Mintel in the Media – this week's highlights

A fantastic week for Mintel, which ended with an amazing front page story in the Wall Street Journal featuring an extensive interview by Mintel’s Marcia Mogelonsky about beer candy and male and female candy consumption. Also high profile in the UK, our Senior Lifestyles Analyst Alexandra Richmond was on prime time BBC Breakfast TV, talking about consumer spending habits and the success of low cost luxuries such as pantomimes in the UK.

Britain’s obsession with video games was highlighted in a great exclusive which featured in the Mail on Sunday at the start of the week quoting our Technology Analyst Samuel Gee. Still with technology, Mintel’s Cecilia Liao, talked about the redesign of Twitter and how it appears to be making the service more user-friendly to people who aren’t already familiar with it in The Sun.

While our love of technology continues, the nation’s love affair with baking is clearly unstoppable. Indeed, this week, the Mail on Sunday talked about how the downturn has turned us into a nation of bakers. According to a Mintel report, more of us are baking than ever before. Young people from teens to early 20s — those who have grown up watching TV cookery shows — are leading the way, being six times more likely than any other age group to bake from scratch every day.

Our expert beauty knowledge continues to hit the headlines, senior analyst Vivienne Rudd was quoted in Bloomberg Business Week discussing the fortunes of the Body Shop. “The retailer evokes a sense of nostalgia among people who remember buying or receiving Christmas gift sets and many women started out by buying its hair care and fragrances. “But then there’s the perception that as they get older, they move onto other brands.”

Detox was a subject of great debate early on in the week in the Daily Mail where Mintel’s data was used to show how detox products were second only to cold and flu remedies for the number of healthcare product launches last year. Still with beauty, Mintel’s GNPD’s cosmetic packaging research was featured in Cosmetic Design while our beauty research also hit the headlines in El Pais in Spain.

Mid week, our retail team quickly responded to The Mary Portas report and Mintel’s Richard Perks was interviewed live on Sky News, gave his response to the view that the UK’s high street has reached a crisis point. Richard perks was quoted as saying “There is an element of hyperbole there. Look at the success of the new Westfield Centre out in Stratford which is basically a new purpose-built high street.” Richard was also called upon to comment on Christmas spend in the high street on Reuters – watch out for Richard at 0.35.

In the trade, our social networking research continues to hit the headlines, this time in SCL which talks about how only 5% of children claim ‘never’ to use social networking sites. While Marketing Week featured our very latest meat free research – quoting Kiti Soininen extensively.

In the rest of Europe, our confectionery press release continues to create interest Confectionery News while Foodmanufacture talks about how UK chocolate sales are bucking the European confectionery trend. The story also reached Foodmonitor in Russia and Australian FoodNews which quoted Mintel’s Director of Innovation and Insight ,David Jago who said that “prolonged economic uncertainty has affected consumer confidence, and now people have started cutting down on non-essentials items, affecting a market that was supposed to be recession proof. Other factors hampering sales include a plethora of other snacking products, healthy eating trends, and an ageing population.”

The week started off on a high note in the US press office with some great mentions for Mintel Comperemedia. Susan Wolfe, VP of financial services, was interviewed by PaymentsSource and asked to comment on last week’s press release about consumer irritation with debit card fees. Additionally, Business Insider used our consumer data from that press release for a story that pointed out five sneaky fees your bank may be charging you, while Forbes referenced Comperemedia’s direct mail numbers in a short piece detailing recent developments in the credit card industry.

Other great coverage included a story in the New York Times that used our insight into the chocolate market for a profile of an Italian chocolatier that’s reviving its campaign in the US, as well as a NY Daily News article that quoted global drinks analyst, Sarah Theodore. Theodore was asked to comment on the popularity of kombucha in the mainstream beverage market.

In holiday news, several other publications reported stats from our 25 Stocking Stuffers press release, including Gourmet News,Beauty Store Business and Candy & Snack Today. Meanwhile, stats from our pet reports were included in two articles–one in the Community Impact Newspaper for a piece about an upscale dog bakery and the other in Pet Age Magazine where they covered our America’s Pet Owners press release from earlier this year.

Also of note, About.com highlighted our intelligence for a story that discussed fast foods restaurants blurring the line between what constitutes a meal or a snack and Beverage Industry reprinted a comment made by Lynn Dornblaser about the growth in vitamin-fortified products during a webinar she presented last month on CPG trends–the first of two articles that included Mintel data this week in that particular publication. The seconddiscussed an increase in consumers drinking more coffee at home this year compared to 2010.

Closing out the week,The Packer quoted from out Ethnic Foods report for a piece that discussed the expansion of ethnic, organic fresh produce markets in Chicago and Drug Store News used our data to illustrate which ingredients appeal to ethnic personal care shoppers. We were also referenced in a CSP Magazine article about private-label OTC products and The South Florida Times highlighted our insight into the black haircare market.