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Tag: Andy Wing

  • Ex Kagan COO Larry Gerbrandt joins Nielsen Entertainment

    Ex Kagan COO Larry Gerbrandt joins Nielsen Entertainment

    MUMBAI: Former Kagan COO Larry Gerbrandt has joined research firm Nielsen Entertainment in the US. Gerbrandt serves as Nielsen Entertainment senior VP and senior corporate Analyst. He reports to Nielsen Entertainment president and CEO Andy Wing.

    Gerbrandt will utilise Nielsen Entertainment’s Actionable Entertainment Intelligence (AEI) to produce strategy-minded analyses on many of the complex questions facing entertainment executives today.This cross-section of data comes from Nielsen’s consulting and measurement businesses as well as data from sister companies Nielsen Media Research and Monitor Plus.

    Among Gerbrandt’s first initiatives is the report called Benchmarking the Digital Household from Nielsen Entertainment. The report which has ben released explores a broad range of penetration benchmarks for how the American household uses media, entertainment, information technologies, and services.

    .Key trends observed from the analysis include

    The American household is awash in “screens”. From TV sets to cell phones to PDAs to PCs-even portable game and music players-the modern home is an open portal to outside entertainment and information providers. Some three-quarters have a PC and a third own two or more. More than half of all homes have three or more TV sets.

    A growing number of households are subscribing to both cable and satellite services-with the percentage almost doubling over the last few years.

    Around 80 per cent of US households subscribe to some combination of multi-channel programming service through cable, telco and satellite providers. At the 80 per cent mark the cable networks reach, at least from the perspective of advertisers, a national footprint that is functionally equivalent to that of the broadcast networks.

    Around 34.3 per cent of all households now have broadband access-and these homes are the foundation for the next generation of media and entertainment launches.

    Though video game-owning households represent only about a third of the US total, they are a fiercely technophilic segment, with some of the highest adoption rates of consumer electronics and services. These homes-with a disproportionate number of children 17 or younger-are the breeding ground for the heavy media consumers of tomorrow.

    Two key technology adoption inflection points were identified: a slow rate of growth until about 20 per cent penetration and a second rapid expansion to mass market adoption once the technology or service reached a 40 per cent
    penetration.

    Average movie attendance among the households surveyed has been falling over the last eight years but the greatest falloff has come in the heaviest movie-going segment-those that attend theaters more than once a month. The steepest declines have been in the DVD-owning homes and the broadband-enabled households.

    It has become a truism that digital technologies penetrate faster than their analogue counterparts, in part because global manufacturing and global adoption have allowed pricing to fall faster. DVD players, launched only eight years ago, are in 78.5 per cent of households. Cell phones are in 75.9 per cent and personal computers are in 74.2 per cent of homes-with virtually all of those connected to the Internet through a combination of dial-up, cable modems and DSL connections. The most important subsegment is the one comprised by cable modems and DSL, which offer high-speed access to the Internet and define the broadband universe.

  • Women now playing more games in US: Nielsen

    Women now playing more games in US: Nielsen

    MUMBAI: Girls just wanna have fun. So, they are picking up more gaming equipment in the US.

    This fact came to light in a Nielsen benchmark report on the gaming industry. This is the first installment of a bi-annual study and was released by Nielsen Entertainment’s Interactive Group.

    The benchmark report found that 39 per cent of gamers are female and that nearly 24 per cent of all gamers are over the age of 40. Nearly 40 per cent of US households own at least one of the following game systems for game play — PC, home console or handheld device. In terms of cross ownership, the study found that 23 per cent of gamers own all three types of gaming devices – PC, console and handheld.

    Women between the ages of 18 to 24 show relatively high entertainment expenditure and time availability. This suggests that there are opportunities for publishers to target this consumer. The use of video games for entertainment is directly related to overall leisure time availability. Younger gamers reported the most leisure time and are most likely to play games.

    The other key findings include:

    * Gamers are growing beyond the traditional 8-34 year-old male target

    * Women, Hispanics and African-Americans are an underserved and emerging market for interactive entertainment

    * For males, spending on games comes second only to DVDs and before CDs, MP3 and music purchases

    * Women and older adults are playing games in increasing numbers

    * Graphics dominate as a significant motivation for purchase of specific titles and next generation hardware

    * There is a strong connection between DVD and game consumption to be exploited in marketing and cross-promotion

    * While Caucasians report spending the most money per month on DVDs, African-Americans and Hispanics report spending more money per month on games and mobile services.

    The report has also explored consumer sentiment towards future next generation devices such as ‘Xbox 2/Xenon’ and the ‘PS3’ home consoles. The report found that at this time consumer response to next generation consoles is lukewarm and only minimally heightened by decreasing price.

    Active gamers who express some interest in purchasing one of the next generations consoles say that they are more likely to wait some time after release before purchasing the system. Also important is that among the current consoles, Xbox holds up slightly better than PS2 in retaining consumer loyalty.

    Nielsen Entertainment CEO Andy Wing said, “As interactive entertainment aims to take a more central place in the living room, we will continue to monitor consumer awareness and purchase interest of next-generation consoles, and more broadly, the ways in which all consumers are responding to competing forums for their leisure time.”

    The report is a first for the interactive entertainment space, a medium which has flourished among the young male demographic and has until today, been guided more by instinct and technology than empirical data. The second installment of the report will be released later this year.

    Nielsen further states that the reports will assist developers, marketers and interactive entertainment sales executives in strategy and planning decisions. The reports will provide the entertainment industry, more broadly, with a clear picture of video games today and their potential as a thriving entertainment medium in the not so distant future.