According to a study titled, “” conducted by RightNow Technologies, 85% of the US consumers are willing to pay a premium for a product if they get better experience. Some of them have said that they would pay as much as 25% extra for better service (10% respondents said so). 76% of American consumers can pay 5% premium for better experience, whereas, 55% are willing to pay 10% more for the service. (See image for the complete data).

In the same study, 55% of the respondents cited better customer service as the reason for buying from the company they buy now, and 40% said they have switched to competitive products because of the customer service they offer.

Better experience and better customer service are the things that stood out in the study. It appears that people of the United States, despite their struggle with the recent economic slowdown, are willing to pay more if a company promises a better experience and give better customer service.

In search business, Google, which is nobody’s guess, is a market leader in the United States. Google has 64.2% market share. At number two is yahoo with a 14.3% market share. Bing, despite its growth, is on number 3 with 13.6% market share. At number four and five slots are Ask.com and AOL search with 2.1% and 1.9% market share, respectively.

In terms of YoY growth, AOL search is the biggest loser. It has lost 38% market share. At number 2 is Yahoo Search which is slimmer by 17%. Google too shed some pound, but it is mere 1%. Two search companies to gain weight are Bing (51% YoY growth), and Ask.com Search (24% YoY growth). See image for detail.

As much as 58% Americans do not believe that the economy is going to improve in coming year — 33% thinks it will stay all the same, but 25% fears the worse has yet to come. 10% of the respondents said they are not sure of the state of the economic affair in the United States. And only 32% showed confidence in the recovery. (See picture)

If we alter the timeline a bit then the figure is even more disheartening. Almost 80% (combined) of Americans believe the economy will not improve in the next six months — 50% believe the economy will not change in the next 6 months, whereas, 29% fear the worse may happen.

It is on the administration and regulator to falsify the belief of more than 50% of Americans. They need to work hard to prove the skeptic wrong.

In which group I fall?

Well, I am an optimist.

Previous year, the four biggest wireless service providers in the United States — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile, and — Sprint have rolled out their Facebook fan pages. The data released by Compete suggests that many US consumers are using these fan pages to stay in touch with their preferred Wireless service provider.

Facebook fan page work as company profile page where companies publish details about themselves, and also use it to network with the users. These profiles are seeing increase in the usage, though in absolute term, time spent is not too high.

In February 2010, users have spent typically 95 seconds in each session on Sprint’s fan page, but ever since it is on the rise and same hold true for other major wireless carriers. Users are using these pages to keep themselves abreast with the recent development, and the growth trend suggests that people love to connect with their wireless carriers. See image for detail.

During the same period, non-Hispanic communities generated $40 billion inflation-adjusted spending. Hispanic spent 57.7% of food, beverage, and restaurant sale growth in the said period.

Impact of Hispanic community on US food

• The community has generated $9 billion worth of value in declining categories like fresh fruit juice, dairy products, and fish and seafood between 2005 and 2008.
• Hispanics also creates new value worth $5.9 billion in growing categories like vegetable juices, fruit drinks, frozen meals, and meats including ham, mutton, and pork. The community accounts for 20% of growth in this category.
• In the time when other communities are cutting expenses on eating out, Hispanics go out more frequently.

This is piece of good news for marketer targeting Hispanics. Not only foods, category like cosmetics is also growing fast. Teens have shown more interest in using personal care products.

In a study conducted by comScore MobiLens, it was found that 63.1% of the US mobile users aged 13 or more uses texting to communicate with their friends in December 2009. It was a 2.1% rise against the September 2009 data, where it was found that 61% 13+ mobile users in the United States use texting.

The second most used mobile feature was mobile browser, and on the third rung were mobile games. Music featured on 6th place below download apps and social networking. (See image for complete data)

The possible explanation to this could be their (male members) love for the gadgets or say everything that is electronic. And may be (here I am guessing), the men’s love for gadgets has put the other half of their life away from it. After all, it is the matter of attention: who is paying attention to what.

Research findings

• 56.3% of e-book are men, where as female constitutes the rest 43.7% of the readers.
• Adults aged between 35-54 are 20% more likely to buy an e-book readers.
• 87% of the e-book readers have annual household income of more than $100,000.
• 11% of the e-book reader are more likely to own their home in comparison to average US adult.
• 111% are more likely to have a graduate or post graduate degree than average American.

The study should also have concentrated on finding the following:

• How many e-book owners actually read books on the device?
• How many hours do they spend on reading anything on the reader?
• How does owning an e-book reader have affected their reading habit? Have they started to read more or got so intoxicated by the device that actual reading has gone down?

The result will then give the actual figure of e-book readership. The current study has just given a figure of how many people own an e-book reader.

The latest Integrated Newspaper Audience study by Scarborough Research has found that nearly three-fourth (74%) of American adults still read newspaper. Not only that, the readership of newspaper is found to be higher among educated and affluent class – indeed, this is not surprising, but despite all thee the revenue of newspaper is falling by 28% as revealed by the Newspaper Association of America in its recent data.

Findings of Scarborough Research

• 79% of adults with white-collar jobs read newspaper in print or online.
• 82% of adults that has household income of more than $100,000 read newspaper in print or online.
• 84% of people who have completed their graduation or have any advance degree reads newspaper in print or online.

According to the Newspaper Association of America total advertising revenue is down by 28% in the third quarter of 2009 in comparison to the revenue in the third quarter of 2008 (from $10.1 billion to $6.4 billion).

What does this mean?

This mean that despite users being confident about the content provided in the newspaper, advertisers are not playing ball. They are not investing. In my view there could be two reasons for that:

• Advertisers have started to believe that one who reads newspaper do not pay any particular attention to the ads inserted in it, or they are too forgetful to remember anything once they put the newspaper down.
• They have become cautious of greenery shown by Madison Avenue, as unlike the Internet, they have no way of knowing who is viewing what.

The newspaper industry needs to learn to provide measurable value, if it does not want to become extinct.