Understand your customer

While WOM sites like Yelp.com continue to grow, their participants continue to be a very distinct subset of U.S. Internet users.

The audiences for the men's and women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments are decidedly different from one another. How do they stack up head-to-head?

Is online group buying a fad or a significant change in the way we buy online? Here are three things that you should know about this phenomenon.

Two storied franchises will collide in this year’s Super Bowl, the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sports fans from both markets are huge supporters of their football teams, but a look into their behavior and attitudes reveals passions beyond a one-dimensional Cheesehead or Towel Twirler. Considering the vast preferences, marketers recognize the need to define characteristics that truly distinguish their target audience, thus, this article delves further into the hearts and houses of Green Bay and Pittsburgh area residents.

Americans are still spending more time on Twitter.com than ever before. According to Experian Simmons estimates, Americans spent an estimated 2 hours and 12 minutes tweeting and reading tweets on Twitter.com in November 2010.

As we ring in the New Year this week, Americans will be tossing back a few adult beverages in celebration. While alcohol consumption certainly increases around holidays and other times of celebration, many Americans imbibe year-round. So where across this great land of ours are you most likely to find adults willing and able to raise a glass (or two) and where are you most likely to be surrounded by teetotalers? Experian Simmons has the answer. Leveraging data from our SimmonsLOCAL study, we examined the drinking patterns of adults of legal drinking age in the 106 Designated Market Areas (DMAs) with populations of at least 500,000 adults age 21 and older.  We then ranked those markets by the number of alcoholic beverages consumed by the average adult during a typical month. The chart below lists the DMAs that consume the most alcoholic beverages per capita in a typical month. First place goes to Boston, where the average adult of legal drinking age regularly kicks back 14.4 drinks a month. (Celebrations in Beantown are probably already underway.) Rank DMA Average drinks per month 1 Boston 14.4 2 Austin 13.8 3 Providence-New Bedford 13.4 4 Madison 13.2 4 Hartford & New Haven 13.2 6 Philadelphia 13.1 7 Chicago 13 8 Denver 12.9 9 Tallahassee-Thomasville 12.8 9 Milwaukee 12.8 11 Minneapolis-St. Paul 12.6 11 West Palm Beach-Ft. Pierce 12.6 11 Seattle-Tacoma 12.6 11 Tucson (Sierra Vista) 12.6 15 Green Bay-Appleton 12.5 16 San Diego 12.4 16 Baltimore 12.4 16 Washington, DC 12.4 16 Albany-Schenectady-Troy 12.4 20 New Orleans 12.3 20 St. Louis 12.3 20 Colorado Springs-Pueblo 12.3 23 Burlington-Plattsburgh 12.2 23 Syracuse 12.2 23 Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News 12.2 23 Spokane 12.2 23 Portland-Auburn 12.2 Source: Experian Simmons Adult residents of the markets listed below surely know how to have a good time-it's just unlikely to include a cocktail. The chart below lists the DMAs that consume the fewest alcoholic beverages per capita in a typical month. Residents of Chattanooga consume only 6 alcoholic beverages per month, on average, making it the least imbibing market-and probably the one that feels the best the morning after a big gathering. Rank DMA Average drinks per month 106 Chattanooga 6 105 Salt Lake City 7.2 105 Florence-Myrtle Beach 7.2 105 Charleston-Huntington 7.2 105 Tri-Cities, TN-VA 7.2 101 Knoxville 7.4 100 Lexington 7.9 99 Birmingham 8 98 Huntsville-Decatur 8.5 97 Nashville 8.9 97 Evansville 8.9 95 Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg-Mt Vernon 9.1 94 Springfield, MO 9.2 94 Tulsa 9.2 94 Greenville-New Bern-Washington 9.2 91 Memphis 9.3 90 Greenville-Spartanburg-Asheville-Anderson 9.4 90 Jackson, MS 9.4 90 Wichita-Hutchinson Plus 9.4 86 Little Rock-Pine Bluff 9.5 86 Louisville 9.5 86 Ft. Smith-Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers 9.5 83 Fresno-Visalia 9.6 82 Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem 9.7 82 Roanoke-Lynchburg 9.7 Source: Experian Simmons For more information on SimmonsLOCAL's vivid reporting of consumer behaviors, attitudes, lifestyles and media consumption in 209 Designated Market Areas down to the ZIP code level, visit our website.

Registered Republicans and Democrats have different TV program preferences. But a majority of highly rated Nielsen programs seem to clearly skew Republican. Which TV programs does each group prefer, and what are the common threads among the two groups?

Discount stores appear to be weathering the recession better than some of their full-price counterparts, as they carry first-quality designer merchandise at competitive prices.

For British Petroleum (BP), 2010 has been marked by the unfortunate developments resulting after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. Since then, BP’s crisis mismanagement and failed attempts to stop the oil spill have transformed this unfortunate event into an ecological disaster with political and financial consequences for the company. The oil leak has caused BP to lose a noticeable number of its American customers, namely their most loyal consumers. Experian Simmons DataStream shows that between April 26 and June 28, 2010 the percentage of American adults who report going to BP fell from 26.4% to 16.4%, a relative loss of 38% of their client base in just nine weeks. More astounding is the fact that BP’s most loyal consumers (those who said that BP is the gas or service station that they go to most often) declined a relative 56% during the same time. In fact, on June 28, 2010, only 9.5% of adults went to BP most often compared with 21.5% who were loyal to BP the week of the spill. With the flow of oil temporarily ceased and nearing a permanent solution, BP may finally be able to cap the flow of bad publicity and to reverse some of their loss in market share. Experian Simmons will continue to monitor this and other important consumer trends and share those findings here.