Mintel in the Media – this week's highlights

This week started with some great coverage from the APAC region as our China’s Middle Class report news story went down an absolute storm. The news featured on Wall Street Journal (market watch) Business Review Australia, The Telegraph in India, Barron’s in the US. In Singapore, Yahoo! Finance focussed on the online Chinese middle class travel boom for Australia, the same story was featured in Just Style, Inside Retail, and WARC. While Australian Food News and Singapore Business News spoke about how the Chinese are flocking to Australia for luxury and leisure. The story was also featured in ??? in China. Over in Europe, the story was highlighted in Comunicati.net in Italy and Fashionunited in Germany.

Meanwhile, our drinking in the home report press release received fantastic coverage spanning the UK with over 1000 pieces of coverage, both nationally and globally. The story, which focussed on how few people are paying attention to ABV levels, featured in the Daily Mail which quoted Senior Food and Drink Analyst Alex Beckett ‘As a nation well-acquainted with booze, most adults have a vague idea of their drink’s strength. But hampered with tighter household budgets, people have cut back on drinking in the home, though it remains the more affordable alternative to drinking in a pub or bar.’ We also had great coverage in The Independent and the Metro, the Daily Express, Press Association and Evening Standard. Other coverage included the Daily Star and MSN News. The story quickly spread to India in Newstrack India, Top News in New Zealand and then Nigeria in Africanseer Portal – plus a huge variety of regional coverage including the Express & Star and Herald Scotland.

Last week’s research which Mintel released with L’Oreal proved extremely popular in the Daily Mail which published a beauty map of Britain, highlighting the skin care divide between London ladies and Yorkshire lasses. The research quoted our Head of Household and OTC Insight, Michelle Strutton, who spoke about how young professional women tended to worry most about their looks because they felt it was important to their careers. “It is about career progression and the need to look your best,’” she added. “By the time a family comes along women have other priorities. They tend to buy a few more products when their children leave home, but we find in retirement that drops right off a cliff.”

The weekend saw a fantastic exclusive in the Daily Telegraph which featured Mintel’s latest cinemas report, highlighting 3D films and how they are overpriced and over-hyped. Only a fifth of cinema-goers think that 3D films are worth the inflated ticket prices. Michael Oliver, Leisure Analyst at Mintel and the author of the report, said: “People who have been to 3D movies say that they like them technically but they don’t think they are particularly good value for money.” The story then went global featuring in the Australian Herald, Newstrack India and Pakistan Today.

Meanwhile, our latest camping and caravanning report was featured in The Observer in “Keeping your head above water” how to enjoy a very British style of camping. One in three people has now taken a camping or caravanning holiday in the last three years, up from one in five in 2009.

The week also saw our packaging expert Benjamin Punchard talking exclusively to Packaging News about how the packaging sector will respond to the changing population. Speaking to PN, Mintel Senior Global Packaging Analyst Benjamin Punchard said: “Packaging can provide solutions for people to be independent with less time and less space. It is not just families that are getting smaller but children are being born later.

Mintel’s pizza and pasta restaurant report hit the headlines this week as the Daily Mail spoke about how the battle is on for a slice of UK’s pizza pie. Helena Spicer, a Senior Food Service Analyst at Mintel, said: ‘Consolidation remains a key theme in this market as players continue to close underperforming stores while opening outlets in other areas. Pizza Hut has failed to keep pace with wider changes in the eating out market and is now arguably seen as outdated. The article featured a great interactive infographic – available here. Other brands continue to operate profitably within the same market position.’ The same story was featured in This is Money.

Meanwhile, our energy and sports drinks data was featured in The Guardian – phrases such as “stay ahead of thirst”, promotion of the “science of hydration” and advising sports enthusiasts to consume sports drinks before starting to exercise have helped create a global industry that forecasters Mintel estimated will be worth $1.6bn by 2016, they say. And The Sun highlighted our private label report data in “Battle of the Basics” where Chris Wisson, Senior Food analyst at Mintel, said: “Times have changed and there is no longer perceptions of own label equating to lower quality”.

In Ireland we had some great coverage in the Irish Times which featured last week’s digital camera press release. Over in Europe, in Greece Kathimerini featured Mintel’s yoghurt data while chocolate was the point of interest in Khaleej Times and in Russia ????????.com featured Benjamin Punchard talking about eco-friendly packaging. Meanwhile our sports drinks research was featured in Gulf Times in “Cold water on ‘benefits’ of sports products”.

In the US, we distributed a press release that covered our Attitudes Toward Healthy Foods report that quoted Category Manager for CPG food and drink, John N. Frank. Frank was quoted as saying that “consumers are aware more than ever of their own nutritional deficits and what poor eating habits can do in terms of long-term health.” The story was covered by several publications, including Restaurant Management, QSR Magazine, MediaPost Marketing Daily and Food Business News.

Additionally, our piece on the preferences of Hispanic beverage consumers (they are the largest consumers of beer) that included data from two of our proprietary multicultural reports got great media attention as well, appearing on Drug Store News, Hispanic Business and Grocery Headquarters.

Another great story saw Mintel data featured in CosmeticsDesign for an overview of 2012 anti-aging beauty trends, as well as an article in Drug Store News that discussed how the health profile of yogurt was cultivating sales in the category.

However, it seems that our insight into the beverage industry was the most sought after topic this week, as our analysts and expertise were highlighted in a slew of articles in various beverage-centric publications. Beverage World used our GNPD figures (13% of all new food and drink  products launched last year had an “all-natural” claim) to point out a return to natural ingredients in the food and drink market.  But that was just the beginning, as Beverage Industry featured both Mintel figures, and quotes from Senior Beverage Analyst Garima Goel Lal in six separate stories this week that profiled the drink mix category, beverages at restaurants, carbonated soft drinks, bottled water, energy drinks and RTD tea. Rounding out the beverage coverage, the Baltimore Business Journal used our coffee consumption data for a feature of a local coffee roaster and Convenience Store Decisions utilized our insight into the energy drinks industry.