Posted by Elena del Valle on May 9, 2012
Young women drive a Ford Mustang convertible
Photos: Ford, General Motors
Sellers of products or services offline in old style brick and mortar offices and stores, especially those targeting a young demographic, may be interested to know that fewer young people have a driver’s license today than did their counterparts in the early 1980s, according to a University of Michigan study released December 2011. That means young customers without a driver’s license instead of self driving to visit an office or store have to rely on other means such as mass transportation, online shopping, and friends and family who have a car and drive.
The driver’s license study findings seem to match the declining sales of used cars, traditionally bought by young adults, young couples with children at home and married couples with adult children at home (they spend 72 percent more on average*). Average household spending on used cars dropped 30 percent between 2000 and 2007, according to *Best Customers Demographics of Consumer Demand.
While only 22 percent of drivers today are teenagers or in their twenties in 1983, one third of licensed drivers in the country were under 30 years old. That year, more than half of people with driver’s licenses were under 40 years of age and today less than 40 percent of drivers are under 40. The study authors did not analyze information by ethnicity or race.
Emerging market segments are well represented in young demographics. At the same time, Asian, Hispanic and black consumers spend more than the average household on mass transportation and spend less than the average household on transportation in general (Household Spending Who Spends How Much on What).
The researchers in Michigan believe there is a link between the decrease in driver’s license owners and the popularity of texting and electronic devices, activities and products that are popular among young Americans. Emerging market members tend to over index in their consumption of such products and electronic communication methods.
Sports cars like the GM Camaro 2012 may inspire people to get a driver’s license
“It is possible that the availability of virtual contact through electronic means reduces the need for actual contact among young people,” said Michael Sivak, research professor at the U-M Transportation Research Institute. “Furthermore, some young people feel that driving interferes with texting and other electronic communication.”
Sivak and Brandon Schoettle, a University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute colleague, examined the changes from 1983 to 2008 in the percentage of persons with permits to drive by age in a study in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention. They believe that there are fewer young people among all of today’s licensed drivers, and that young drivers are a smaller portion of their age group as a whole, compared to 1983.
That year, 87 percent of 19-year-olds had a permit to drive while in 2008 only 75 percent did. Likewise 80 percent of 18-year-olds had a license in 1983 and only 65 percent had one in 2008; 69 percent of 17-year-olds had a license in 1983 but only 50 percent did in 2008; and 46 percent of 16-year-olds had one in 1983 but only 31 percent did in 2008.
In 2008, people 70 and older were part of the largest group of drivers on the road, representing more than 10 percent of all drivers and a slightly higher percentage than those in their 40s or 50s. By that year licensed drivers as a percentage of their age group population had increased for all groups over 45 years of age since 1983. In 2008, 94 percent of those aged 65 to 69 and 78 percent of those 70 and older had drivers licenses, up from 79 percent and 55 percent, respectively, in 1983.
Some believe the recession, the cost of owning a car, migration trends toward large urban centers and the popularity of social media may account for some of the decline in driver’s permits among young Americans.
Looking internationally Sivak and Schoettle identified a similar pattern of a decrease in young drivers in seven countries and a contrary pattern in another seven countries in a subsequent study released this year, Recent Changes in the Age Composition of Drivers in 15 Countries. They concluded in their analysis that “higher societal wealth, older population in general, and higher proportion of population living in megacities were each associated with higher licensure rates among young persons.” In that study, they found that the more internet users present the lower licensure rates among youth.
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 7, 2012
Lorie Loe, CEO, Eccolo Media
Photo: Eccolo Media
A podcast interview with Lorie Loe, CEO, Eccolo Media is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, Lorie discusses why content marketing is changing the CMO mandate: five things your team must do differently in 2012 with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
Lori has more than 20 years of experience in marketing communications, developing and executing content strategy for technology clients. At Eccolo Media, Lorie primarily consults on comprehensive content strategies and provides a broad range of account management services. Her client work includes planning for content-intensive marketing communications programs, including lead generation and nurture campaigns, thought-leadership programs, and new market launches.
Over the course of her career, Lorie has developed and applied best practices, striving to offer her clients clear advantage through the development of more effective collateral assets.
To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR Lorie Loe” click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the May 2012 section of the podcast archive.
Posted by Elena del Valle on May 4, 2012
The American Marketplace book cover
Television is the source of news for almost half of Americans, 22 percent of Americans rely on the internet for news and 18 percent of the population looks to print media for news, according to the 10 edition of The American Marketplace: Demographics and Spending Patterns (New Strategist, $89.95). The editors of the book used government sources to outline a population profile of the United States in one volume. The book’s main sources of information are: Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Center for Education Statistics, National Center for Health Statistics, and Federal Reserve Board.
The 611-page softcover book published in 2011 features hundreds of tables in 11 chapters covering attitudes, education, health, housing, income, labor force, living arrangements, population, spending, time use, and wealth. Accompanying the tables is analysis on the meaning of the data and summary conclusions reached by the publisher’s staff. For example, at the beginning of the book it says that in recent years overall happiness (though not marital happiness) has declined and many people are distrustful of others.
People believe hard work leads to success although fewer people identify with the middle class, the publisher’s analysts concluded in the book. The Housing Trends section indicates most people live in single family homes and many people live near open space and woodlands. In the Income Trends analysis it says nationwide there is more income inequality, all racial and ethnic groups have lost ground, homeowners between 45 and 54 years of age have the highest incomes, while income peaks in middle age.
The book includes the latest attitudinal data from the 2010 General Social Survey and the chapter on time use examines data from the 2009 American Time Use Survey. There is new data on the changing housing market and demographic profiles of those who own or rent their home; and up-to-date income and labor force data and 2010 census data of the Asian, black, and Hispanic populations. The spending chapter examines how spending patterns may be changing.
New Strategist Publications publishes other demographic data titles about consumers (for a recent example, see Book outlines Hispanic population major characteristics)
Click to buy The American Marketplace
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Posted by Elena del Valle on May 2, 2012
Why marketers need to realign their current Hispanic digital practices to better engage this consumer
By Maria Lopez-Knowles
President
GlobalHue Latino
Maria Lopez-Knowles, president, GlobalHue Latino
Photo: GlobalHue Latino
Early on in the digital age, some brands realized that the online Hispanic market was a key growth opportunity for their products and services, and decided to expand their web presence to engage this segment. Many assumed (and continue to assume) that since most of their other Hispanic marketing was done in Spanish that it made perfect sense to build out their corporate websites to include a Spanish-language only site; sounds reasonable.
Many companies developed their digital ecosystems (including Spanish-language content/site) with the hopes of driving greater engagement, e-commerce and advocacy via their online Hispanic consumer base. Some have been confounded at their results to date; many, completely disappointed.
Click to read the entire article The digitally savvy English language Dominant Hispanic
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 30, 2012
Ron Volper, Ph.D., author, Up Your Sales in a Down Market
Photo: Career Press
A podcast interview with Ron Volper, Ph.D.is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, Ron discusses compensation tactics to help retain employees with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
Ron is a leading authority on business development and the author of Up Your Sales in a Down Market: 20 Strategies from Top Performing Salespeople to Win Over Cautious Customers (see Consultant outlines post recession sales strategies)
To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR Ron Volper, Ph.D.” click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the April 2012 section of the podcast archive.
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 27, 2012
Government Control of News book cover
Photos: News & Experts
Many people think there is complete freedom of expression for media in the United States. A former executive at the NBC legal department is concerned about what he describes as a “looming threat to free speech in the United States.
Corydon B. Dunham, who was NBC-TV’s legal counsel for 25 years, believes the proposed new Localism, Balance and Diversity Doctrine could eventually also affect news on the internet. According to him, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reportedly planning to transfer the broadcast spectrum used by local television to the Internet hoping to convert it into our country’s main communications platform, and the agency has started to regulate the internet.
In his 282-page softcover book, Government Control of News: A Constitutional Challenge (iUniverse, $21.95), Dunham discusses the evolution of government control of television news and the Fairness Doctrine. The book, published in 2011 and the result of a study initiated at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institute, examines the history of the Fairness Doctrine, the rules by which the federal government regulated TV journalism. Similar rules had governed radio news since 1934 and were applied to TV in 1949 by the Federal Communications Commission.
“TV was a powerful new medium and there were only a few broadcast stations in many communities. It was thought that this gave unusual power to station and network owners,” Dunham explains. “The government justified the Fairness Doctrine as a way to ensure stations aired opposing viewpoints on issues.”
He explains in the book that in 1987, the FCC unanimously revoked the Fairness Doctrine, with court approval, after determining the doctrine had deterred news reporting on controversial issues, and had been used on multiple occasions to suppress viewpoints and help officials pursue their own political objectives. It took Congress two decades but it seems legislators are ready to revive the Fairness Doctrine in the form of the Localism, Balance and Diversity Doctrine, proposed in 2008.
“It has many of the same characteristics of the old Fairness Doctrine and can be expected to have similar results,” said Dunham. “News broadcast by television stations would have to meet government criteria for ‘localism’ – local news production and coverage – as well as a regulatory balance and diversity of viewpoints. A three-vote majority of five FCC commissioners at a central government agency would make local news judgments and override those of thousands of independent, local TV reporters and editors.”
Corydon Dunham, author, Government Control of News
A local board at each station would monitor programming, including news, and recommend against license renewal if the station did not comply with FCC policy; in 2011, the FCC-sponsored Future of Media Study recommended the localism doctrine proceeding be ended; and the present chief of the White House regulatory office recommended that the government regulate news to advance its political and social objectives, according to Dunham.
“The president, Congress and the FCC have also agreed to transfer the entire broadcast spectrum (currently used by TV stations) to the Internet over the next 10 years. If the localism doctrine is adopted, it could apply to the Internet and its participants as users of the FCC-controlled spectrum.”
Dunham is convinced that requiring journalists to comply with a central government agency’s policy on how to report the news will impede those journalists from being free and independent.
“As the Fairness Doctrine broadcast history shows, the threat of loss of license will deter station news coverage, particularly of controversy, and the public will lose news and information. If the broadcast press is not free and independent of government, it cannot act as a watchdog for the public, which is its constitutional role.”
The book is divided into seven chapters: Television Journalism Begins, Regulation of Television News Content Upheld by the Supreme Court, How FCC Regulations Suppressed News and Speech, Congressional Investigations and Censorship, Executive Branch Censorship, The FCC Revokes the Fairness Doctrine, and New Government Threats; and four appendices.
Click to buy Government Control of News
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Filed Under: Books
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 25, 2012
Many survey respondents said they examine the Nutrition Facts Panel in products when shopping
Photo: HispanicMPR
Any restaurant or company selling food or meals today must be aware of American’s changing tastes and opinions about healthy choices in order to adjust selections on offer and promotions.
Salt seems to be on consumers radar lately. More than half of consumers (52 percent) who responded to a Mintel survey indicated they were watching their diet. While 60 percent said they were doing so to loose weight 15 percent said they had concerns about “salt intake.”
While more than half, 51 percent, said they always or usually monitor fat content, 47 percent of respondent said they look at sugar levels, and 49 percent said they always or usually examine calorie counts when shopping; about 44 percent of respondents said they look at the Nutrition Facts Panel (NFP), and may also examine the ingredient list with special attention to salt levels before making a food purchase.
“The relatively high incidence of dieting in the US is one key factor driving demand for low-sodium products,” said Molly Maier, senior health and wellness analyst, Mintel. “Our findings indicate that fat and calorie counts are more likely than sodium to influence purchase. Thus, companies may be able to maximize the appeal of low-sodium foods by also showing, where appropriate, that they are low in fat and calories.”
Many respondents to the Mintel survey (62 percent) said they believe food makers are responsible for disclosing how much sodium is in their products, while only 35 percent said they thought the government is responsible for disclosing such information. Surprisingly, 18 percent said they thought such disclosures are the responsibility of retailers.
Although consumers seem to want to know what is in the food they buy those who responded to the survey didn’t seem to want someone else to decide what they should eat. Only 46 percent of respondents said manufacturers should adopt sodium restrictions, and fewer still, 34 percent, said the government should do so.
Instead, they said they were limiting their salt intake at home. More than half, 59 percent, of the survey takers said they always or usually limit salt consumption at home, and 44 percent said they always or usually do so when dining at a restaurant.
More women (80 percent) than men (67 percent) who took the survey said they limit the amount of salt they cook with at home. Mintel researchers concluded that retail promotional materials should often be directed at women.
Older adults who participated in the survey expressed more concern for sodium levels in the foods they eat: 33 percent of respondents 65 and older said they watch salt levels compared to 32 percent for respondents aged 55 to 64 and 22 percent of all respondents.
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 23, 2012
J. Clint Anderson, Ph.D., founder and president, J. Clint Anderson Company
Photo: J. Clint Anderson Company
A podcast interview with J. Clint Anderson, Ph.D., founder and president, J. Clint Anderson Company is available in the Podcast Section of Hispanic Marketing & Public Relations, HispanicMPR.com. During the podcast, Clint discusses ways to create positive team culture with Elena del Valle, host of the HispanicMPR.com podcast.
Clint has worked as a trainer, coach, and consultant with government, non-profit, and for-profit organizations. He developed and owns the Trimergent Leadership System which includes Leading Self, Leading Teams, and Leading Organizations. This leadership development process is based on a synthesis of organizational theories, different than traditional scientific management programs and which he believes yield superior results.
To listen to the interview, scroll down until you see “Podcast” on the right hand side, then select “HMPR J. Clint Anderson, Ph.D.” click on the play button below or download the MP3 file to your iPod or MP3 player to listen on the go, in your car or at home. To download it, click on the arrow of the recording you wish to copy and save it to disk. The podcast will remain listed in the April 2012 section of the podcast archive.
Posted by Elena del Valle on April 20, 2012
Giving 2.0 book cover
Giving can be challenging I discovered last year when searching for a home for a small grant. Potential recipients often balked when asked to share basic information about their organization’s mission and leadership. Those who were willing to respond to initial vetting queries required one year or longer before they were able to apply the monies and others still wanted to receive funding with no strings or almost no strings or reporting requirements attached. What is an individual wishing to donate to a good cause while ensuring the monies reach a responsible recipient matching the giving goals to do?
Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, author, Giving 2.0: Transform Your Giving and Our World (Wiley’s Jossey-Bass, $25.95) offers some answers in her book. As a young adult she was inspired to devote much of her time to philanthropy by her parents. Although she felt “frustrated and isolated” following the death of her mother at the beginning of her journey of giving she pressed forward to a solution by creating an organization to assist individual donors.
Eventually her efforts led her to write the book published October 2011. Her main goal in writing the book was to assist readers who already had decided to give on how to do so effectively. She defines giving as a donation of any amount of money, skills, networks, expertise or time. Anyone who gives anything is a philanthropist, she says in the book.
In the book, Arrillaga-Andreessen refers to a website related to the book in which she promises additional information about the issues she discusses in Giving 2.0 and updates on the topic. She identifies the sections of the book for which she has information on the website with a “Giving 2.0” icon. According to the information in the book, the author plans to donate all the royalties resulting from the sale of the book to philanthropic organizations.
The 312-page hardcover book is divided into nine chapters: Giving Yourself, Connecting the Drops, Charting A Course, Determining A Destination, Game Changers, Something Ventured, Changing Minds, Family Matters, and In the Trenches; and four appendices.
Arrillaga-Andreessen, president, Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation is a director of the Arrillaga Foundation and a board member of Sand Hill Foundation, Stanford University School of Education, SIEPR (Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research), Women’s Health at Stanford Medical Center, and an Advisory Council Member of the Global Philanthropy Forum, according to her biography. She is also a contributing author of Local Mission, Global Vision – Community Foundations in the 21st Century.
Click to buy Giving 2.0
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