity. Cable or satellite TV loses importance (23% in 2009, down from 33% in 2006). The trend is undoubtedly digital – 24% of respondents have reduced or cancelled their cable or satellite TV subscription, but they are keeping high speed internet at home to watch shows on sites such as Hulu.
• 49% see cell phones as necessary, roughly the same as in 2006. However 22% have changed to less expensive plans or canceled services. (In a related note from the CDC: For the first time, U.S. households with only a cell phone outnumber households with only a land line – 20% to 17%. About 60% have both.)

Additional findings from the survey :
• 57% bought less expensive brands or shopped more at discount stores
• 21% have made plans to plant a vegetable garden, and 20% started doing home repairs on their own.

Internet usage from Pew Research:
• Over 800 million people use the internet everyday: 75% of adult women, 73% of adult men. Percentages within age groups vary from 18-29 (87%) to 50-64 (72%).
• 55% have used it for banking online, with 19% using it for banking online on a “typical day.”

Online Communities continue to grow:
• LinkedIn 12.5 million active members (up 143% in the year)
• Twitter had 14 million active subscribers in March (up a phenomenal 1200% in the year)
• Facebook had 91 million active members (up 195% in 1 year) in March 2009:
– 193+ million total users: 51% Female and 45% Male
– Largest age group of active users in the USA: 18-25
– Largest growing category in the USA: 55-59 ( with 60-65 not far behind)
– North America and Europe account for over 70% of Facebook usage

Demographic shifts from the Brookings Institution:
• About 80 percent of the nation’s foreign-born population in 2007 hailed from Latin America and Asia, up from just 20 percent in 1970. The Southeast has become the fastest-growing destination. Today, more than half of the nation’s foreign-born residents live in major metropolitan suburbs, while one-third live in large cities.
• Hispanics have accounted for roughly half the nation’s population growth since 2000. Already, racial and ethnic minorities represent 44 percent of U.S. residents under the age of 15, and make up a majority of that age group in 31 of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas (and a majority of the entire population in 15).
• As the first wave of baby boomers reaches age 65, the senior population is poised to grow by 36 percent from 2010 to 2020. Because the boomers were the nation’s first fully “suburban generation,” their aging in place will cause many major metropolitan suburbs to “gray” faster than their urban counterparts.
• The suburban poor surpassed the central-city poor in number during this decade, and now outnumber them by more than 1.5 million. The suburban poor have spread well beyond older, inner-ring suburbs, which in 2005-2007 housed less than 40 percent of all poor suburban dwellers.