Mintel in the Media – this week's highlights

In the US press office, the week began with a pair of mentions in The Wall Street Journal. The first used our consumer green goods usage figures (a third of Americans are now willing to spend a bit more for green products) and the second referenced Mintel Comperemedia direct mail numbers for a piece about the resurgence of credit card offers.

Next up, Marcia Mogelonsky, director of food and drink insight, was quoted in two great pieces this week. She was interviewed by Convenience Store Decisions for their story about the gum industry where she stated that “people like to have gum and mints on hand, but they usually don’t go looking to find them,” and in The Chicago Tribune she commented on the premium chocolate market.

Meanwhile, Baking Business used stats from our latest In-Store Bakeries report for a comparison of the in-store bakery vs. the bread aisle while Forbes highlighted new product introduction data from our Global New Products Database for a story about the importance of fiber in the American diet.

Also of note, Lynn Dornblaser’s presence at BzzAgent’s Hypeworthies Awards was covered by MediaPost Marketing Daily and Mintel’s research that found that consumers now value local produce over the organic variety was used for a Washington Post article.

Closing out the week, the Associated Press interviewed John N. Frank for a story about the lunch meat category. It was picked up across the globe in several publications, including The Huffington Post and Bloomberg Businessweek. Additionally, USA Today highlighted our knowledge of the pet food market.

Over in the UK, it may have been a short working week but the news has been packed with the very latest Mintel facts and figures.

Finance has been high on the agenda, with two of our latest press releases gaining high profile coverage across the media. Starting with cheques, the Express ran a heartfelt piece on cheques and why we must keep cheque books. Toby Clark, Head of Financial Services at Mintel, said: “There’s a strong conservative streak among the British public, as confirmed by the outcry and subsequent climbdown when banks tried to withdraw support for chequebooks. The issue of payment fraud is absolutely central when it comes to convincing consumers to adopt new payment methods.” The same story was featured in Deadline News and The Epoque Times.

Onto our contactless payment release which proved extremely popular last week, this week the research was followed up Which and Marketing Week quoting Head of Financial Services Toby Clark, “Consumers are not going to be convinced to buy into new payment technology unless the industry can convince them that it is a genuine upgrade to what they’ve already got.”

Next up were our furry friends and the nation’s pampered pets. The Independent ran an amazing feature quoting Mintel’s Kiti Soininen, our Head of Food, Drink and Foodservice Research. In fact, the British devotion to animals is such that more than a third of owners claim they would cut back on spending on their own food before that of their pet. “Whether they actually would is questionable, but that just goes to show people do feel strongly about their pets’ food,” said Kiti. “About two-thirds say they treat their pet with as much care as they would a child, which shows pets are very much seen as a member of a family, and that level of emotional connection shows why people are reluctant to cut back.”

Also close to the nation’s heart is chocolate. The Telegraph featured our chocolate research with reference to a milk chocolate variety of Jaffa Cake “Milk chocolate far outstrips dark chocolate among British consumers, and last year market research firm Mintel recorded a new high of 83 per cent of people saying they ate the sweeter variety. Just 21 per cent said they liked the more bitter choice”. The same story was quoted in Mail on Sunday and on the BBC.

Our bikes research caught the attention of the press at the start of the week in The Telegraph which featured our very latest data in an article titled “Halfords back Flintoff and Dallaglio to boost pedal power.” According to research group Mintel the cycle market grow by 6 per cent a year between 2005 and 2010 – perhaps not surprisingly given that over 1 million people took up cycling in 2010 alone. The same story was featured in Yahoo! Finance.

Later in the week our bikes press release went on to hit the headlines in The Daily Mail in a feature titled “On yer bike! Cycle sales to hit record high (even though one in 20 still can’t ride one).” The article quoted Senior Analyst Michael Oliver who said: ‘With obesity rates rising among both adults and children, there is clearly a political and financial imperative to encouraging greater physical activity and cycling is a relatively inexpensive way of doing this.”

The same story was featured in the Scotsman and Herald Scotland and there was further coverage in AOL, Aberdeen Press and Journal and the cycling dedicated website Road.cc

Meanwhile, the fact that the young struggle to do something as simple as cook a bowl of pasta, was featured in The Sun in an article titled “Captain Crunch.” The popularity of vegetarianism in London was featured in the Evening Standard in an article titled “Veg and two veg: why Londoners are opting for vegetarianism”. According to market-research company Mintel, the “meat-free” foods (pre-packaged vegetarian meals) market has grown by nearly a third in the past five years. And our sandwich research was featured in The Guardian, in “In for the fill” where Mintel’s Helena Spicer was quoted as saying “Many consumers are stuck between low confidence reining in the likelihood of making adventurous choices and a growing semblance of recession fatigue.”

Other news stories featuring our research include UK Online shopping research in The Times (T2). It’s not the rain that’s keeping shoppers away from the high street, it’s bitchy sales staff. According to the market monitor Mintel, in the UK online clothing market has grown 147% since 2006. Our fashion research was also featured in the same supplement in an article titled “Fashion’s answer to Amazon, ” which quoted how one in three of us already buys their clothing online, according to retail analyst Mintel.

Still with retail, Richard Perks was interviewed on Channel 5 news and BBC Radio Wales discussing Clinton Cards. Richard was also quoted in Retail Week: “For the people who shop at Morrisons week-in-week out, they may have gone too far.”

Last, but certainly not least, our beauty research which was featured in Reuters quoting Mintel’s Global Skincare Analyst, Nica Lewis: “South Korea is setting the trends for men’s grooming,” said Nica Lewis, a retail analyst at Mintel International. “Asia looks to the Korean boy bands, who are handsome, with great hair and skin. Perfect teeth. Portraits of health and vitality.” The same story was featured in GMA News in the Philippines and 24 Hours Vancouver.

Finally in France, L’Observatoire des Cosmetiques featured our social media beauty research, while Cosmetique Hebdo featured our sun care data.